HappyDay Farms DEM Pure Certification Application & HappyDay Farming Practices

HappyDay Farms a micro-scale, multigenerational operation consisting of three gardens that total about an acre in production, mostly vegetables. We run a small CSA and participate in two farmers markets during the growing season. Our production is about 80% vegetables and 20% cannabis. We grow about 80% of the food we feed ourselves. We are proponents of local food security, and strive to provide vegetables to our community. We are diversified farmers, rotating our production and crops to maximize soil-building activities through extensive cover-cropping

We intercrop medical cannabis and vegetables in the same row. After bed-prep in spring, we plant vegetables into the empty cannabis rows, leaving spaces where the cannabis plants will go when we are able to locate the females. We try to get at least two crops plus a cover crop out of all of our beds each year, although sometimes we get more than that with the help of season extending low tunnels.

Land Stewardship
We are off-grid, running on solar power. All of our agricultural water is drawn from a rainwater catchment pond. Our water systems are driven by solar-powered pumps. We have been no-till for 5 years, and are moving towards a system of flail-mowing/power-harrowing cover crops into top two inches of the soil horizon tilth. We believe that this will result in less soil disruption than the forking we used to do, will build compost right on the beds, will reduce our need to buy mulch, and will save our backs. We believe in keeping soil covered as much as possible with mulch, crops, or cover-crops to prevent erosion and to increase microbial life.

Fertility Program
We rely on extensive planting of cover crops, compost that we make ourselves and also purchased from a local organic goat dairy, granulated kelp, calcium-phosphate and compost made from rabbit bedding/manure/urine. We brew compost teas for soil and plant health support. We have been working towards making more fermented plant juice teas and are expecting to continue to increase their addition to our fertility program. We grow alfalfa and comfrey throughout the garden which we use for forage and mulch. We are planning to make more fermented plant juice using these ingredients, along with horsetail and nettle that we wildcraft locally. Horsetail grows on our parcel and nettle comes from coastal areas near us. We have a box buried to collect IMO from the forest and will be using as an ingredient in our compost teas.

We keep rabbits for their manure/urine and for meat, 90% of their diet is made up of greens from the farm. We seasonally raise pastured chickens for meat and layers for eggs, and occasionally keep pigs for meat. We rotate our coop and chicken tractors to create periodic disturbance, building pasture soil and converting the plant species composition from low-nutrient annuals like wild oats to nutrient dense perennials like clover, alfalfa and providing opportunity for native perennial grasses to re-colonize areas that have been overtaken by shallow-rooted annuals.

Our IPM focuses on plant rotation and maximizing plant health. We cull infested or diseased plants, removing them from the garden. We intercrop and maintain a polyculture of spaces for flowering and native plants that attract beneficial organisms. We strive to maintain habitat and nectar flows for bees and other creatures year round.

Community
We donate produce to local events and benefits, and provide medicine at no cost to compassion programs. Over the last 4 years Casey has spent countless hours on local and state cannabis policy to try to help create sensible regulation for small cannabis farms. We have also helped to develop the Emerald Grown Cooperative, to help foster compliant small cannabis farms in our county and beyond.

Closed Loops

• We store 100% rainwater needed for our agricultural water needs.
• Solar powered homes and water systems.
• Save seeds of cannabis and many food and herb varieties
• We grow at least 80% of the food eat, and are able to trade in the community for milk and beef.
• Make compost and worm castings from garden vegetation and small animals (rabbits & chickens)
• We grow alfalfa on our terrace slopes to prevent erosion, we also harvest it for mulch and animal forage.
• We cover crop heavily and use some as forage for animals and turn the rest into compost right on top of the bed.
• We donate produce to local benefits and cannabis to free compassion programs.
• We’ve been working hard to build pasture in our brittle overgrazed environment and have done a good job at increasing the species composition and the length of green in our pastures over the years through rotational grazing.
• We volunteer considerable time to local and state policy and to small farm cooperative support systems.
• Our gardens are a polyculture of diversity providing bee nectar forage year round.
• Composting humanure outhouses.

Inputs

• Compost made on farm and purchased from organic goat dairy, use in bed prep and topdress, compost teas.
• Calcium-phosphate. Mined powered, use once a year in spring prep
• Granulated Kelp, use once a year in spring prep.
• Nutri-Rich Chicken Pellets, OMRI certified from Sonoma county, use as top dress for veggies, and once a year in cannabis spring prep.
• Liquid Kelp CDFA certified, use in veggie starts and compost teas.
• Homemade compost teas, using hydrolyzed fish, native leaf mold (Imo) organic molasses (only in flowering stage)
• Fish Hydrolysate CDFA cert., use in compost teas.
• Mykos mycorrhizae CDFA certified, we use this when transplanting out.
• Dr. Zymes CDFA cert, citrus enzyme made in laytonville. Use only as needed. We intend to use our homemade citrus enzyme in the future

Currently making

• Water soluble calcium from our chicken eggs and local cider vinegar.
• IMO1
• Citrus enzymes
• Plan to make
• Canna FPJ with culled males this spring
• Comfrey FPJ
• Horsetail tea