About
By Hand Farm is dreamed of and run by me, Laura Xiao, a proud first generation farmer. I grow cut flowers with low till and organic methods on leased land in Newfane, VT.
I began farming in 2018, at a large vegetable CSA farm in the Sierra foothills in Northern California. I’ve since worked on several other farms in California and Washington, and I still work part-time at the lovely Milkweed Farm in Westminster West, VT. I originally fell in love with farming for the egregious abundance of vegetables, but at some point realized how amazing and fun flowers are too!
Growing Practices
I use a variety of practices in order to nurture the health of the soil, which in turn helps plants grow healthier and stronger. I add organic matter to the soil through cover cropping (growing specific crops in order to allow them to compost in place) and applying compost to growing beds. After initial tillage to build permanent beds, I do not use machinery to work the soil. I apply select mineral amendments and organic fertilizers to supply the appropriate nutrients at the right time in the growing cycle. I do my best to keep soil covered at all times- with actively growing plants (flowers, cover crops, or…weeds), tarps, and mulches such as straw or leaves.
The name
I was stuck on what to name the farm, for a while. The name By Hand Farm came to me, and has multiple layers of meaning.
By Hand Farm, as a no till farm, relies mostly on hand tools and people-power to grow flowers. That being said, there are definitely times when I choose to use fossil fuel powered machinery, strategically, to get certain tasks done in order to minimize the potential for injuries and save time.
All cut flowers, regardless of how big or small the farm is, are harvested by hand. Unlike certain vegetable crops, that if the farm is big enough, can be harvested by specialized machinery, flowers are too delicate for machines to pick. Someone cut every single stem. At the scale of the global cut flower industry, that means that those cheap flowers depend on someone’s “cheap” (aka underpaid) labor. The name is a constant reminder of the enormous amount of work it takes to grow and harvest flowers. (And most other crops).
Finally, the name By Hand Farm is an homage to, an honoring of, all the farmers and landworkers of the world, past and present, who for so long did their work without the help of fossil fuel machinery, that double edged sword.
