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Lonesome Whistle Farm Tour

July 29, 2012

By Dan Armstrong

Lonesome Whistle Farm, Santa Clara, July 29, 2012: Lonesome Whistle Farm is owned and operated by Jeff Broadie and Kasey White. Jeff and Kasey are in their mid-thirties and have been farming since they graduated from Colorado State University in 2003. Up until spring of last year, they were leasing six acres of farmland on River Loop One in Eugene where they'd been for several years growing heirloom beans and experimenting with grains. That was the first incarnation of Lonesome Whistle Farm. In April of 2011, they purchased the old Harwood Farm out River Road. This 44-acre farm is now the new Lonesome Whistle Farm.

The farm was in need of quite a lot of work when Jeff and Kasey first moved on the site, and the first growing season was hardly more than feeling out the lay of the land. Now into a second growing season, though still a work in progress, it's clear they are building the necessary foundation for a sustainable whole system farm model.

The forty-acre size of Lonesome Whistle Farm means it's large enough for mechanized grain production which allows for a legume, wheat/rye/oats, corn, buckwheat, cover crop rotation capable of building the soil with minimum inputs. They have a few chickens now but plan to add more livestock so that they can generate a larger portion of their nitrogen on-farm. In two more years, the farm will be certified organic.

Jeff and Kasey do three farmers market each week and maintain a bean and grain CSA with approximately 50-75 subscribers. They also package and sell seed and Kasey makes fabulous jewelry out of the wide variety of heirloom beans they have grown. She sells that jewelry at farmers market and other outlets in Eugene.

Open Oak Farm
Welcome to the Farm

Sunday July 29 began with a cool morning and the extended cloud cover that the valley has been seeing off and on all summer. The clouds lingered well into the afternoon and began to open up about three o'clock. By the time the Lonesome Whistle Farm tour began at four, the sun was fully out and it had become an absolutely perfect day to visit a farm.

The tour-goers gathered slowly at Lonesome Whistle's recently rebuild red barn and dropped off their contributions to the potluck dinner. There were two walking tours of the property. The first began at four-thirty when well more than half of the sixty visitors had arrived. Jeff and Kasey led a group of forty people in a two-mile loop around the farm, pausing at each field and taking turns describing the variety of beans or grains that stretched out before the visitors.

Beetle Bank Stalford Farm Water Tower

The tour started at a 2-acre field of purple hulless barley just north of the barn. The tour proceeded to a 2-acre field of abenaki flint corn (used for polenta) and on to 2 acres of naked oats, two acres of winter planted dark northern rye, 2 acres of winter planted soft white wheat, 7 acres of Dakota black popcorn, 2 acres of emmer, 2 acres of red fife wheat, and two acres of buckwheat. Added to this mix of grains were eleven varieties of heirloom beans–1 acre of Indian woman yellow beans, a quarter acre of trail of tears black beans, a quarter acre of Koronis purple beans, one acre of Vermont cranberry beans, a quarter acre of king early beans, one acre of calypso beans, one acre of Dutch bullet beans, one acre of rio zape beans, a quarter acre of arikara beans, a quarter acre of whipple beans, and a quarter acre of turkey craw beans. Jeff and Kasey are also growing a quarter acre of tomatoes grown without water.

Throughout the tour, Jeff or Kasey would describe why they were growing each crop, how it fit into their CSA, and what troubles or successes they had with each crop. During the tour, the group stopped at the farm's sixties vintage John Deere 55 combine. It was something Jeff and Kasey obtained second-hand and had learned to operate on a trial and error basis–not without a few surprises–like the belt blowing up into a hundred pieces.

When the first tour group returned, the string band Skinner City played old timey music while the visitors dove into the potluck dinner. Shortly thereafter, the second walking tour began. Later on that evening, tour-goers were shown the documentary "Greenhorns."

Beetle Bank Open Oak Farm Greenhouse

One topic that came up several times during the tour and among the visitors, of which several were local farmers, was dry farming. A central premise of the Bean and Grain Project has been to find crops that need little or no irrigation. While many of the crops can benefit from irrigation, the grains–oats, rye, barley, buckwheat, and wheat–can be grown without water. While every location in the valley is its own story, Lonesome Whistle's grains are grown without irrigation.

The discussion becomes a little more complex when it comes to the dry beans. Several farms have had success growing a variety of beans without irrigation. Sunbow Farm and Greenfield Farm provide the best examples. Al Dong, perhaps the most experienced of the dry bean growers in the south valley, does water his beans.

Experimentation with crops by farmers can be especially difficult if the farmer depends on that crop for income, and that's certainly the case at Lonesome Whistle Farm. Jeff, who's been growing the beans on an increasing larger scale for most of nine years, told the tour guests that he was still experimenting with his watering practices. This year he'd hoped that he wouldn't have to water his beans at all, but because he didn't get his beans in as early as he'd planned, he became concerned about the late development of some of his bean varieties. As July heated up, he did water some of the plots, but some varieties, where the plot was on lower land, he did not. One thing Jeff noticed was that the watering stimulated weed growth, meaning there was a clear trade-off between the added growth produced by watering and more weeds, or not watering and having less additional growth and less weeds.

Though having a bean that needs no water is a great advantage, and there is a philosophy that says the dry farmed bean is a better bean that will store longer, educated watering at particular intervals in the bean plant's development can produce more and plumper beans. Probably the most important decision in this process is when the last watering should occur.

The length of the bean plant's life–110 days, 100 days, 85 days, depending on variety–is critical when growing in the Willamette Valley. With the valley's increasing predictable cool wet springs and short dry summers, most bean varieties need to be in the ground by May 15 and harvested by September 1 or certainly, depending on the weather, no later than September 10 when dew, if not rain, becomes a problem. Watering late in the life of a bean plant can increase bean yield and size, but it also extends the plant's life. That means, if three weeks, again depending on the weather, are needed for the plant to dry in the field, it's important to stop watering by the end of the first week of August or sooner.

This farm tour was sponsored and organized by the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition.

Go to Stalford Seed Farms Tour.

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As always, feedback to this webpage is welcome. If you attended either of the tours, feel free to offer corrections or additions. In the end, the Bean and Grain Project meetings, farm tours, and these articles are meant as forums about growing beans, grains, and edible seeds in the Willamette Valley. Discussion and the sharing of ideas are themes central to the project. Click to email.

Special thanks is extended to The Willamette Farm and Food Coalition and The Ten Rivers Food Web, Hummingbird Wholesale and the Evergreen Hill Fund of Oregon Community Foundation for their continued support of the Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project.

Prairie Fire

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