We didn't get into the specifics of our farming methods on the Practices page so that we could save them for here. Also, on the main education page is a resources section. We've added numerous links there. Every farm is a unique place on the Earth with its challenges, prospects, and problems. We apply these to the 5 Soil Health Principles - the framework that defines Regenerative Agriculture. The principles are:

1. Soil armor: Keep the soil covered

2. Minimize soil disturbance: Reduce physical, chemical, and biological disturbance as much as possible

3. Plant diversity: Maximize plant diversity and diversify rotations

4. Continual live plant/root: Keep living roots in the ground as long as possible

5. Livestock integration: Integrate livestock to keep biological processes going

By following these principles, we're working on our goal to regenerate the state of the farm's soil to how it was before the plow came. Since Leaning Pine Farm was founded in 1939, Soil Health has been on our minds. We were the first farm in the Mid-Atlantic region to contour plow. These days, with the plows rusting by the barn, we make sure our cattle contour graze. Cows always create cow paths. When they head to their water source, they get in a line. By grazing on a contour, that path is saddled by thick grass as it winds across our steep pastures in Mountain Maryland. When it rains hard, the water that runs off goes immediately into the grass. If we were to graze where the cattle would create a cow path up and down the hill to their water source, it wouldn't take long for that path to turn into a rut, and that rut would turn into a gully, as the rain would push the soil down the hill, creating erosion.

So, that's a good example of how we apply the 1st principle of soil armor, along with another important factor: do not graze below 4 inches. When you graze below this level, the summer sun is strong enough to bake the soil, killing the microbes. Four inches of grass can also handle strong rain events much better than pasture grazed down to ground level. On a farm that planted corn or soybeans, the example of soil armor would be using a no-till drill for planting instead of the traditional plowing and disking the soil receives before the farmer uses a planter.

Here's a short rundown on how we apply the four other principles:

• Minimize soil disturbance - We stopped spraying herbicides in 2015. We were using these in a limited manner on invasive plants. Now, we use mechanical methods to control them.

• Plant diversity - We are encouraging plant diversity by when and how short we graze, the height we mow our hay fields, and mixing up the time we do each, from year to year. Research by others has proven that a diversity of 16 species in each pasture or hay field is the optimum number of plants needed to boost soil health. We have achieved that number in many of our fields and are working to increase it. The amount of forage biomass (aka the weight of those plants) proves this increases how much pasture and hay these lands can produce. It also means a diversified diet for our animals, which is essential to good health (just ask your doctor if you should have a diversified diet of proteins and vegetables).

• Keep living plants in the soil - That's not hard for us since we don't plant crops, but it also applies to our garden. Cover crops are essential when winter comes to retain the nutrients placed there by the biological activity in the soil. The same goes for corn, soybeans, and other row crops. Also, the principle of plant diversity comes into play here - diversify that cover crop. Winter rye, vetch, cowpeas, turnips, and forage radishes are a good combination.

• Livestock integration - Now, this goes against what many of us are reading on social media and other outlets, but livestock is essential to improving soil health. How many livestock matters - not too few and not too many (feedlots have no place in the five principles). Plants we find in our fields evolved over the ages alongside hooved animals. When a hooved animal takes a bite of the top third of a plant, the saliva left signals a biological response. The plant sends an alert to its roots, asking for resources to repel the attack. If the soil has been undisturbed by tillage and chemicals, has had good soil armor, and has had its soil microbes fed by the urine and manure of hooved-shaped animals grazing occasionally over the last couple of years, an amazing amount of activity takes off. Mycorrhizal fungi send out requests for the biological components that the plant needs to restore itself as quickly as possible. They also will tell the other plants in their network to bring up amino acids from the soil that will make the animal grazing move along after one bite.