GRAINGER COUNTY (WVLT) – An East Tennessee organic farmer is combing a few natural ingredients with the waste from his chickens to fertilize his crops.
Typically when it comes to farming you have to till the earth, plant your seeds and then add water, but according to Jerry Baird, owner of Lakeview Farms in Bean Station, if you want fast growing healthy crops, the key is fertilizer. When it comes time to apply it, he stuffs his chicken manure into large gallon drums and heat’s each to 150 degrees in order to kill off bacteria. The long process continues with the addition of other ingredients.
“I mix corn cobs, sugar, maple wood chips, egg shells, and fish carcasses through the hammer mill, “ he said, “and what I end up with is my own organic fertilizer."
Baird’s fields are located along the banks of Cherokee Lake, but before he spreads the fertilizer among them, the concoction normally sits in a tub for up to two years, waiting until it can provide the most help to various crops.
“I go to extremes to keep it as pure as mother earth," said the 70-year old farmer, who still fertilizes his fields by himself. “That's when you can say you’re 'getting down with mother earth and mother nature!'".
Farmer Braid doesn’t plan to change his techniques anytime soon.
“One day I hope to see that a lot more produce is grown like it was in the 1800's,” he said, “or the way that I am doing it right now.
He also hopes others will start to follow his lead on using environmentally friendly homemade chicken fertilizer.
“I call it black gold,” he said. “It's safer and it's recyclable because you don’t have to throw anything away.”
Lakeview Farms doesn’t sell its fertilizer to the public, but you can always by its organic produce at the twice weekly farmers market in Knoxville’s Market Square, a few local grocery stores and the Three Rivers Market.
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