Ambrose Farm Thrives with Inocucor
June 4th, 2015
By Christina Sawchyn
Charleston has a reputation for great restaurants and a growing farm-to-table movement, supported in large part by local farmers such as Pete Ambrose. Pete has been growing broccoli, arugula, strawberries, blueberries and other vegetables and fruits on his 130-acre organic farm in John’s Island, South Carolina, since 1976.
Part of his farm’s harvest goes to his CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and U-Pick-em strawberry patch customers. The rest goes to high-end restaurants in downtown Charleston and to his own Stono Farm Market and Tomato Shed restaurant, which serves some of the best local food in the Charleston area. We lunched there twice when we visited Pete last February to check his progress with Inocucor’s Garden Solution on his farm.
Pete is one of the first farmers in the U.S. to experiment with Inocucor’s Garden Solution. In 2012, he began combining it with his own compost to treat strawberries that had been underperforming.
His strawberry fields thrived, leading Pete to gradually incorporate Garden Solution combined with compost on all of his high-value crops. Pete reports that, in addition to healthy, vigorous plants, he’s noticed a marked improvement in the soil quality on his farm. More birds also visit his fields, attracted to its rich population of earthworms.
Pete is experimenting with Garden Solution in new ways, using it on his cover crops to help break them down faster in the field. Pete doesn’t follow a specific regimen for applying Garden Solution to crops. He says, “I just know” when the time is right.
Having been part of the organic farming movement in my own experience, it’s such a treat to visit Pete’s beautiful farm and see all of the wonderful things he’s doing and growing. It’s equally impressive to see that, notwithstanding Pete’s fantastically sustainable organic farming practices, he benefits still from using the Inocucor product, which is really doing wonders in improving his yields and plant vigor.
