“I like to think of my farm as an experimental farm,” George Marcros of EarthWorker He has three quarters of an acre, with a quarter acre devoted to wild flowers and half an acre to crop production, which takes place in the soil, not in trays or hyrdoponic equipment. Farm says.
Last  Sunday, one of his newest experiments, onion grass, captured the attention of delighted customers at the Sebastopol Farmers Market, his single sales outlet.
His onion grass consists of very thin onion stems, from seeds sown in soil and cut with a ceramic knife–this avoids the oxidation caused by contact with metal–when they are about 2-inches long. For their debut market, Macros added pineapple sage and blue cornflower petals, creating a mix that is both beautiful and really delicious, ideal in salads, tacos and sandwiches.
Currently, Macros is also harvesting sunflower greens, pea shoots, mixed microgreens , edible flowers and buckwheat lettuce, which is grown in the ground for about two weeks and harvested before the plant’s mature leaves form.
Edible flowers include calendula, pansy, pineapple sage, nasturtium and blue cornflowers, also known as bachelor buttons. Macros is also experimenting with other varieties; those that are successful will show up at the market sometime soon.
Macros’s garlic will be available soon, too, and, in January, he’ll have yacon, a South American tuber related to sunflowers and sunchokes, with a flavor and texture somewhat similar to jicama.
Macros has been farming on rented land in Sebastopol since 2007. He has three quarters of an acre, with a quarter acre devoted to wild flowers and half an acre to crop production, which takes place in the soil, not in trays or hydroponic equipment. Previously, he did an apprenticeship on an organic farm in Pennsylvania and has also farmed on Long Island, New York. He is committed to organic and sustainable practices, though he has not gone the route of organic certification. He considers organic practices the starting point for safe farming and likes to call what he does “Georgeganics.”
This fall Macros has been working on increasing his worm population–worms are the true earth workers, he says, though “George” means earth worker in Greek, which provided the inspiration for the farm’s name–and hopes that worm casings will, sometime soon, provide all his compost needs. He also creates his own custom equipment and perfects techniques, such as producing shoots from the ground, that produce the best pure nutrient-rich foods possible.
EarthWorker Farm, owned and operated by George Macros, was founded on Barnett Valley Rd. near Bodega Highway in west Sebastopol in 2007. Macros attends the Sebastopol Farmers Market on Sunday mornings year round. For more information, visit farmerG.org or email info@farmerG.com.