This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're talking with Jenny Dittmar, a farmer in Kent County, Delaware.
Dittmar and her husband own Dittmar Family Farms, where they grow produce and raise grass-fed livestock.
"Growing vegetables and raising meat, they really do go hand in hand in terms of the soil," Dittmar said. "You really have to have livestock in order to grow vegetables well."
Dittmar is working to strengthen the soil food web. She and her husband use a variety of practices to keep the soil healthy, like cover cropping and, polyculture cropping and limiting tillage.
"If you take care of the soil, the soil tends to take care of the plants for you," Dittmar said.
While the farm is less than a decade old, it has already seen plenty of changes.
The initial plan was to grow, raise and sell as much as possible.
"We wanted the model of a full-diet farm," Dittmar said. "We really wanted to try to provide as much of the food pyramid as we could for our customers."
Now, Dittmar has honed in on the produce and livestock that work best.
The latest change in the operation comes in the form of Dittmar's CSA model.
This year, instead of a typical program where members receive boxes of produce, Dittmar is doing a farm membership program, where members will be able to purchase $50 of produce each week.
"We've had to sort of evolve with our customers," Dittmar said.
In addition to the livestock and produce, Dittmar makes and sells skin creams using honey from the farm's beehives.
"I really enjoy the artistic side of farming," she said.
