Balsam Farms
Alex Balsam and Ian Calder-Piedmonte
New York
The Farm
Balsam Farms, established in 2003, offers a bounty of vegetables, fruits, grains, and flowers from our very own fields on the South Fork of Long Island. Committed to growing in accordance with organic principles, only OMRI approved inputs and amendments are used in the overwhelming majority of our ~200 acres.
The Project Funded
During our 2023 and 2024 growing seasons, environmental factors led to significant challenges on our melon acreage, creating heavy losses in production and profits. In 2025, we will be pursuing a new method of fighting both drought and disease (namely phytophera): laying groundcover between our melon rows.
Project Impact
By applying this innovation to our melon patch, we anticipate not only bringing more viable melons to market, we foresee extensive discovery as to other areas of the farm that could benefit from this new methodology. This would further reduce our water use and need to spray.
