The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables: More In-Depth Lean Techniques for Efficient Organic Production

by Ben Hartman

At Clay Bottom Farm, author Ben Hartman and staff practice kaizen , or continuous improvement, cutting out more waste―of time, labor, space, money, and more―every year and aligning their organic production more tightly with customer demand. Applied alongside other lean principles originally developed by the Japanese auto industry, the end result has been increased profits and less work. In this field-guide companion to his award-winning first book, The Lean Farm , Hartman shows market vegetable growers in even more detail how Clay Bottom Farm implements lean thinking in every area of their work, including using kanbans , or replacement signals, to maximize land use; germination chambers to reduce defect waste; and right-sized machinery to save money and labor and increase efficiency. From finding land and assessing infrastructure needs to selling perfect produce at the farmers market, The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables digs deeper into specific, tested methods for waste-free farming that not only help farmers become more successful but make the work more enjoyable. These methods Farming is not static, and improvement requires constant change. The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables offers strategies for farmers to stay flexible and profitable even in the face of changing weather and markets. Much more than a simple exercise in cost-cutting, lean farming is about growing better, not cheaper, food―the food your customers want.

Genres: Gardening, Agriculture, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

Published October 17, 2017

Reviews

[Kubra Unlu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tarım, toprak, gübre, atık yönetimi, 5S ve kaizenin tarımda kullanımı ve özellikle sera sebzeciliği ile ilgili harika bir kaynak. Katma değersiz işlerin azaltılması, atıkların çevrimi gibi sürekli iyileştirmeler ile kendileri kaliteli bir yaşam kurmuş bir aile, hayata dair de ilham olacaktır.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Packed with excellent information and photos of efficient organic growing systems and how to design them in your context.

[Pam Dawling · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I read Ben Hartman's first book, The Lean Farm, and wrote my review in October 2015, I was on the path from curious and enthusiastic sceptic to enthusiastic-fan-with-reservations. I rejoiced in the ideas of reducing wasted effort, being more efficient, more successful at producing food, happier, less stressed. Ben Hartman, Jean-Martin Fortier and Curtis Stone are three successful commercial vegetable growers who clarified for me that a small-scale farm could be more efficient, more sustainable and certainly more pleasant if worked mostly with manual tools and a walk-behind tractor (rototiller) than with a cultivating ride-on tractor, which was the direction I had been looking in. We really didn't want to be spending our time on a tractor, or under it, maintaining it. We didn't want a class of tractor-driving gardeners divided from a class of hands-in-the-soil gardeners. Nor did we want to re-format our gardens and give up all the space to allow a tractor to turn around.

When I heard about Ben's new book, which he describes as "a how-to manual, with a lean twist," I sought it out. Here are the many helpful details to improve how we do our vegetable growing. His introduction reviews the five core Lean Principles, so if you haven't read his first book first, you can still understand the thinking behind his systems. With Ben's first book, I expected push-back from crew members who would judge his ideas and techniques as inflexible, too detailed, nit-picky. Was this just my projection? I found it very thought-provoking, and I was constantly assessing our farm as I read it. I had a rough triage of inner comments: “ah, we already do that (well)” “oh we really need to do that” “ooo I’m not happy with that idea.”

By and large I valued the actual techniques and strategies. I bristled against his classifying planning, organizing and other managerial tasks, as well as bed prep, hoeing, weeding, thinning seedlings as type 1waste (muda, in Japanese). That just didn't sit right with me. Perhaps it's a word that doesn't translate well. A commenter on my blog clarified this for me. She likened type 1 waste to Stephen Covey's Quadrant 2 (Important but Not Urgent) in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Quadrant 2 includes maintenance, advance planning, being prepared. Preventing problems, or dealing with them to minimize their impact is important. I could never call it wasteful. In fact, I see attention to Quadrant 2 as a sign of good leadership, good farming. We need to make time for the important tasks that are not yet urgent. Scout for pests, don't ignore them till they overwhelm your crops.

In this second book there is acknowledgement that while muda is usually translated as waste, not all muda should be completely eliminated. Simply minimize the time and energy given to non-value-adding activities. OK, I can go with that. In fact, the list of 10 forms of muda doesn't say a word about managerial activities. Or about reading books, or writing reviews!

Ben takes a Lean look at crop planning, bed prep, compost-making, seed starting, transplanting, the Japanese paper pot transplanter, direct seeding, weed and pest control, sales, seven crop case studies, greenhouses, and finding good land and building a farm. There are valuable appendices with recommendations on tools, crop varieties, dollar-value-per-bed, a photo gallery of seven more crops, a Japanese glossary, and a book list.

I'm a fan of careful crop planning, and I acknowledge that doing it efficiently is important. There is definitely such a thing as "over-planning." I think experience teaches us what we need planned and what we don't. When the same people grow the same crops on the same farm year after year, lots can be taken as decided. When we have built fertile soil and there are no new plagues, we can get away with minimal crop rotation. At Clay Bottom Farm (in Indiana), Ben, Rachel and their crew are earning their living from less than one acre, growing and selling specialty produce to restaurants, farmers markets, and through their CSA. They grow a lot of salad greens and tomatoes, along with some root crops, peppers and eggplants, zucchini and cucumbers. Sweet corn, beans, peas, winter storage crops don't feature much or at all. They have found the crop mix that works for their customers (that is one of the 5 Lean Principles). The situation in our gardens seems more complicated, but the point remains: streamline the planning, don't over-work it.

The concept of load-levelling (heijunka) is valuable – look at the plan for the year and keep it manageable every month. And plan in a vacation for everyone. We try to stagger our vacations so that there are always a few people who can run things, taking turns. We tried reducing the August workload, moving one big task to September, and taking a few weeks off from lettuce production. Ending our watermelon harvests at the end of August and our winter squash at the end of September were helpful in keeping fall work manageable. We've got better at "doing-in" plantings of beans, cucumbers and summer squash if they are getting to be oppressive.

I was particularly excited to see instructions to build a seed germination cabinet à la Hartman. Like Ben, we use discarded refrigerators. Ours rely on incandescent light bulbs, which are a dwindling "resource". Some would say "good riddance" but we are actually using the heat the bulbs generate, as well as the light. Ben's clever design uses a pan of water heated by an electric element, on a thermostat. This could be our next germinator!

I've read about the Japanese paper pot transplanter before, and concluded it's best for plants set out at 6" spacing or less, and fairly large plantings of one thing. I'm intrigued – would love to try it, even though we do more direct sowing of close-planted crops than Ben does. I love the idea of a carefully-designed manual machine for transplanting, especially as my knees get older, and like squatting less. This chapter is worth the price of the book to anyone about to buy the transplanter. So many tips, including Ben's Paper Pot Cheat Sheet. The direct-seeding chapter explains the Jang JP-1 seeder, and the same message applies about buying the book if you're buying the seeder.

Weeds and pest control without muda – Yes, of course, focus on prevention, rather than managing. Ben gives 5 Steps to No Weeds. Yes, time saved there would pay for the price of the book too! Pests, Leaned Up is about Biological IPM: rowcovers, beneficial insects and biological sprays if needed.

The sales chapter looks at transportation logistics, sensible delivery vehicles. As Ben says, "Big vehicles, we learned, don't by themselves lead to large sales". Avoid over-production. Set up your market booth for smooth flow.

The case studies explore how Clay Bottom farmers decide which varieties to grow, where and when, and of course, how much. The case study crops are tomatoes, baby greens, kale, head lettuce and romaine, carrots, other bunched roots, and peppers. Here's good information from someone who has paid exquisitely good attention to what works and what doesn't.

The chapters on finding good land and setting up your farm in a well-organized, Lean, way will save new farmers some costly (livelihood-threatening) mistakes, and help the rest of us think twice about why we store our tools where we do, and so on. The greenhouse chapter is brief, and yet full of gems about design.

[Taryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been SO amazingly helpful as we begin our farming journey. The author is a trustworthy guide, and doesn't leave me hanging, wishing for more information.

[Will Jaquinde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hartman presents lean as an assortment of business practices that range from innovative and intelligent to contrary and overzealous. Framing the business of growing vegetables as an endeavor to increase the value the customers receives or perceives is a thoughtful way to organize the work. This allows producers to unearth waste, any activity which does not add value to a crop. Hartman encourages growers to reduce 'waste' in the form of weeding, seed ordering and budgeting, which don't add value to the crop. Hartman dismisses essential, sensical practices like enterprise budgeting while also leaving many of his examples of lean short of meaning and depth. Experienced producers should read this text for its strong points while adopting its prudent mindset and efficient strategies but should not abandon tried and true business practices.

[JS · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those wanting to start a commercial farm, this book (+ Ben's 1st book) could make the difference between success and failure. The author employs Lean strategies and utilizes the kaizen philosophy to continuously improve his already highly profitable operations. In so doing, he has managed to shrink his farm from 3 acres to 1 acre of intensively cultivated land, reducing his work hours by half, with no loss of income.

[Sezgin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a farming book (obviously) including useful tips and "lean" practices for small/medium scale market gardeners focusing on growing vegetables. Influenced by Toyota's Lean Production System, Hartman provides valuable information both for new farmers to efficiently plan their farm and for experienced farmers to boost their production while eliminating waste from processes.

[Julie M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hartman explains the Lean Farming approach, as in, less effort, less waste, maximizing one's resources for better production, better management for market gardening. This can be applied in more areas , obviously. As a backyard gardener myself, I appreciated many little tips I learned while reading this book. The pictures were inspiring . I want to read his other book, 'The Lean Farm'.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The majority of what is offered is based on Japanese innovation. While focused on for-profit human-scale agriculture, still many worthwhile take-aways for other modalities.

[emyrose8 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource for people starting a produce farm. Not much here for sustenance homesteading.

[Karen Mahtin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book with lots of tips and resources of where to [I assume that I meant to include the word "find" here] helpful tools/equipment or to learn more about lean farming. Note: I own but have not read his Lean Farm book.