Cavagnaro passing on love of gardening

When David Cavagnaro moved to his valley farm north of Decorah 20 years ago, it was an overgrazed pasture.

"Everything you see, the vegetable gardens, the fruit trees, the flowers, the house have all been put in over the years," Cavagnaro said.

A professional horticultural photographer, author, teacher and organic gardener, Cavagnaro recently hosted 60 people for the Howard County Food and Fitness tour.

Last year Cavagnaro donated his house, gardens, and some of his farmland to the Pepperfield Project, a nonprofit organization he founded to teach people hands-on gardening, cooking and agrarian life skills.

"As the founder of Pepperfield, it is my desire to preserve the cultural heritage of food growing and preparation techniques that have been lost, during the last century, as our society has become alienated from its agrarian roots," Cavagnaro said. "The plan is to turn this whole valley into an educational center, whose primary mission is to help reverse that trend. It's a work in progress. We hope to have many groups like this, classes and retreats."

An 1851 cabin was recently moved to Cavagnaro's farm. Rev. Ulrik Koren, founder of Luther College, held the first Washington Prairie Lutheran Church services in the cabin in 1853. The historic building, which has been restored, will provide housing for Pepperfield interns and class participants.

Cavagnaro put up a hoophouse last year where he and his Pepperfield crew grow the plants used in gardens and projects they work with in northeast Iowa.

"We filled and emptied the hoop house two and a half times this spring," Cavagnaro said.

Before Cavagnaro moved to Decorah, he lived on a farm in California and was 98 percent food self-suffcient. He had goats and made six kinds of cheese, kept bees and raised fruits and vegetables.

Seed Savers Exchange brought him to Decorah. He managed the seed preservation gardens there for eight years, and seed saving remains a integral part of his work.

"When we first moved here, we didn't have any old barns for animals, and we have neighbors in this valley who grow very good organic meat and eggs," Cavagnaro said. "But I want to be animal self-sufficent so that I have the whole nitrogen cycle to fertilize the gardens."

He has set up a pasture for chickens and plans to add goats next year.

"We are 100 percent fruit and vegetable self-sufficient," Cavagnaro said. "With a root cellar and canning, freezing and drying, we are able to grow all the fruits, vegetables and seeds that we need on the farm."

Cavagnaro grows his own amaranth and corn and is trying several wheat varieties. He has 100 acres that he can use to grow hay and grain.

"My goal is to be food self-sufficient except for the few things we can't grow here like olive oil and salt," he said.

Behind his house is a little citrus orchard. His dwarf trees are in containers that come into the house in the winter. He grows lemons, kumquats and tangerines. He has a fig tree in the house.

The gardens have apple trees and grape vines for juice and table grapes. He is propagating wine grapes. Edible shrubs include elderberries, service berries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries.

On the edge of the woods, he raises oyster and shitake mushrooms in innoculated logs.

By Jean Caspers-Simmet, www.agrinews.com, 10/06/2011