Lifelong Gardener Farmer Frank “Father Earth” Hodge
By Jane Shellenberger:
On a few acres nestled beside the RR tracks in Lafayette, CO, Frank Hodge grows organic vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers that radiate vitality.
“I’ve had a garden everywhere I’ve lived,” he says. “When I was young and worked at a grocery store I noticed that their vegetables never tasted as good as they did fresh from the farm.”
Growing up in Western Massachusetts, Frank and his whole family, including five brothers and two sisters, spent their summers harvesting vegetables from sunup to sundown at the farm where his father had a side job as a sharecropper. “We grew up picking and eating raw foods everyday.”
His father died when Frank was 11. All his siblings got other part time jobs working for aunts and uncles, but Frank stuck with growing food for a local farmer. At 15 he was taking vegetables to market, driving the farmer’s truck. “Completely illegal,” he says, “but the farmer said it was ok.”
Later Frank joined the Air Force and was stationed at Lowry in Denver. He took classes and earned a degree in electrical engineering at CU Boulder, where he later worked in the IT Department for 20 years. “I lived in Aurora and commuted for 16 years – Boulder was too expensive even back then,” he says.
He finally found and purchased a house with a piece of land in Lafayette 14 years ago. The first year he planted a bunch of fruit trees and a 20' by 60' vegetable garden. A soil test confirmed what Frank already knew; he had a clay soil challenge on his hands. So each year he added clean manures and lots of chopped leaves - free and a great source of nutrient - to the soil, which gradually got better and better for growing. “My carrots used to be this big,” he says, indicating about five inches. “Now they’re this big,” he says, widening his hands to triple that.
After a few years he had a farm stand in front of the house for neighbors, but he ended up with a lot of waste so he began dropping off produce at nearby Sister Carmen’s food bank. Eight years ago he was the first organic farmer at the Louisville Farmers Market, then he teamed up with a grower friend, Mimi Yanus, at the Lafayette market. Now he’s back in Louisville, plus he operates a CSA.
Frank has worked with a number of volunteers over the years. They exchange labor for fresh produce, sometimes (for “woofers”) for a place to stay, and always for the valuable hands-on education, experience, and acquisition of skills that Frank offers. Many have gone on to paid AG jobs, even managing other farms. One thing he insists on is no tobacco smokers; raw tobacco can spread a virus that damages plants in the nightshade family.
He says: “I have an efficiency practice. Everything here is on drip lines, which take time to set up but are incredibly efficient for watering. And I’m always telling my workers to look for things they can do along the way and on the way back (from a task) so they can save steps later. If you’re a gardener, and especially if you become a small farmer, you’ve got to keep trying different things.” From Frank’s perspective it helps to be inventive, to know a little about plumbing and electricity, and to make use of whatever tools and materials you can find.
Frank uses succession planting to efficiently increase production, timing crops for the farmers markets. In early March he’s got arugula, beets, carrots, turnips, lettuce and other greens coming up under row cover topped with clear plastic in a large high tunnel for the May market. (He removes the plastic after germination.) When it’s too hot to plant more lettuce he plants out the broccoli starts, later moving them outside. Varieties with lots of side shoots produce for a long time. Frank’s favorites for Colorado growing are Bay Meadows and Diplomat.
He grows some tomatoes in a smaller hoophouse, pollinating them by hand with a brush or a vibrator, and more outside. He’s seen his production double by pruning out 50% of the green growth; like most plants, tomatoes need air-flow. Frank tried his favorite mix of Tabasco, Dr. Bronner’s and neem for aphids in the high tunnel and hoophouse but says springing for an order of 9000 ladybugs worked much better.
Frank grows most everything from seed, either in the high tunnel, in the basement under lights, or in the ground. He uses a pinch of granular Epsom salts and worm compost for planting out all starts.
In addition to healthy soil and volunteers, as an organic grower the two most important resources that Frank credits with his growing success are compost tea and kaolin clay. Frank has brewed and used Alaska Bountea for many years. He starts brewing as soon as the strawberries blossom and fruit begins to form, spraying them every seven to 14 days throughout the summer with a bloom formula for the potassium and magnesium they need. This past year he had strawberries through October on his ever-bearing plants. (June-bearers stop fruiting after June.)
Frank uses a 30-gallon tank sprayer that runs off a car battery mounted on a wagon. One person pulls the wagon along the rows of strawberries or vegetables, while another holds the sprayer. With it he can also reach fruit trees that are 30' high and says spraying them with compost tea really helps their growth. He pours a gallon around each tree every spring as well and adds a mixture to his drip lines too.
Coddling moth is a big problem for fruit growers but Frank has managed to foil them and grow worm-free fruit by spraying Kaolin clay on his trees. He sets traps for the moths and as soon as one shows up it’s time to start his regimen: spraying 3-4 times, every 7-10 days during their mating cycle. He’s careful to do this in late afternoon or on cool mornings when bees aren’t flying. The clay isn’t toxic but the coating might harm them.
Over 100 mature fruit trees that Frank has planted now grow at the farm: apples, apricots, cherries, peaches, pears, plums, and nectarines. He lost over 30 in the early November deep freeze of 2015 but has planted 30-some new ones. He also grows lots of berry bushes: raspberries, blackberries, blueberries (wind protection and acid-based fertilizer are key), gogi berries. And grapes - Frank has been known to sleep outside in a tent waiting for marauding raccoons. A sticky ring of Tanglefoot painted on tree trunks every other year has almost eliminated what used to be substantial earwig damage to fruit.
Frank has kept bees for 12 years and “they’ve done alright” though, like most beekeepers today, he replaces at least 30-40% with new packages every year. He says he is constantly learning more about bees and now uses an oxalic acid vaporizer hooked up to a car battery to treat for destructive varroa mites. He cites Dakota Bees in Wheat Ridge as a helpful resource.
A medicine wheel flower and herb garden for the bees contains echinacea, lavender, sea lavender, anise hyssop, bee balm, calendula, and Russian sage, but Frank also grows mints, chives, oregano, St. John’s wort, tansy, comfrey, and nettles. A sun tea of comfrey and nettles sprayed on plants helps a lot with pest insects, he says.
Frank has studied and used lots of different gardening methods over the years: bio-intensive, permaculture, wide-row, no-dig, hydroponic. In the 90’s he completed an herbal apprenticeship with Tammi Hartung in Canyon City, learned to make his own tinctures, and has supplied several local companies with fresh organic herbs.
He says, “I didn't set out to have a farm, just a place to plant fruit trees and some veggies – and to do it the right way.” Frank is soft spoken and generous. With his knowledge and experience he’s helped a lot of other gardeners. He likes to collaborate and see them succeed.
For more info visit fatherearthorganicfarm.com
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