Grower Interview: Don Tipping, Seven Seeds Farm
(fourth in a continuing series)
by Scott Vlaun

Don Tipping and his wife Kimberly have been growing seeds for Seeds of Change for ten years. Their southern Oregon biodynamic farm is known as a model of sustainable agriculture and reflects Don's longstanding involvement with permaculture. In addition to producing high-quality seed, the Tippings grow and care for over 100 species of plants and animals in a deeply integrated and ever evolving system. I spoke with Don about his farming strategy on October 15th, 2006.

Scott Vlaun: In walking around your fields, I'm struck by the lushness and diversity of the plants. It's clear that you've got very fertile ground. Can you talk about your strategy to maintain soil fertility from both a permaculture and biodynamic standpoint, and how that affects the overall nutrition of the food you grow here?

Don Tipping: Those two go hand in hand really. Biodynamics is an older whole-systems viewpoint. We eat food to stay alive. In conventional agriculture you fertilize plants for yield to get the maximum size and growth rate. There's no attention paid to flavor, nutrition, storage quality, the spiritual life force, and those kinds of things. Biodynamics looks at all that.

Permaculture looks at it all as well because you want to look at it from all angles. We focus more on mineral fertilization and setting up systems that create opportunities for mineral foraging by different plants, be it buckwheat or alfalfa. The more diversity of soil/root interactions, the more opportunities you have for mineral foraging. You're basically mining up minerals. In biodynamics you don't want to do one-sided fertilization, such as using heavy nitrogen to produce dark leafy greens. You also want to have your minerals, your phosphorus, your silica, all of that, in balance so that the plant that you're getting is a representation of more of its totality.

In the permaculture vein, we're shifting gears this year, our sixth year of farming here. In that quarter acre down there we just planted alfalfa and red clover. Instead of our normal cover crop of rye, peas and vetch, planted in the fall and tilled in in the late spring, we're planting it into this perennial cover and it will remain in that for three or four years. We'll cut hay off it or cut it as mulch and let our animals graze it. But those are all secondary to keeping the soil intact and creating a whole soil ecosystem, which the annual cover crops can only take so far since they only have so long. But alfalfa, or something that's in the ground for years, creates a whole new relationship with all the microbes and bacteria and soil fauna that moves in. The system isn't getting disturbed as much as agriculture where you are tilling. Then if we go into that three years from now and till it in, that soil is going to be incredible. And then we'll take another block on the farm and put it into that rotation. This way we'll have this rotational rest period. It's kind of like in music when you have a barrage of notes, if there's no space it's hard to hear pattern or melody or even rhythm. I think this (kind of rotation) could help with the symphylans problem that is plaguing a lot of the big West Coast growers.

Symphylans are an arachnid, technically. They look like a little white centipede kind of guy, but they don't have that many legs. They only have eight legs and they forage on decomposing organic matter. They are native in our old growth soils, so they're supposed to be here. If we plant a cover crop and let it get big and till all this organic matter into the soil, the symphylans move in and perform their role as decomposers. Then when it's decomposed you till again, prepare your beds, or your seeds and put in your transplants and the symphylans go nuts on it. I think ten or twelve symphylans per cubic foot of soil can mean major crop losses.

I think that the problem, and a lot of other permaculture-oriented people think this, is force feeding, cramming compost, cramming fertilizers, cramming cover crops, green matter into the soil is disrupting the soil. This is more like layer caking. We'll put a little compost on in spring as more of a biological inoculant, but the fertility is coming from the cover crops. The ultimate system in this vein is "no-till."

SV: How do you rotate animals through your system?

DT: That's a whole other part of it. We use portable electric netting. Like this field right here for instance, it was a cover crop, four feet high or so, and we used the netting to bring in the sheep and they grazed the cover crop down. So instead of mowing, which is killing frogs, killing snakes, killing salamanders and other creatures that are in this incredible...you know it's like a tropical forest on a micro-scale. The sheep, they don't hurt anybody. They're just walking through eating. And they take it down to nothing and they're in heaven. They're converting it into manure right on site and then we'll make beds after that.

The way most farms would do it is to mow it, which is an aggressive action, then till it in which is unnatural, it only happens when you have a landslide. Instead we are converting it to manure and to sheep energy. We're getting wool and meat and manure from them, and the service of grazing. We didn't have to use fossil fuels to mow it down. Then we till that in and the manure breaks down much more rapidly than the cover crop would and we don't have all that green material and that kind of anaerobic ferment. Also, we get that energy that Steiner talks about–the astrality of animals. (Rudolf Steiner is the founder of biodynamic agriculture.) We're animals so we need that type of fertility. Plant fertility alone cannot nurture us. We need that kind of fertility that's the result of this dynamic interaction between plants and animals in order to create food that has the life force that humans need. We're looking for more ways to incorporate our animals. Our ducks and chickens have access to our perennial areas. This used to be a flock of sheep in here. As an ecosystem, it's going through more evolutional loops than a more streamlined system. And this, because it's a seed crop, is going through an even further evolution because it's going to sit all winter like this.

SV: I'd really like to hear about how you integrate seed production into your systems here, but first could you give an idea of the scale of your operation. How many acres are you farming?

DT: We have two and a half acres in annual row crops, and about two acres in perennial berries and fruit trees, and about three acres in permanent pasture that may have trees inter-planted in it. These are hazelnuts in a pasture basically with some nitrogen fixers.

The seed crops are really beneficial in that we create ecosystems instead of just a crop. We created a system where it's in the ground longer. There's more opportunity for native birds to interact with it. There are more opportunities for us to learn from the plant, in terms of how it expresses it's life cycle.

SV: It's always so interesting to see mature plants that you usually never see when you grow just for the vegetable crop.

DT: Like leek flowers, that kind of thing. And because we have markets that we go to, we can go into a lettuce seed crop and do genetic selection work. We can rogue out plants that are off types, but those are perfect for our CSA or farmers' market, especially the CSA because we can talk about what we are doing in the newsletter. For instance, we put winter squash in the boxes for the last two weeks, but they were cut open with the seeds scooped out and we explain that we are saving them time by cutting it open, and we are getting a seed crop. Otherwise this would be a waste product on our farm or we would feed it to animals. So we're bringing the consumer into understanding the role of seed production. You're not going to get that squash unless there is seed. We happen to be growing the seed for more than just our farm. With the CSA I think there is a little more openness and tolerance, whereas at the farmers' market some people might not be so sure about that, although sometimes elderly people have trouble cutting those hard shell squash, so we see it almost as a service that we are providing.

SV: One of the things I'm noticing just walking around is the scale that you are working at. I've been on some much larger farms lately and I'm noticing that here there is a human scale to everything. You've got ten acres here and you could choose to develop a larger-scale cropping system. How have you laid out the ground and how do you think about scale?

DT: That's part of permaculture. There's that principle that says "use thoughtful protracted observation to avoid thoughtless protracted labor." So we've looked at this land and said OK, North slope, forested, trees all around us. So we should be growing tree crops, but we can't plant the whole thing to an orchard or back to native trees because we need to earn a living. So we have a mosaic of trees that are starting to generate income six years after planting. But in between we have our row crops, which is a proven mechanism that we have for earning a living. But over time I see us phasing out of row crops. We used to do more truck farming, selling or wholesaling produce because we didn't have any perennial fruits. So we had even more land just in annuals that way. But as we move through time and the perennials are able to carry more of their own weight, so to speak, and they are earning us some money, we can take more land out of annual production. So the land that we do have in annual production is increasing in value because we are able to do crops that we know we can do really well on. We've figured out that on the Alliums, Brassicas, and lettuces we can do a really good job growing seeds. And also if we're doing breeding work we're not just producing a bulk commodity, we're producing information, knowledge, and progress in one form of the genetic material. So I see that in twenty years or so, that we might have only a local community scale of the annual agriculture that we do, and then that our tree crops are our export agriculture, whether it's chestnuts, or these Turkish tree hazels that are going to be 75 feet tall and make a lot of nuts. Maybe we don't even sell the nuts. Maybe we sell pork or beef or lamb or turkey meat that is fed on nuts. We're looking at how we can set up a dynamic enough system—with lots of different things. We don't have a whole bunch of hazelnuts, we just have a little bit so we can see how they do here.

What other opportunities are there? Just this year we grazed the sheep up here, so we are getting multiple yields. How to increase those over time is the question. It's harder to do that if all you have is a truck farm. You know, you only have so many opportunities for diversity.

SV: How many different species of plants do you think you are cultivating here, not counting the wild species?

DT: I've never counted, but it's probably close to a hundred. Because we have a forest garden that's a quarter acre down there, where we cataloged everything. We made a conscious decision to try and get as many edible and medicinal plants as possible in there. It's basically our nursery where we can go back for scion wood, cuttings, tubers, nuts, or whatever for propagating this stuff out. We've definitely learned a lot. I planted some hardy kiwis down there that I'm going to pull out. They're doing okay, but I have the irrigation set up to do orchard and row crop stuff, and the kiwis would work great on an arbor around our home. They're not a good crop for us here commercially so why have them set up in a commercial fashion? So that's part of learning from your mistakes. I like the idea of starting small and learning from your mistakes. And then you can take that a step further and learn from the mistakes of others.

SV: You mentioned something earlier about education. It seems like, beyond what you're learning here and your production, you also are quite involved in education. Do you teach classes here?

DT: Through Organic Seed Alliance we have two field days here every year. That's reaching out on the seed level. We've also taught a number of permaculture classes. I've taught simple day classes through the OSU Extension and I've sat in as a guest instructor on other permaculture classes. People initially thought, "Oh yeah, I'm going to make a living becoming a permaculture designer or a permaculture teacher," but the market has become saturated here. People don't know where to go. So I think the trick of permaculture evolving in this country is to ask "How do we take those principles and concepts which are super-important and universal and infiltrate them into everything?" All of a sudden an Organic Seed Alliance workshop here that's focused on fundamentals of plant improvement is also a workshop in permaculture. You can't be growing seed crops unless you have an interface with them being vegetables. You need a CSA or a farmers' market to understand, "Oh, these are things people eat." We're not just selling seeds, we want to know if people like them. Likewise, having all of these different things working together, like the animals, and understanding their interaction with the seed crops is important. So we need to see how we can take permaculture into each of the genres of agriculture, or architecture, or whatever it is, and form a much more principle-based approach to education. So that's been my challenge—how to do that rather than try to sell a certain technique or method, because that's so specific to your region.

SV: If there's one thing I've learned studying permaculture is that every situation has a different set of solutions. I like what you're saying about your process of evolving this place and learning and changing and growing and adapting your systems as you observe.

DT: When we moved here we were all fired up on becoming a demonstration site, so to speak, and doing workshops. Our first year on the land we did a permaculture course, which was super helpful to lay things out. But we saw certain other things. It's easiest to do courses in the summer, but when we're doing markets and have employees, it's a little tricky to say that for the next two weeks we're going to do this different thing. So now we're following another principle that I like: Work where wanted. Don't try and say, "Hey, you need me," or "Hey, you want to do this." People come to us now. I think there's something about working where wanted that helps all your interactions.

SV: Can you talk a little bit about your food forest nursery? How big is this plot and how many species do you have here?

DT: This is about a fifth of an acre and we've got about 75 species here. This was really rocky, poor soil when we got here and I had all these trees in nursery beds as I was learning my propagation skills over time. So I had all these trees and not any real place to put them until we got this place. So we planted them out on contour, actually a little bit off contour. The beds actually drop toward the creek about one foot per hundred feet of run. As we sheet mulch and build up these little micro-terraces, when water flows and hits these, its going to drift up the ridge. You always want your contours, if they are going to have a drop, to drop away from the valleys. In a way, we're doing Aikido with the way water works in the landscape. We're constantly trying to divert it up hill. It's not technically moving up hill, but we're keeping it as high on the ridge as possible.

Over the last two years I haven't done any weeding, mulching or pruning in there and I only water once a month, and that's pretty extreme for here. Normally I'd water this once a week.

SV: Is that because of the mulching?

DT: The mulching, and also to test out how far you can push a system like this and learn what plants can perform in a low-input system. To me, that's where the permaculture in going.

So this is basically our food forest with multiple canopy layers. We've got Sea Buckthorn, a nitrogen fixing shrub that makes tons of berries; Rugosa Rose which doesn't really perform too well in drought conditions; and Elderberries which haven't done so well although there's one down there that's done outrageously well. Catnip has just come in from birds. There is a Gooseberry. We had geese in there until last week and they ate all the leaves off it. There's a Cardoon coming back. There is a Red Bartlett pear and Blue Vervain. We have lots of medicinals. There is an apricot from seed that's died back to the roots a couple of times. Those tall ones are six years old and we've actually gotten food from them. Normally you'd never plant apricots there because it's too cold.

SV: Why do you think you've got them to produce?

DT: I think it's because I don't prune them. All my fruits are way high up and they escape frost and use all that space up there. And that's part of the whole multiple canopy thing that we're trying to go towards. We have lots of space for all these currants and herbs down underneath here, and let the trees occupy the higher space.

Yarrow is just one plant that I've let go wild in there—and comfrey too. You can see what the geese do to the comfrey. That was a total comfrey patch and they've eaten it all down. I'll bring the chickens in there soon and they'll bring it down to bare dirt by March. Then I take them off and it becomes a jungle with comfrey this high (gestures toward his chest).

We're really getting some climate modification effects with this whole other under-canopy for livestock. Chickens really don't want a field environment. They like scratching through duff (decomposing organic materials that resides between the mineral soil and the litter layer of freshly fallen twigs, needles, and leaves). Maybe an edge.

A lot of these plants I've only got one representative of. Siberian Pea Shrub is another nitrogen fixing leguminous tree that gets twenty feet tall and the seeds are thirty percent protein. It just drops the seeds so the chickens get that.

For me this is really an opportunity to learn about these plants before putting them out in our fields. As much as this is a food forest, it's a learning lab. It's interesting so see what happens when you start these chain reactions, and you're not mowing, so there are constantly saplings coming up down there. There are some weird things happening like this apple (tree) that's got some disease. It's dropping branches, but maybe that's just its way of pruning itself.

Sometimes I wonder "if I broke my leg, how permanent would this agriculture be?" In time my son and our next child will be able to help, but I'd rather have it where you just need to remember to harvest, rather than having to say "you're going to need to weed it, you're going to need to mulch it, you're going to need to prune it, you're going to need to water it every five days."

SV: How many of these species are native to this area?

DT: We're probably only about 10% native. We used to have more things like perennial broccoli and perennial collards and Good King Henry and all those perennial greens in here, but the poultry just annihilate that kind of stuff.

SV: So if you weren't running the poultry in here you could have another whole set of species on the ground.

DT: There's an appropriate animal mixture. On thing that we do in the winter is roll out this fencing and take in the raspberries. The chickens pretty much weed them completely and eat all the fallen dried berries in there. When I had more time, before Wally was born, we'd do all the grapes and other areas. A lot of the permaculture is about fencing and labor intensivity. Kimberly and I joke that we want to write a book someday about what they didn't tell you in the Designer's Manual (The Permaculture Designers Manual by Bill Mollison.) Like, you'll spend way more time chasing animals, or being frustrated about things that don't work out, or that it requires lots of fencing. The Permaculture Designers Manual is just a systems overview, but paints a pretty rosy scenario of very complex systems that really depend on the situation.

We're beginning to see what works here, six years into working pretty full time on this, and what doesn't.

SV: Well, it certainly is beautiful here. If there was no other benefit behind all the diversity, I think it's worth it just for the beauty. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Scott Vlaun
Editor

Photo Captions: (1) Don and Wally in a bed of leeks and amaranth. (2) Young Trees, planted along a swale, are protected from grazing animals. (3) Sheep, Ducks, and Chickens are an integral part of the plan at Seven Seeds Farm (4) Threshing leek seeds (5) Ponds store water and create habitat (6) Don discussing some of the 75 species growing in his food forest nursery.