Sammy De

Barre, Massachusetts

Sammy De in Barre, Massachusetts, Summer 2009

 This year started off pretty well, who would have thought we would get 40 days and 40 nights of rain and then some. Things are still doing rather well considering all this rainfall. The garlic harvest was fantastic as were the beans and potatoes.Finally getting some red tomatoes and the peppers that are covered by the larger green house are wonderful.

Sammy De - May 26

Getting a great start. I don't know if anybody has ever seen an onion plant
this big! This year I'm trying Summa and Sea Agri , I'm sure the results
will speak for themselves. Here's a taste of what's to come. The
strawberries are huge the ruhbarb has a mind of it's own.  And how about that
garlic. WOW!

Sammy De - Aug 9

I met Joanna Campe at the NOFA Conference 2008. I use Azomite in my garden along with my compost and have no need for fertilizers.

Sammy De - Aug 11

After producing well over 100 cucumbers, they are still producing these. This picture is asparagus, carrots, gourd and onions. All of which are totally disease free and insect free and absolutely chemical free.

Sammy De - Aug 12

I can't really put into words how happy I am about the production of my garden. I recently decided that if the rock dust is that good at producing a garden like this why not try it on my front lawn, well in one day there was a difference - the lawn is lush and a beautiful green. I had some rhubarb that for three years produced a good crop and this year wasn't doing so good...again, why not try Azomite? The very next day it showed signs of real health. I would like to thank Julie Rawson for suggesting I try remineralization, and I think my neighbors feel the same.

Sammy De - Aug 14

This dill is from July, it was at least 7 ft tall and had some very interesting visitors. I think this is a Swallow tail caterpillar. The before and afters are amazing.

Sammy De - Aug 18
Sammy here. Things are great especially in the garden. I've decided to become a member of RTE. I'm very excited about this. I listened to you, Dan and Don on your radio interview in North Carolina yesterday (press button in upper right-hand corner of RTE homepage to listen to the interview). I'm starting a community garden and was wondering if RTE has any advice on how to go about this.

Sammy De - Aug 18

I tried an experiment with the minerals, I used a spreader to scatter some minerals in about a 5' X 50' area about 5 or 6 weeks ago. Yesterday I was taking down the hyper wing in my yard and all along the area that I put down the minerals were worm castings, pretty cool huh.

Sammy De - Oct 29

I have found sources of free organic matter right here in Barre, MA. All of these free for the taking horse, cow, and chicken manure. I also have a source of free sawdust. So with each application of organic matter, I apply either summa or azomite. I've also expanded my garden. I now have 20 raised beds. This May I am going to have workshops in my yard with people from the University of Massachusetts (thanks to one of their students) and I will emphasize the importance on the use of rock dust. I also wanted to know if maybe you would need me to volunteer for something. Well, my garden this year was by far the best I've ever had and I know it's only going to get better thanks to the amendments and to the wonderful volcanic ash and rock dust I have applied.

Sammy De - Nov 9

We've already had 4 hard (killing) frosts and there is still plenty to be had in the garden. The rutabaga and carrots pictured here - parsnips, cabbage, celeriac, and a few stray potatoes. All of these veggies are fantastic after a hard frost.

Peggy Day

Mystic, Connecticut

My husband John and I couldn't be happier with our brand-new garden this year! It's not very big, but it supplies all the produce that we can possibly use. The vegetables are amazing and we give away basketfuls each week. This spring when we were just starting to dig up the soil, Dan Kittredge and Roshni Prabakar told us about using various rock dusts and humate. We are absolutely delighted with our incredibly big and tasty 17" cucumbers (10 to 12 of them each week, 3 inches in diameter), 2 1/2-inch diameter "cherry" tomatoes (no one told them they were supposed to be small! lol ), 2 1/2-inch diameter carrots, and 5" diameter broccoli florettes. And no diseases or infestations the entire season - at least none that we know of! It's been quite a summer, and we are so very grateful to know about remineralizing!  

Judy Roylance

An Apple Tree Story

Once upon a time, on a farm not too far away and not very long ago, there were five very old apple trees.  Sadly, they had no apples.  They had not had any apples for many years; no one knows how many.  One tree was very tall; one was very wide; three were dwarfs.  The first dwarf tree stood next to a forsythia bush which was too tired to put out any yellow flowers in April.  The second dwarf tree would have had a lovely shape if it had had anyone to prune the suckering branches.  The third dwarf tree stood near the hayfield and was very unhappy indeed.

One winter day in late February an upright, two legged animal came into the orchard with a ladder, some pruning shears and a wheelbarrow full of granular, gray stuff with a label that said “Planters II, trace mineral fertilizer.  Over the next few days these five trees were delighted to feel the wind and sun move more easily through their branches.  The suckers were removed as were the twisted branches, the crossed branched and any that seriously impeded the sun and wind.  Later that spring some smelly, brown stuff that could have only come from the back end of a cow was spread on the grass under these five trees.

That spring all the trees had flowers, some a few and some very many.  In the fall each tree had a few apples!  There were not very many and they were ill-shaped and spotted, but they were eagerly eaten by the deer and that two legged animal.  As the years passed the routine continued, pruning, Planters II and cow manure, even on the forsythia.  In time each tree recovered, both its beautiful shape and its ability to provide beautiful, tasty apples!

Bill Neu

Six years ago, 2001, I started gardening for the sake of improving my ailing health. I was determined to garden organically for the sake of food purity. Setting out with little knowledge and almost zero experience I had two very disappointing years of only fair yield and relentless insect attack.

Disillusioned, I then read up on some organic pest control approaches. Armed with a little non-toxic ammo I achieved less damaged produce. However it cost extra money and time and did not improve yield.

The non-toxic pest repelling was painful gain, but was soon to be a thing of the past; thanks in part to the example of an organic agricultural institute some miles drive away. I learned there was a way to bring beautiful organic produce to the table without the labor intensity I found inherent in my home brewed red pepper and garlic concoctions.

About that time I had come across online an eco-agriculture organization called Acres USA (www.acresusa.com). The information rapidly turned my mediocre gardening experience into an incredible joy. Within two years I had reduced insect pressure to nearly nothing and wonderfully increased yield, and of course the lack of bug induced markings made for eye appeal.

What I had learned from the Acres USA organization is that highly successful organic farmers claim that healthy plants do not invite insect attack. This was a foreign concept to me; I had never heard such a thing. I had assumed that if insects were around they needed something to eat and by nature were compelled to destroy my garden investment.

Implementing cover crop, good compost and using a natural approach to fertilization was the ticket to success. I now am a believer that healthy plants do not invite destructive insects.

For a fertilization program in addition to cover crop and compost I use a rock dust called AZOMITE. When the plants have good-sized foliage I also apply a seaweed based foliar spray. The results bring smiles and bounty.

The eco-minded experts say well fed soil life benefiting from the compost and the turned under cover crop break down inorganic minerals (rock fines) and make these nutrient sources available for absorption by the plant. As an added benefit of incorporating organic matter, the soil life - earthworms down to the microscopic bacteria - will produce a well aerated and porous soil structure that will greatly enhance air and water holding capacity and thus increase drought resistance and aid in preventing soil erosion.

It is worthy to note that plants that are healthy enough to escape insect attack are at the same time better for us because of the increased mineral content. And probably without exception the produce will be more pleasing to the palette.

Invest in a refractometer to see for yourself the produce quality that is found in the grocery produce aisle versus that of properly homegrown organic produce. The results are telling; you will no longer wonder why America is an increasingly ailing nation.

Dan Kittredge

Spencer Brook Farm, Concord, MA
10/23/07

Tomatoes in full bloom and lush growth going through third flowering/fruiting cycle in MA. growing on soil that was last year not much more than low pH sand and gravel. A mix of rock powders was used to bring the plants to this state. Locally available granite schist, highly paramagnetic blacksand, high trace element spectrum summa minerals as well as high calcium lime and colloidal soft rock phosphate. None of the traditional fungus or wilt diseases struck or hornworms as can be easily seen by the lush growth and numerous fruiting cycles. Tomatoes grown on nearby soil were struck down by black wilt by mid August.

Julie Rawson

Founder and Manager, Many Hands Organic Farm CSA, Barre, Massachusetts
Executive Director, Northeast Farming Association (NOFA)

After success with some small scale testing with Ashfield Stone last year, we applied Suma Minerals this year (2007).

I have had over the top harvests of sugar snap peas. Last week we harvested over 200 pounds of peas from about 420 row feet of plants that rose to 8 or 9 feet in height. The leaves on things like chard, beets, flat leaf parsley are stronger and more turgid than I have known them to be. There are many fewer old and ratty looking beet leaves than in the past. The cut flowers have more brightness to their hues than in the past. The petunias in the flower boxes are magnificent. Three days in a row when I woke up this week I woke up with a new sense of physical power that I have never felt before. I figure it is from eating the vegetables that we are growing here. Good stuff!

Click to enlarge images

Our Experience	Flavor	Vibrant Color
No Sloughing off of Leaves	Infestations Way Down	Turgidity and Waxiness
Abundant Harvest	Leaf and Plant	Soil Texture

Update from Many Hands Organic Farm CSA Newsletter, October 8-12, 2007: "This year fertility is the name of the game. I was proud to take the call on Friday from Rob at Living Earth when he raved about our produce being the best that comes through their store longest lasting, best tasting, best looking. I need to publicly thank son Dan for turning me on to volcanic mineral dust (we used a metric ton of it this year). It has jumped our production quality several fold this year...Things will only get better!"

Update from Julie Rawson, November 6, 2007:

• The pea crop was outstanding and the level of production-I'd say we got twice as many peas as last year from the same amount of space.
• The beets and carrots seemed to be outstanding throughout the whole season with extremely sweet flavor. The beets' flavor surpassed anything that I can remember.
• The summer squash kept producing until the end of October and was of high quality (or course there were several successions).
• The brassicas went without blemish for the first several months and when we did get cabbage looper the damage was extremely minimal. We are still harvesting high quality cabbage, collards, and kale on November 6.
• This was by far the best black raspberry year I have seen in 20 years.
• The fall red raspberries were of extremely high quality also.
• Peaches were prolific and of very high quality.
• Onions and leeks were of some of the best quality I have seen.
• Winter squash plants were very healthy and the harvest was abundant.

Rob White, the produce manager of Living Earth, raved at least once a week about the quality of the bunched greens, beets, carrots, and summer squash. He told me that there was no other produce that he was able to purchase that came anywhere near the quality of ours. He also said that ours lasted in his walk-in in a way that no other produce lasted. He was particularly amazed by the quality of the late summer squashes.

I have also noticed a real change in the soil quality all over the farm. The texture is superb. We have had to use a shovel for carrots for the last month and a half because the carrots were as long a foot.

We used a total of approximately 2,700 lbs of Summa Minerals this year on 2+ acres of intense vegetables and with about 3 lbs around our 100 fruit trees.

Melons in Orange House	Real nice up close shot...	Black Raspberries in the Annex
Healthy Brassicas in the West Field	Melon Carpeting

Clay Olson

Northern California

Further "proof" of the value of rock dust. I have used no other amendments -- if you need it spelt out: no manure, no chemical NPK fertilizers; no fish soup; no compost -- other than rock dust 5 years or more ago, two, 50lb bags costing about $15 each.

The red oats behind me are usually found, when traversing the hills and dales of Northern California, to be almost always about no more than knee-high, yet behind me, and I stand at just under 6'1" (unless I've shrunk), are red oats over 6' tall, five years after applying the rock dust! In other words, the rock-dust is still working 5 years later! Tell a friend.

P.S. My favas were 6' tall too (you can see some fava stalks to the left of me). Ever seen 6' tall favas? For more info, go to www.remineralize.org.