News : i-Farmer: Old School Produce owner Elwick relies on 21st Century technology

Asparagus

Basil

Tall Utah Celery

Chard

Mike Elwick relies on his i-Pad and 21st Century equipment to make Old School Produce a success.

Potato plants are beginning to blossom at Old School Produce.

Steve Kalina works full-time during the growing season at Old School Produce.

Summer squash

Old School; new technology: Mike Elwick only occasionally uses hand-powered tools in his gardens.

Mike Elwick's wife, Cindy, like her late father, Jay Bolin, is a life-long gardener.

But, says Mike, all those years of watching Cindy and Jay work in the dirt -- and all the produce that they grew and he ate -- taught him virtually nothing about gardening.

So when what Mike calls his "hare-brained" idea of turning the old West school building and playground on West 8th Street into The Old School Produce company with a football field-sized garden came to him, Mike began a crash course in gardening. He attended classes. He Googled. He contacted the Benton County Extension Service for more information.

And he bought an i-Pad.

"I bring my i-Pad with me every day," said Mike, this morning, as he and employee Steve Kalina began the day's gardening chores.

Mike's i-Pad contains his daily "to do" list. It also serves as a camera to take photos of his plants to send via e-mail to gardening experts who can look at his photos and tell him what he needs to do. And it helps him search for information about each of the vegetables and herbs growing in his garden.

"Cindy loves herbs," says Mike, as he walks among rows of basil and other plants used for seasoning dishes.

Mike says he has learned that when he Googles a specific plant, the best sources of information are web sites run by extension services, so he looks there first for information and brochures about whatever challenge his plants are facing.

In addition to the latest in information technology, Mike also relies on the most modern gardening equipment to prepare his soil and plant his seeds.

A tractor-pulled device called the 2400 raised bed layer covers the rows with a plastic coating that keeps out weeds; hand-held devices allow Mike to puncture holes in that plastic and place seeds, allowing for crops to grow while screening out most weeds.

Under that plastic and soil is an irrigation system that makes watering the plants very easy.

Old School history

While most younger adults may remember the site as where they attended the West Early Childhood Center, Mike remembers attending two one-room schoolhouses that had been moved from rural areas to the far west end of the property. It was, he said the first step toward incorporating rural students into the city schools. Mike believes those old buildings are around somewhere, but says nobody he has spoken to can remember exactly what happened to them. One of the two, says Mike, may be used for a house somewhere in Vinton.

The garden area was once used as a football field, says Mike.

Business development

In addition to working the rows of tomatoes, lettuce, squash, potatoes and many other items, Mike also spends many hour continuing to work on the structures of Old School.

The picnic pavilion will become his retail sales area; Mike hopes to turn the classrooms of the north part of the former West school into commercial spaces for other agriculture-related businesses.

For now, Cindy and her staff at Nature's Corner in downtown Vinton are selling lettuce and other produce from the coolers at the flower shop. Eventually Mike plans to have the growing and selling operations at the same site.

The business has a Facebook page, where Mike updates customers on the progress of the business as well as produce as it becomes available.