Now in his third year a local farmer’s different approach to vegetable production is going strong.
At first some expereinced farmers were less than receptive to Mike Kozlowski’s idea, as evidenced during his visits to national farmers union meetings. But after three years they are starting to listen.
The Red Deer native operates a small vegetable growing operation south of the city. But he does it without a tractor, instead weeding and farming operations are done by hand and he employs natural methods to grow crops.
“There have been so many challenges and road blocks and things you have to problem solve,” said Kozlowski.
One of the biggest challenges for Steel Pony Farm has been finding stable and secure land. Over three years they have had three different landlords.
“It’s not like typical farming,” said Kozlowski. “Typical ones are rented out for $70 or $80 an acre and they rent 1,000 acres at a time or something like that and they just drive their tractor through to seed it, drive their tractor through to spray it and drive their tractor through to harvest it.
“We’re out here every day all day and we have people, friends and employees coming out. It’s a different type of traffic on the land.”
One of the biggest time consumers this spring was building new greenhouses. There are three of them on the six acre piece of land they rented, of which three are in use for agriculture production.
This means everything is a little later than they would have liked this year, but Kozlowski believes everything will work out through the growing year.
The farm is growing about 50 different types of vegetables, but more than 200 varieties of the vegetables.
“Like tomatoes we have Manitoba tomatoes, sasha tomatoes and another three or four types of tomatoes,” said Kozlowski.
He grew up in Red Deer, but became interested in farming one summer when he was in Kenya.
“I was having a meal with a family and they asked me to describe my farm,” said Kozlowski. “That’s the only life they know is life on a farm, and I don’t have a farm.”
The family asked him where he gets his food, he responded by saying a grocery store. The family then asked about the grocery store’s farm.
“I went back to the shack I was staying in that night and I realized I have no idea where any of the food I’ve ever eaten comes from,” said Kozlowski. “It was an eye opening experience.”
A year prior to starting Steel Pony Farms Kozlowski did a Steel Pony bike tour where he went to various farms in Alberta and looked at how they operated.
Instead of selling their produce at the Wednesday downtown Farmer’s Market in Red Deer as they did when the farm first started now they sell in food baskets. The food baskets are delivered weekly from July to mid-December and contain a variety of vegetables.
“It is a predictable and stable funding avenue,” said Kozlowski. “It works out a lot better to have people who commit to the season.” During the winter months Kozlowski finds other work, but still puts in about 80 hours of preparation work for the coming growing season.
He doesn’t use chemicals and all weeding is done by hand.
“What I really want to do is create vegetables that are truly nourishing to people,” said Kozlowski. “When you can build up the complexity of the soil and get the right amount of micro and macro nutrients and the balance in there. You get food that is truly nourishing.
“That’s what gets me excited about this.”
mcrawford@www.reddeeradvocate.com