By Marcia Barnes
Staff Writer
Corey Harper takes his time with trees in the meadow as well as all the vegetables and fruits grown in raised beds near the back of the house. Harper has full time work as a technical expert troubleshooting computer and network issues for clients, but when he’s not on assignment Harper is most likely in the garden.
He’s doing more than the normal planting, weeding and harvesting. Harper is measuring the growth and health of every green thing where he has an antenna and is using electroculture and magnetoculture to help the plantings grow and produce abundantly.
In the meadow, some antennas reach 25 feet in height and are stabilized at ground level with steel rods near the trunks of apple, pear, peach, cherry, pecan, almond, mulberry, fig, pomegranate trees and paw paw. Harper has placed circular wire netting around each tree to protect them from deer.
“I planted this peach tree one and a half years ago. The main point is to stimulate that plant and keep the sap flowing better. Using electroculture will draw bugs that are beneficial because it’s bringing everything into harmony,” Harper said.
There are praying mantises, lady bugs and bees that do that. Harper also keeps bees.
Harper said that the book which got him started in electroculture gardening techniques was “Electroculture” by Justin Christofleau and that he found out about the book because of Matt Roeske: www.cultivateelevate.com/electroculture. He found out about magnetoculture from Yannick Van Doorne. This is another technique he employs on the 3.2 acre farm.
As a tech guy, Harper comes to these interests naturally. His knowledge in growing things also comes from his father.
“My dad is Dr. Lowry Harper. He has a Masters in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Florida and a PhD in Physics from University of Georgia, Athens. His lifelong career was with the United States Department of Agriculture and we always had a family garden while I was growing up which is how I learned to be a master gardener.”
Harper said much of his father’s work was field work in staple foods that feed the world, like wheat and corn, and that his dad traveled the world for the USDA on research projects. Lowry developed the first way to record nitrogen levels and other trace gas levels using physics.
Corey wants to know what’s in the soil, what’s going into the plant. He doesn’t grow food for other people and grows heirloom and non-GMO plants, believing the body synthesizes these foods better.
“When I use electroculture, I don’t have to use any pesticides and don’t have to use any fertilizer, Harper said.
The electroculture antennas which Harper makes consist of thin gauge copper wire coiled around a small diameter bamboo stick, usually with a quartz crystal on top to amplify the energetic effect. Harper said they are easy to construct.
“If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere you’re supposed to wind the wire bottom to the top down clockwise; below the Equator, counter clockwise,” Harper said. “A bamboo stick with 12 gauge bare copper wire will work, you don’t necessarily need this gauge, 16 gauge wire is easier to work with and it goes into the soil 5 to 6 inches deep with the top of the antenna above the plants.
“Always, always, always taller than what the plant is and the crystal rock at the top will be a help. Copper also drives away snails because snails have a copper-based blood.”
Raised-bed container gardens behind the house provide more evidence that Harper’s technical approach to growing is at work. The grapes vines are 10 feet high and Harper said that the growth happened within two weeks. There’s a whole bunch of mint, carrots, volunteer kale and some younger Ethiopian and Siberian kale planted with electroculture antennas.
“I’ve got leeks and onions that are done, I’ll have to pull them. Actually, they’re chives,” Harper said. “There’s oregano, a lot of rosemary, cilantro and the English walnut tree is going into the meadow. I need to find a place to put it.
“There’s another one called a Heartnut and when you take it out of the shell it looks different, it’s heart shaped, like a heart you would draw.”
Harper’s potatoes grown after the winter were ready for harvest though not humongous and smaller ones would be replanted. Self-sufficiency coupled with Harper’s desire to experiment fuel the work. He said that intentionally he does not put antennas into some of the built-up boxes and where he has installed antennas the plants grow more quickly and grow without any pests bothering them.
Pumpkin, watermelon, butternut squash, asparagus, sugar snap beans, cucumbers, black-eyed peas and black raspberries ready-to-pick filled the area in early June. Harper also had a section where he’s was bringing things back to life that were damaged by frost or the lawn mower running over them.
Harper and his wife Rachel eat asparagus in the spring and fall. The black raspberries are plentiful, the roots are now 3 years old and the farm has a nectarine tree that’s very new.
“All of my stuff did survive the freezes and that’s because the sap flows better in the plant with electroculture and causes it to be more freeze proof, also more heat tolerant. It’s almost like anti-freeze for your plant,” Harper said.
Harper planted his rhubarb next to a wire fence and said that something was starting to eat it. Then it moved on.
“The whole point to insects is to clean up things, but if it realizes it doesn’t need to clean up something it just goes on to the next plant. With electroculture, the plant grows not only more abundantly, but more healthy and so it doesn’t give off the infrared signature that all insects have a detector for.
“You’re not supposed to pull but about a third of the stalks. One of the blueberry bushes came in and I harvested all the blueberries and pulled a couple of stalks to make a blueberry-rhubarb pie.”
Fairly new in Harper’s garden is bok choy and cantaloupe. While the antennas are keeping fruits and vegetables growing better, will it keep snakes away? Harper doesn’t think so, but knows the fence will keep deer and other animals out.
Harper said that most likely a racoon will not scale an 8 foot fence, but a bear did come into the orchard one year and ate all of the apples on a tree. He has a high and visible metal snake above the Better Boy tomatoes to keep birds away.
Out of all the growing plants Harper said that the most interesting thing for him to see was the container of Yukon Gold potatoes planted on April 10, after the last freeze. By June 10th the potato plants were 4 feet high and Harper said that he knew they would be ready to harvest in a few weeks.
“I’ll be able to get two growing seasons for potatoes from here,” Harper said while standing in the area where he uses magnetoculture beneath the raised beds to increase a healthy growing environment.
It was a leap of faith when Harper left his career in technology in Atlanta and moved to the mountains to start a new business which he named Real Help. He and Rachel made the life-changing move in May 2021 and that’s when he began growing blueberries.
Soil-deep in electroculture, Harper remains dedicated to the computer business he manages, and as for magnetoculture, that is another story to be continued.