Farm Share Season Approaches

It's been raining the past 36 hours. We have gotten over two inches and it has removed all traces of snow from the farm and made everything a sodden muddy mess. But through that mass of mud are signs of spring. The yellow crocuses have popped up and are in full bloom. They will soon be followed by dark violet and light violet and finally white crocuses. Daffodil spikes are shooting above the ground enmasse (I should have dug them up and divided them last fall but didn't which should mean a really nice display this year).

Along with the flowers we have some early herbs waking up in the market garden. Tarragon, chives and garlic chives have all emerged and should be ready to harvest about the same time as the first week of the farm shares and that is exactly what I hoped would happen. Some years these things come in earlier than other years Though, this looks like an average year.

This makes me happy as I usually have some anxiety early in the farm share season that we won't have enough variety to would be able to fill orders imaginatively and well. I should not worry as we have been starting the farm shares in early to mid April and have never had a problem making really nice shares from the early crops. And yet I do. This year it looks like we will have much to choose from for the first few weeks including the afore mentioned chives and tarragon. Plus thyme, cilantro, spinach, broccoli raab, heirloom lettuces, spring mix, parsnips, radishes, arugula, popcorn, garlic, potatoes and leeks.

You may have noticed the April shares will be heavily on greens. That is because that is what grows in the spring and what you eat when eating seasonally. As the season goes from early spring into spring than summer the produce selection will change. May is usually heavy on peas and asparagus in addition to the greens. June is heavy beets, zucchini, broccoli, raspberries mid way through and greens.

As the weather gets hotter the weight of the shares gets heavier as the food changes from leafy to greens to more substantial fruits and vegetables such as squash, tomatoes and melons.

That is the nature of our business.

if you have an interest in joining our farm Share initiative there is still some room. See our CSA page for all the gory details

Paul Stamets ways Mushrooms can Save the World

Watch this video and than buy his book via this blog

The IFO Farm Tour

Tour goers gathering in front of the store before the tour commenced

We hosted a farm tour today in association with Innovative Farmers of Ohio. We talked about sustainable strawberry and raspberry production. Around 20 people came out for the event and a good time seemed to be had by all.

We got started at 3pm with Sharon Sachs introducing us to the tourees. We spoke about what we would be discussing on the tour than everyone was invited to introduce themselves and tell us what they wanted to do with berries (market farm or backyard gardener) Many were backyard gardeners though there were several farmers there as well

After the introductions we got started with the tour and took everyone behind the store and out to the market garden.

This is me explaining how to get bigger berries by pulling certain flowers off a fall

talking irrigation and ground covers

Now we are all done talking about strawberries and we are starting towards the raspberries and pointing out things as we go.

part of the tour group by the raspberries


talking about pruning raspberries

Look! Over there!

Enjoying the farm

Tour is almost over at this point and Eugene is showing off a cold frame

First Farm Share is in the Bag

The food for 6 shares right before being divided up and put into bags. From left to right (1st row) we have chives, dried basil, garlic, scallions (2nd row) cilantro, leeks, apples (back) Spinach, parsnips & lettuce

Today is the opening of the Boulder Belt Eco Farm Farm Share Program. I am excited to get this program underway. The first week will likely be the week with the least amount of food and we still were able to get 10 items into each share. This week our members get Lettuce, spinach, parsnips, scallions, chives, cilantro, dried basil (cinnamon or Genovese), leeks, garlic and the last of the apples. Plus members get a newsletter with a recipe.

The past week or so the weather has been very nice-alternating sun with rain, warmish, a few tornado warnings (really, on Sunday evening 2 Tornado warnings went up for Preble County. one right after the other. Both Came right over top of the farm and property much ran out of steam than tried to reformed north east of us. We figure our Karma with nature-what with us farming sustainably and our reverence for all the critters on the farm (we protect even the wasps, snakes and spiders because they are excellent hunters for us)-kept the storms light and undamaging), general spring weather. But yesterday and today we have had cold, windy, snowy days. Not the best conditions to harvest but we were out in the snow getting scallions, chives and cilantro today because it had to be done. Harvesting for Thursday's group will be much more pleasent as it is supposed to be sunny and in the mid to upper 50's (about perfect weather, if you ask me).

In the coming weeks our members will see things like D'avignon radishes, snow peas, strawberries, arugula, spring mix and more in their spring shares

Better straw

Went out later in the day to finish the mulching and was pleasantly surprised to find all the other bales of straw that I used (one I did not use as it has the same green color of the thistle infested bale, and I did not need it) absolutely free of thistle. So I got the 11 asparagus beds I did not get in the morning all mulched and in some cases pulled out a lot of dandelion and clover. In another 3 to 4 weeks we out to start seeing spear.

I am relieved that most of the straw is clean and we will not be forced into buying not certified organic straw nor will have to use chemical herbicides to combat the weeds being brought in by seedy straw

It took me about 2 hours to weed and mulch 11 beds. It took me about an hour to mulch the first bed with thistle straw because I had to go over and over the mulch in the bed to get as much thistle as possible

Like a CSA Only More So

On Facebook today I was asked what makes our farm Share Program "more so" as in "Like a CSA Only More So", good question.

I have noticed as the locavore and organic foods movements gain strength more and more people are jumping on the bandwagon. This is good as long as the people are local producers. But producing all the food you sell is a lot of hard work. So when something is hot there are people who are not exactly honest about what they do. I have seen a lot of this with the USDA certified organics program. Check out the Organic Consumers Association's as well as La Vida Locavore for some eye openers as to how companies thwart the regulations.

Well, I see the same thing is happening with the locavore movement. My first inkling of this was when I was interviewed by Ben Sutherly of the Dayton Daily News last year about Fulton's Farm Market getting into the CSA biz. At the time I was not exactly pro-CSA and was less so when I had described to me how they would do their CSA. It would go something like 10 months of the year and most of the year members would get about 40% of their share from produce grown on Fulton farms and the rest would come from elsewhere. And I was told Fulton's had invested in a fleet of delivery vans to deliver the shares to the member's doors.

This rankled me because one of the reason's one should use the CSA model as a marketing tool is so the members get reconnected with the farm. This cannot happen if everything is delivered off farm. If the farmer is not growing most of the food, well, how can that farmer hope to be able to start the reconnection of eater to their food process. I say it would be getting close to impossible.

This winter via the Cincinnati locavore email list I was made aware of Door to Door Organics which advertises itself as a CSA as well (but at least they don't claim to be a farm). I was also made aware of another such company setting up shop in SW Ohio/Cincinnati area but I cannot recall the name. Anyhoo, I have a real problem with such companies saying they are CSA when they have no connection to a farm. Yes, they may buy from some local farms but this is not Community Supported Agriculture in any way shape or form.

So here we have various example of the CSA marketing model being stretched all out of shape so pinhookers (a term I like for farmers who resell) and non farmers can participate. A model so warped that there is virtually no agriculture left for a community to support. A model so bent out of shape that it is a parody of itself.

And this is why I say our Farm Share Program Is Like a CSA Only More SO. Because, like fewer and fewer such programs, ours is farmed based, does not have any delivery and has activities such as farm tours that, hopefully, will engage our members with the farm they have joined.
When people join our FSP they will be getting food grown on our farm and they will be able to experience a real deeply sustainable working small diversified farm that is there to serve our fellow locavores.

The Last Winter Farm Share

This is the news letter for the last Farm Share of our Winter program

Greetings and salutations Farm Share Folk,

Here it is last winter share-we made it through despite the weather being a lot colder than is normally is in late fall/very early winter. I don't know about you guys but I am happy with the way things went. I would have like it to be a lot warmer in November and the first part of December so that the greens would be more varied. the kale took a big hit early on (and very unexpectedly as it is supposed to take cold down to -10 if protected) and I know some of you really really love kale. but this is a part of the becoming a member of a farm.

Overall though, the variety was good and the shares were always worth far more than the $25 a week you paid. Next winter I will likely double the share price and make the shares much bigger, especially since winter shares happen every two weeks and not weekly unlike the main season which will be weekly shares.

Okay, since the last share it got cold-our lowest point was -14F which means we likely lost a lot of over wintered crops as most are good to around -10F if properly protected but below that all bets are off. The good news is we harvested spring mix and heirloom lettuce heads before it got so sold. granted the greens are not fresh picked but in winter these things last a lot longer than they do in the summer. I suspect this is because they are not growing much this time of year and that inertia carries on after harvest so they do start rotting but at about 1/10 the speed they do in summer. I know I have some lettuce in the home fridge I picked for the December farmers market which is in fine shape and still tastes good. The spring mix you are getting superb-we have been eating it lunch and dinner (and one breakfast) for the past 9 days or so. The lettuce we have not touched because we have spring mix and like it more than plain old lettuce.

I still have not heard from most of you as to whether or not you want to join the spring farm share program. You can go month by month or sign up for the entire 31 week season. If you can get friends to sign up as well than you can divide up the driving duties. We do this with our raw milk share-there is another family in Eaton and we pick up twice a month between us so we only have to drive to Middletown once a month (we used to pick up milk weekly and had no one to divide up the driving with for about 2 years so we do know about the drill of driving to get local foods)

We hope to see most of you as members come April.

We sincerely mean it when we say thanks for your support on this trial CSA deal. We did a CSA for over 10 years and dropped it because we did not like where it was going. We were a bit uneasy with this winter farm share program at first because of the sour taste our old CSA left in our mouths. But you guys have given us faith that this form or marketing can work for us. Now we are very excited about the main farm share season. So again, thanks a zillion for your support

Okay, on that note, here is what I am planning on putting in each share

Lettuce
Spring mix-1 to 2 heads
Red onions-over a pound
Parsnips
Carrots
Garlic
Garlic powder-I make this from the 3 different garlic s we grow. If you have not had this before know it is a lot stronger than store bought garlic. It's powerful good
Honey (we do not raise bees but buy this from a crazy guy who lives about 5 miles from us and has organic bees, or as organic as you can get bees around here)
Red turnips
Potatoes-mainly red and white taters
dried Cinnamon basil
catnip-if you do not have cats this makes a nice soothing tea. just put some in a tea ball and steep for 3 to 5 minutes. If you have a cat than crumble a small amount in front of them and watch the entertainment start.

Recipe

Roasted Vegetables
Preheat the oven to 400F
Clean and cut into big chunks root vegetables such as garlic (leave whole) red or yellow onions, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, turnips, potatoes, beets and celery (which is not a root vegetable) is very nice). Put everything into a roasting pan and drizzle a good olive oil over top and sprinkle some kosher or seas salt, cover and put in the hot oven for about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. When you smell the veggies and they are soft it is done. Serve with a salad and a nice crunchy bread.

Food Issues

It looks bad for our food system. High petro prices is having a negative impact on how grains are farmed either conventionally or organically. the price for flour I buy, Kroger certified organic, has remained steady but I suspect in the next few days the price will go up 50% or so (if it hasn't already, I have not bought flour in about 10 days). This happened with King Arthur flour which I can no longer afford when there are cheaper options that are also certified organic.

I was in TSC buying dog food and looked at the price of chicken feed. It was going for 27¢ a pound if you got it 5 pound bags. It was lower for larger amounts. 27¢ per pound is what I was paying last year for certified organic chicken feed. This year it is well over 35¢ a pound and thus too expensive for us to buy to feed meat chickens. So, for the first time in 12 or so years, we will not be raising chickens for sale or for ourselves (we may still get 30 or so for our own freezer even though they will be expensive birds, we have not yet decided.). I will say local organic feed prices are not rising nearly as fast as conventional and likely would have stayed pretty steady had the Filbruns soybean crop not crapped out on them last year causing them to have to buy in semi loads of organic soy from other parts of the country. Dale told me the soy cost him $22K, double what it cost last year

If we were to raise birds, with the increase in feed, gas and likely processing, we would have to charge at least $7 a pound for a whole chicken. Though at $7 a pound we would profit just $150 for 7 weeks of work. Not our highest profit margin by any means and chickens are a lot more work than produce (which is a lot of work in and of itself).

Already I hear there is some rationing going on in the country. Wal-Mart/Sam's Club is limiting how much rice a person can buy. This will probably get worse. I am wondering if this will be an issue with local foods. People not being able to grow enough for what I think will be a sharply increased demand. though in all likelihood the non-locavores will be slow to realize that if they want to eat they are going to have to find local sources for their food and also will have to grow some of what they eat themselves.

I was thinking about this last night after reading a thread on the SSE forum about food and farming and famine (I have been reading a lot about this over the past 10 years or so and even more in the past month as the mainstream is beginning to realize that our agriculture system is broken and food is important, maybe as important as money) that my county, while rural and a big agricultural county, cannot feed itself because most the acreage is planted in commodity crops-corn, soy with a bit of wheat and other grains and livestock. There are very few produce farms and most of the produce land will be put into sweet corn. I can think of maybe 10 farms in the county producing (non commodity) food on any kind of commercial scale. I think (hope) there are more than that. The Eaton farmers market has mostly very small producers and the biggest "farm" grows nothing at all, they resell what they don't grow (and I suspect they will will be just about out of business after this season).

So how is Preble County gonna feed itself? We cannot eat corn and soy grown for the industrial trades like ethanol (which is the worst idea humans have come up with, perhaps ever.), There is a lot of cattle and hogs raise in PC. But a meat based diet just ain't healthy and a lot of that cattle is grain fed so soon enough will no longer be raised because the price of corn and soy are getting too high. A lot of people have deluded themselves into thinking that we have the best agriculture system in the history of the world but now the gild is off the lily and we can see that the Green Revolution Ag system so dependent on cheap oil has been feeding us bad food and also has been destabilizing the planet for 50 years now. Before the green revolution more people farmed and overall the diet was better (more whole foods and less processed food). In developing countries before they were told told to get modern with their farming people were in great poverty but the family system/culture was intact and people were able to feed and cloth themselves very well. now that they grow for the commodity system they are still desperately poor but because of money they are now taxed by the government, do not have enough to eat and the family system has been broken. But the the people in charge of business are making a lot of money off of the labor of these poor third worlders and of course we in the first world even if we are not rich and powerful get to drink cheap coffee and eat inexpensive bananas.

Change is here folks, cause by a combination of climate change, bad Ag. policies and most importantly greed. I suggest you learn as much as you can as quickly as you can about food, where it comes from, what is in it and how to make your own. if you continue to depend on the corporate tit to feed you will go hungry.

No Gas Market Garden

It has occurred to us Bouldarians the past couple of days that we have used no gas in the planting and maintenance of the market garden this year. All the beds have been prepped either with the big broadfork or the wheel hoe and than raked. No tiller needed.

Eugene is finding that by doing everything by hand means a lot more finesse. Machines tend to compact the soil and break things like irrigation lines and young plants if one is not careful. Using a hoe, shovel or broadfork is a lot easier on the soil and the environment.

If we could get over our addiction to plastic food grade buckets, row cover, hoop house plastic, plastic seedling trays, and the landscape fabric we would would be pretty durned sustainable along with driving a V-8 Dodge Ram Van (though we do not drive daily and always combine trips) and using the grid for electric and natural gas. As it is, for Americans, we are quite sustainable but I believe we can and will do better.

At any rate, I hope we can continue with gas free farming for a while yet. Eventually the BCS will have to be used for something like mowing the hillside and likely a couple of new beds will be opened up this spring and that is a lot faster with the plow and tiller (like 5 hours to open a bed by hand, 30 minutes with the plow and tiller). And the grass will grow and while we do have a reel mower to use it the grass has to be short and doing 2+ acres with one is not realistic. So the gas mowers will have to be used to keep the grass neat and well kept so the neighbors do not look badly upon us (and they will too-it's the American way).