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It's just their Nature Area couple grow business on Washington County's only certified organic vegetable farm
BURGETTSTOWN - Call it kismet.
Evan and Jodi Verbanic had no agricultural experience when they started Cherry Valley Organics seven seasons ago, only a passion for plants and the environment.
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Today, they are operating the only certified organic vegetable farm in Washington County, and organic agriculture continues to be the bedrock of their business plan.
"That emphasis on being certified organic is something that has helped to brand us and distinguish us as growers," Evan said. "It's not that we're local, or it's not that were sustainable. It's that we're certified organic, and we're able to yield a high-quality product and a wide diversity of product."
Despite the rigors of certification, the Verbanics have embraced the National Organic Standards, implemented in 2002 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"It's definitely helped our marketing," Jodi said. "If you're certified organic, the customer knows someone is looking over your shoulder."
Evan and Jodi met in graduate school, where both studied environmental science and management, and also learned they shared a keen interest in organic production. Both gave up full-time day jobs last year to devote their energy to growing the farm.
Jodi has a strong background in horticulture and is considered Cherry Valley's "front-end operations person." She oversees farm operations and two full-time and one part-time grower, all of whom bring varied experience to the business: One has a bachelor's degree in agricultural ecology, another in environmental studies, and the third is finishing a horticulture degree program.
Evan, who worked in environmental consulting before jumping the fence to the nonprofit Sustainable Pittsburgh, handles business development and the "back end" of the farm operation. He does everything from working three area farmers' markets - including the Thursday venue in downtown Washington - to making deliveries and filling orders placed through the farm's subscription program, which constitutes a significant portion of their client base, now at 260 subscribers.
Jodi joked that Evan is the "farmer's husband," as opposed to the stereotypical farmer's wife.
"Those respective roles suit us nicely," Evan added.
The business has its roots in the suburban Allegheny County community of Crafton, where the Verbanics operated a small greenhouse in their back yard and modified some existing eclectic planting beds for growing. There, they dabbled in some of the same organic farming techniques they are using today: intensive plantings, composting, mulching and companion planting. It was there, in 2003, that they received federal organic certification.
"It really opened my eyes as to what could be yielded from a very, very small scale area of soil," Evan said. "We saw the writing on he wall, and we started looking for property. That's when we fledged from there to here."
The couple purchased 36 acres of mostly overgrown property in the northwestern corner of the county, where corn had been grown 30 years prior.
"That was an exciting opportunity, but also a real challenge," he said. "There wasn't even so much as a driveway leading to the property. What you see - the roads, the planting beds, the greenhouses - all manner of so-called improvement we've done from the ground up."
Adopting the existing layout, the Verbanics are now growing more than 100 varieties of vegetables, 50 varieties of herbs and 300 varieties of specialty cut flowers - all on seven acres.
A tour of the farm reveals a meticulously planned and maintained operation: row after tidy row of peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, broccoli and cabbage, to name a few. A work in progress, Jodi points out that even marginal areas of the land are put to use for saleable goods such as herbs and flowers.
Anticipating erecting a farm stand there later in the summer, an herb garden was planted near the entrance to provide visitors with a glimpse of production. In addition to culinary herbs, medicinal herbs are grown for their line of organic bath and beauty products - lip balms, oils, salves and handmade soaps - all created in the Verbanics' certified organic kitchen.
"The typical consumers who are interested in organic items in their mouth in all likelihood are interested in organic products on their skin," Evan said. "It's a so-called value-added product line we can sell year-round. It's a nice way to keep the farm name out there during the off-season."
A stroll deeper into the fields reveals rows of crops draped in white sheets. The floating row cover is a technique employed to manage insect pests in an enviromentally friendly way. The cover goes on at seeding or transplanting, creating a physical barrier between the plant and any insects that may be flying around outside.
"That does so much for organic production," Jodi said. "It gets us so far ahead in the life cycle of the plant. Some of that row cover stays on until we harvest, like in the case of broccoli or cabbage."
It's not perfect, though. Holes often develop in the material, or a wind storm may tear it off. "But it allows us to minimize any pesticides we would have to use," Jodi noted, such as Bt, or bacillus thuringiensis, a natural bacteria.
An approach that is proving successful in combatting the vole - a pesky mammal that burrows at the ground level and has an affinity for beets, turnips and potatoes - has been to contain the plants in wire cages 3 or 4 feet high. The plants are covered with layers of topsoil, leaf mulch and compost.
"They can't get to them," Jodi said. "We're not sure how we're going to pull that off in a few years, but if we get the kind of yield that we think we're going to, then it will have been time well-spent."
Jodi and Evan have been kicking around a separate business plan they call the farm incubator project. Their plan, still very much in the "good idea phase," is to help fledgling farmers gain necessary hands-on experience. Apprentices would work at Cherry Valley and eventually "fledge" to an incubated farm site elsewhere.
"The bottom line is we need more farms, we need more production," Jodi said. "We don't have young people who understand how to make it happen. We have a lot of young people who are enthusiastic, who want to do it, but they have no money because they just graduated from college. We want to see more new farms started and succeed. But the way to do that is to train people to do it.
"People have a very negative connotation when it comes to farming," Jodi said. "It's farming. It's drudgery. There isn't anything exciting going on there. But plants are really exciting. ... There's a lot of scientific knowledge that goes into what we do pretty much every day."
For more information about Cherry Valley Organics' subscription program, visit the Web site at www.cherryvalleyorganics.com.
Dorothy Parker... : 8/10/2008
You know what they say about horticulture... you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think...
That's so hilarious... : 8/11/2008
I hope someone actually gets to read it :-)
