Peter “Owl” McCabe

Ramah, NM

McKinley SWCD

Peter “Owl” McCabe lives on 40 acres in Candy Kitchen, New Mexico, where the farm’s 3-4 cultivated acres support himself, his husband, a farm manager and two others.

In addition to the home farm, McCabe is the executive director for Work in Beauty, a local nonprofit that promotes local regenerative farming. The organization also runs the Eco-Regenerative Learning Center, where they teach about regenerative agriculture, composting, soil microbiology assessments, rainwater harvesting, and erosion control. McCabe is the editor of a local tabloid, titled “The Farmer’s Beet”, that focuses on the local farmers markets and regenerative agriculture.

On his land, McCabe has always practiced organic farming, used cover crops, and utilized compost and compost tea. The only tillage utilized on the operation was at the very beginning, when McCabe worked to fix the land. He owns four hoop houses and just recently added pigs to the mix. In the hoop houses, crops are mixed to ensure there are no mono-crop rows.

McCabe has been using the Johnson-Su compost method, a method that creates compost filled with microorganisms, for three years now and has achieved a 7:1 ratio of fungi to bacteria. This compost ratio has provided a large boost to their soils.

When McCabe purchase the property about 16 years ago, the soils were compacted from overgrazing and had only 0.5 percent organic matter. Now, the soil organic matter is up to 2.1 percent and still climbing in his orchard and higher in the vegetable gardens.

At 7,200 feet in altitude, McCabe has a very short growing season and only receives about 13 inches of precipitation a year. The alkaline soils on his operation compact easily and have a very low fungal population. Thankfully, McCabe’s soil health practices are helping to mitigate these issues.

Updated January 2021.