Showing posts with label farm Tours. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farm Tours. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Friday, September 25, 2009
Summer Summary
Fall is here which means the summer of 2009 is officially history. It was a really good summer growing and marketing season for us. the weather was cool and for the most part dry. but when we did get rain it was generally a lot and at just the right time. Still we are down over 4" on rain for the year but perhaps this fall will be wetter than normal and we will make it up.
We grew the best melons ever (and Eugene is an excellent melon grower). Maybe 2% of them were not absolutely excellent. we had several customers (and these are people who's opinions about such things I respect) tell us that our water melons were the best they have ever eaten.
The alliums out did themselves again this year, meaning they are better this year than last and last year they were incredible. Sublime garlic, gigantic leeks (and so far, all we have harvested are the small fall leeks, the winter leeks which should be 2x to 3x larger won't be ready for another month or so), beautiful onions and wonderful scallions.
The tomatoes, despite the plants succumbing to some sort of local blight (not late blight but rather something we contend with every year) fairly early, still produced a lot of huge fruits. Or at least most of them did. We did have some failures such as Black Krim which gave us few very cat faced fruits. I believe we got about 4 usable maters from 15 plants. I do not believe we will grow these again. The Paul Robeson did not do well for us but when the plants did produce typical fruit it produced some gorgeous tomatoes. I saved seed early on and this will get a second chance. The Green Zebra was something else-I believe a small red saladette type mater, something we have far too many of already. Baker Creek messed up on that and as this was about the 7th time they have messed up with us, we will not be ordering from them in 2010. I do like their philosophy but they will have to do far better with selling us correct seed, good seed and getting orders to us in a timely fashion. There are several other seed houses that do heirlooms that give us better service such as Seed Savers Exchange.
Ah enough ranting, back to maters. The great White tomato, while a bad seller, was a great producer of beautiful ivory white fruits with a good acid bite. they came on early and produced longer than just about anything else except early girls which, while early and prolific were a bit of a disappointment this year. The early girls were not as big as last year and found the flavor lacking. fortunately we had GL-18 (AKA Glick's Pride) as our mainstay red mater and they far exceeded our expectations. they were far bigger than they have been before. The shape was about perfect and they rarely cracked and had zero cat facing. It would have been nice if they could have held on a week or two longer but they got us through most of September and we had big red maters when no one else did at the farmers market, cha-ching!. The other reds we grew-the canners did really well for us but I don't think as well as last year (or was it two years ago?). We grew Amish paste and Opalka again. The Amish paste out produced the Opalka about 4:1. We grew enough of these to make and can ourselves plenty of tomato sauce, ratatouille and salsa plus we sold about 300 pounds to others so they could put up tomatoes.
The cherry tomatoes were only so so (which is actually a good thing since when they do really well that means someone has to spend several hours daily picking them and than we have to figure out what to do with the excess). We have decided never to grow green grape again since it does not sell. This means it will produce hundreds of volunteers all over the farm in the future. It is hard to get people to try the green maters. Though it seems when I can get someone to try a green grape they get hooked quickly. they are a very nice mater but for most it is hard to get past the color. The yellow pear barely produced and a lot of them were green again this year. I think it is time to get new seed. the Sun sugar did well for about 3 weeks than quit producing much and the plants now look like hell. This is good as everyone at the farmers market(s) grew this kind this year so the market was flooded and sales were way down. I think next year we will cut back a lot on the cherry tomatoes. We do not need all that many for the farm share-maybe 20 to 30 plants and it seems they have become passe at market. that will free up beds for something else next year.
Unlike last year, we have a lot of ripe peppers. Last year the peppers were very late and we got a killing frost before they got ripe. It did not help that on Sept 14th 2008 we had hurricane force winds for about 6 hours that knocked down all the pepper plants. This year things are completely different. We have a lot of huge bell peppers and they are getting ripe well before it gets cold. I have also learned to take them off the plants when they show color and they ripen up just fine indoors away from pests and diseases that tend to ruin about 50% of the ripe peppers (which is why red, yellow and orange (ripe) peppers cost twice as much as green peppers).
the raspberries out did themselves again this season. The Lathams, our early summer raspberry, was spectacular again. Heavy production and excellent quality. My only complaint was we did a piss poor job of pruning in the early spring which made parts of the raspberry patch almost impossible to harvest. Next year I am cutting back a lot more than Eugene will deem necessary (he has a problem with thinning out plants and wants to leave a lot more than should be left). The Heritage raspberries, which we mow down in early spring, had quite good production and the flavor has been sublime, far better than the Lathams (which, as I said were excellent). Eugene has this crazy notion that we should let the heritage grow and produce in spring. I have this crazy idea that he can do all the harvesting as well as tilling, seeding, transplanting and other spring chores if this happens. You see we do not need a second kind of spring raspberry when the Lathams are pumping out over 30 gallons of fruit. As it is we do not sell all the Lathams produce (we come close but in order to get rid of them we have to sell in bulk and drop the price 33%). We do sell pretty much 100% of the Late summer berries and if we allow the Heritage to have 2 crops we will lessen the fall yield by about 60% and not have enough for the FSI, store and farmers market in August and September. In other words, Eugene's idea of more spring/summer berries is a bad one on many levels.
The strawberries have not been the best. I don't think we have them in the best place and they need to be replaced this fall with new day neutral berries. the yields have been down and disease problems up. We did get a very nice crop of April may berries because we put a hoop house over them. Granted, the hoop house got nailed twice in the winter-once by heavy wet snow and than a month later by high winds. But neither incident seemed to have any effect on the berry production. it is ironic that the first year the berries have been less than great we do a farm tour and in November a workshop on sustainable berry production. I will say the farm tour attendees did not seem to care what kind of shape the berries were in. Next season we should have a new crop of berries in a new and better spot and hopefully we will be swimming strawberries all spring summer and fall next year.
The greens have been around all season. In spring we had lots of lettuce, spring mix, arugula, kale and various Asian greens. Summer we lost the lettuce-we did try to grow some several times because it was cool most of the summer but every time we started lettuce we would get 5 to 8 days of heat and humidity, always a week or two after germination and that would cause the baby lettuce to get bitter and bolt to seed. now that it is autumn we have several beds of nice lettuce growing as well as volunteers coming up around the market garden. the same thing happened with spring mix. After late June it got impossible to grow it though we did try. We did get several harvests of arugula for our efforts through the summer but nothing else from the spring mix beds. Kale and chard were the summer mainstay greens, they always are.
Broccoli did badly for us but we did get some decent cabbages. I dunno why we have such problems with broccoli, perhaps we should quit growing it. Spring radishes were hit and miss and the early red meat radishes were a complete failure. But we do have a 1/2 bed of them now that are very nice. We got really nice early rutabagas as well as red turnips. the fall red turnips are ready to harvest and store for winter, though it will be early next week before that will happen.
Finally, the Farm Share Initiative has been a great thing for us. It allowed us drop a farmers market and make more money while being allowed to stay home and get more work done. Definitely a win, win for us and the fact very few people seemed to notice there is no longer a Tuesday evening market in Oxford (maybe 10 people have asked about this this summer) tells me that we would have made less money this year than last at that market. So it is good that we are doing the FSI.
I think I will change a few things on how the FSI is run next season. This season I allowed members to sign up for the entire season but pay monthly. That will stop as it is not fair to the members that ponied up the cash for the entire season upfront. And the members who did this have all dropped out for the last month, not good. They also got a few extra weeks as I was treating them like the paid in full members as I expected them to go through the entire season. I think the monthly farm tour/pot luck will go as well since we only were able to hold two this year mostly because of a lack of interest on the part of most of the members. I think a once a year farm tour/pot luck will suffice. I am having a hard time getting it through to the members that farm visits are a very important aspect of the farm share/CSA experience. This is how one connects to their farm and without farm visits one might as well buy their food from the farmers market. I also think it is time to drop the month to month deal. This has the potential of getting very confusing which will lead to mistakes -especially when the FSI grows to more than 30 members. It will be replaced by what I used call "Share Cycles" where I break the season down into 2 or 3 month increments for those who cannot do an entire season for whatever reason.
Well, that's the summery of our summer
We grew the best melons ever (and Eugene is an excellent melon grower). Maybe 2% of them were not absolutely excellent. we had several customers (and these are people who's opinions about such things I respect) tell us that our water melons were the best they have ever eaten.
The alliums out did themselves again this year, meaning they are better this year than last and last year they were incredible. Sublime garlic, gigantic leeks (and so far, all we have harvested are the small fall leeks, the winter leeks which should be 2x to 3x larger won't be ready for another month or so), beautiful onions and wonderful scallions.
The tomatoes, despite the plants succumbing to some sort of local blight (not late blight but rather something we contend with every year) fairly early, still produced a lot of huge fruits. Or at least most of them did. We did have some failures such as Black Krim which gave us few very cat faced fruits. I believe we got about 4 usable maters from 15 plants. I do not believe we will grow these again. The Paul Robeson did not do well for us but when the plants did produce typical fruit it produced some gorgeous tomatoes. I saved seed early on and this will get a second chance. The Green Zebra was something else-I believe a small red saladette type mater, something we have far too many of already. Baker Creek messed up on that and as this was about the 7th time they have messed up with us, we will not be ordering from them in 2010. I do like their philosophy but they will have to do far better with selling us correct seed, good seed and getting orders to us in a timely fashion. There are several other seed houses that do heirlooms that give us better service such as Seed Savers Exchange.
Ah enough ranting, back to maters. The great White tomato, while a bad seller, was a great producer of beautiful ivory white fruits with a good acid bite. they came on early and produced longer than just about anything else except early girls which, while early and prolific were a bit of a disappointment this year. The early girls were not as big as last year and found the flavor lacking. fortunately we had GL-18 (AKA Glick's Pride) as our mainstay red mater and they far exceeded our expectations. they were far bigger than they have been before. The shape was about perfect and they rarely cracked and had zero cat facing. It would have been nice if they could have held on a week or two longer but they got us through most of September and we had big red maters when no one else did at the farmers market, cha-ching!. The other reds we grew-the canners did really well for us but I don't think as well as last year (or was it two years ago?). We grew Amish paste and Opalka again. The Amish paste out produced the Opalka about 4:1. We grew enough of these to make and can ourselves plenty of tomato sauce, ratatouille and salsa plus we sold about 300 pounds to others so they could put up tomatoes.
The cherry tomatoes were only so so (which is actually a good thing since when they do really well that means someone has to spend several hours daily picking them and than we have to figure out what to do with the excess). We have decided never to grow green grape again since it does not sell. This means it will produce hundreds of volunteers all over the farm in the future. It is hard to get people to try the green maters. Though it seems when I can get someone to try a green grape they get hooked quickly. they are a very nice mater but for most it is hard to get past the color. The yellow pear barely produced and a lot of them were green again this year. I think it is time to get new seed. the Sun sugar did well for about 3 weeks than quit producing much and the plants now look like hell. This is good as everyone at the farmers market(s) grew this kind this year so the market was flooded and sales were way down. I think next year we will cut back a lot on the cherry tomatoes. We do not need all that many for the farm share-maybe 20 to 30 plants and it seems they have become passe at market. that will free up beds for something else next year.
Unlike last year, we have a lot of ripe peppers. Last year the peppers were very late and we got a killing frost before they got ripe. It did not help that on Sept 14th 2008 we had hurricane force winds for about 6 hours that knocked down all the pepper plants. This year things are completely different. We have a lot of huge bell peppers and they are getting ripe well before it gets cold. I have also learned to take them off the plants when they show color and they ripen up just fine indoors away from pests and diseases that tend to ruin about 50% of the ripe peppers (which is why red, yellow and orange (ripe) peppers cost twice as much as green peppers).
the raspberries out did themselves again this season. The Lathams, our early summer raspberry, was spectacular again. Heavy production and excellent quality. My only complaint was we did a piss poor job of pruning in the early spring which made parts of the raspberry patch almost impossible to harvest. Next year I am cutting back a lot more than Eugene will deem necessary (he has a problem with thinning out plants and wants to leave a lot more than should be left). The Heritage raspberries, which we mow down in early spring, had quite good production and the flavor has been sublime, far better than the Lathams (which, as I said were excellent). Eugene has this crazy notion that we should let the heritage grow and produce in spring. I have this crazy idea that he can do all the harvesting as well as tilling, seeding, transplanting and other spring chores if this happens. You see we do not need a second kind of spring raspberry when the Lathams are pumping out over 30 gallons of fruit. As it is we do not sell all the Lathams produce (we come close but in order to get rid of them we have to sell in bulk and drop the price 33%). We do sell pretty much 100% of the Late summer berries and if we allow the Heritage to have 2 crops we will lessen the fall yield by about 60% and not have enough for the FSI, store and farmers market in August and September. In other words, Eugene's idea of more spring/summer berries is a bad one on many levels.
The strawberries have not been the best. I don't think we have them in the best place and they need to be replaced this fall with new day neutral berries. the yields have been down and disease problems up. We did get a very nice crop of April may berries because we put a hoop house over them. Granted, the hoop house got nailed twice in the winter-once by heavy wet snow and than a month later by high winds. But neither incident seemed to have any effect on the berry production. it is ironic that the first year the berries have been less than great we do a farm tour and in November a workshop on sustainable berry production. I will say the farm tour attendees did not seem to care what kind of shape the berries were in. Next season we should have a new crop of berries in a new and better spot and hopefully we will be swimming strawberries all spring summer and fall next year.
The greens have been around all season. In spring we had lots of lettuce, spring mix, arugula, kale and various Asian greens. Summer we lost the lettuce-we did try to grow some several times because it was cool most of the summer but every time we started lettuce we would get 5 to 8 days of heat and humidity, always a week or two after germination and that would cause the baby lettuce to get bitter and bolt to seed. now that it is autumn we have several beds of nice lettuce growing as well as volunteers coming up around the market garden. the same thing happened with spring mix. After late June it got impossible to grow it though we did try. We did get several harvests of arugula for our efforts through the summer but nothing else from the spring mix beds. Kale and chard were the summer mainstay greens, they always are.
Broccoli did badly for us but we did get some decent cabbages. I dunno why we have such problems with broccoli, perhaps we should quit growing it. Spring radishes were hit and miss and the early red meat radishes were a complete failure. But we do have a 1/2 bed of them now that are very nice. We got really nice early rutabagas as well as red turnips. the fall red turnips are ready to harvest and store for winter, though it will be early next week before that will happen.
Finally, the Farm Share Initiative has been a great thing for us. It allowed us drop a farmers market and make more money while being allowed to stay home and get more work done. Definitely a win, win for us and the fact very few people seemed to notice there is no longer a Tuesday evening market in Oxford (maybe 10 people have asked about this this summer) tells me that we would have made less money this year than last at that market. So it is good that we are doing the FSI.
I think I will change a few things on how the FSI is run next season. This season I allowed members to sign up for the entire season but pay monthly. That will stop as it is not fair to the members that ponied up the cash for the entire season upfront. And the members who did this have all dropped out for the last month, not good. They also got a few extra weeks as I was treating them like the paid in full members as I expected them to go through the entire season. I think the monthly farm tour/pot luck will go as well since we only were able to hold two this year mostly because of a lack of interest on the part of most of the members. I think a once a year farm tour/pot luck will suffice. I am having a hard time getting it through to the members that farm visits are a very important aspect of the farm share/CSA experience. This is how one connects to their farm and without farm visits one might as well buy their food from the farmers market. I also think it is time to drop the month to month deal. This has the potential of getting very confusing which will lead to mistakes -especially when the FSI grows to more than 30 members. It will be replaced by what I used call "Share Cycles" where I break the season down into 2 or 3 month increments for those who cannot do an entire season for whatever reason.
Well, that's the summery of our summer
Sunday, August 30, 2009
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
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 frameWednesday, June 10, 2009
May Farm Share Pot Luck and Farm Tour
Glenn Platt, Patricia Platt, patty Latham, Jim Latham (behind Patty) and Eugene Contemplating the beer in his hand.We had our first Farm Share Potluck and farm tour on May 24th, 2009. 4 of the 13 member families showed up so we have 12 people for the event.
The weather was iffy. Dark clouds threatened to rain on our farm tour and dinner (and this would not have been a bad thing as we really needed the rain-still do). But the rain held off.
At 5pm most of the people had arrived and we did introductions and set off to look at the market garden. A lot of member were impressed that we get so much food out of just 4 acres. This makes me think of the very first CSA farm tour and dinner we did about 12 years ago and everyone than was impressed with how big the market garden was-we were doing just over an acre and our members had it in their heads that were farming a much, much smaller space (like the size of a largish home garden).
Lots of good questions were asked and the Platt's son, Duncan, fell in love with the asparagus beetle larva as only a 7 year old boy can. He asked if he could collect some and we said take as many as you want. So he got a lot and later wanted to take them home-they stayed here.
After the farm tour we all sat down and ate the food everyone brought and drank apple cider and some of Eugene's home brews. Dinner consisted of a big salad I made, garlic mustard pesto over rotini, a nice paella
, cheeses from a small place in Wisconsin and cookies.
Genevieve O'Mally at the table, Duncan and Eric playing on the swing and Glenn looking off in the distanceThere was lots of good conversation-we have an interesting and well educated bunch. The main topics were the farm, organic growing and local foods. But we talked about other things as well.
The Lathams, Art and Nancy Glidden and EugeneAfter Dinner, Nancy Glidden did a short but sweet herb vinegar demonstration using our tarragon and her chive flowers. She supplied everything so we could all make a small jar of each kind of vinegar. it was fun, educational and amazingly simple. Now we all have yet another way to put up herbs for later use other than drying and freezing.
Nancy Glidden giving her herbed vinegar demo. Genevieve, Patty and Jim are making their own vinegarsOur next farm share potluck and farm tour is June 21st, the summer solstice. If you want to join us for such an event all you have to do is join our farm share program
Thursday, March 26, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Farm Tours
Eugene and a group of students from IU east
The IU East Students in the strawberry hoop house (which regular readers will note is back up after the big snow) Eugene is explaining to them how we grow spring mix over winterThis particular farm tour was for 4 students from IU East in Richmond, IN. They needed to visit a sustainable business for an anthropology class about food and they choose us. They came out in the early afternoon and we walked around the market garden in a cold biting NE wind and talked about what we do. Eventually we took the tour group into the strawberry hoop house where there was no wind and it was rather pleasant and talked about season extension and how that effects our bottom line. We than toured the store where we talked about the business side of things as well as small vs industrial agriculture and what the future holds for us. We finished up in the barn where we start our seedlings and showed them that part of the operation. It was a good tour and I believe the students got quite a bit out of it.
Correct me if I am wrong guys
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Winter Farm Tour with Cub Scout troop 511
Yesterday we hosted cub scout pack 511. Their leader, Stacy, had called 3 weeks ago to set up a form tour so the kids can get credit for some ecological/green living badge they are working towards. So I guess they thought a tour of a sustainable farm would fit the bill. Unfortunately they had to do this before the end of this month. So we did our first ever winter farm tour and it went swimmingly.
Around 15 kids, ages 8 and nine and 5 or 6 adults came out to learn a bit about sustainable farming. it was a warm day (50F) but messy because of all the melting snow. Of course, the boys loved the fact it was wet and muddy and they could be in it. We gathered everyone on the porch of the store and than set off to look at a hoop house a compost pile (which Eugene allowed the kids to turn using a potato fork. I wish I had remembered to grab the camera because the grins I saw on those faces was priceless). Than down to the bottom field where Eugene talked about nature and stuff with the kids.
I was blown away (I always am) with how receptive the kids were to all this new information. And I was happy to see the adults were also very interested in what we had to say about sustainable farming.
At the end of the tour we gathered on the store's porch again and I passed out heirloom lettuce seed packets to the kids along with boulder belt brochures and card with the information of the Oxford winter market. That really thrilled the kids (I had forgotten how cool it is as a child to get stuff to take home). Eugene explained to everyone how to plant the lettuce and I have a feeling that most of the packets will be planted this spring.
I had forgotten how much fun farm tours are and having one for kids was even better than adults. I think we will do this again.
Around 15 kids, ages 8 and nine and 5 or 6 adults came out to learn a bit about sustainable farming. it was a warm day (50F) but messy because of all the melting snow. Of course, the boys loved the fact it was wet and muddy and they could be in it. We gathered everyone on the porch of the store and than set off to look at a hoop house a compost pile (which Eugene allowed the kids to turn using a potato fork. I wish I had remembered to grab the camera because the grins I saw on those faces was priceless). Than down to the bottom field where Eugene talked about nature and stuff with the kids.
I was blown away (I always am) with how receptive the kids were to all this new information. And I was happy to see the adults were also very interested in what we had to say about sustainable farming.
At the end of the tour we gathered on the store's porch again and I passed out heirloom lettuce seed packets to the kids along with boulder belt brochures and card with the information of the Oxford winter market. That really thrilled the kids (I had forgotten how cool it is as a child to get stuff to take home). Eugene explained to everyone how to plant the lettuce and I have a feeling that most of the packets will be planted this spring.
I had forgotten how much fun farm tours are and having one for kids was even better than adults. I think we will do this again.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Got an email this afternoon form the OEFFA president asking me if Eugene and I would be interested in doing a workshop at the OEFFA Conference on pastured poultry the first weekend of March.
I have no answered her yet as I have not decided if we should or not. We do like giving workshops and have done many on topics such as CSA, season extension using row cover and Hoophouses. I do not believe we have given a conference workshop on pastured poultry though we have done farm tours featuring this topic.
It's been several years since we have given a workshop at an OEFFA conference or been to one for that matter. In the past presenters got free admission and a free meal. I would prefer some payment beyond the free admission and meal (and all other conferences that I have presented workshops at farm Tours have paid, some quite well) but OEFFA is the home team so the get freebies from us.
But the question is do we do a workshop? Whaddya think?
But the question is should we do this?
BTW if you are looking for more information about this conference just click on any of the "OEFFA" links in this post
I have no answered her yet as I have not decided if we should or not. We do like giving workshops and have done many on topics such as CSA, season extension using row cover and Hoophouses. I do not believe we have given a conference workshop on pastured poultry though we have done farm tours featuring this topic.
It's been several years since we have given a workshop at an OEFFA conference or been to one for that matter. In the past presenters got free admission and a free meal. I would prefer some payment beyond the free admission and meal (and all other conferences that I have presented workshops at farm Tours have paid, some quite well) but OEFFA is the home team so the get freebies from us.
But the question is do we do a workshop? Whaddya think?
But the question is should we do this?
BTW if you are looking for more information about this conference just click on any of the "OEFFA" links in this post
Friday, October 27, 2006
Weekend Visitors
It's raining once again so that means harvesting for tomorrow's farmers' market will be on the miserable side 'ceptin the stuff in hoophouses which will be dryish (the hoophouse plastic collects moisture and when you walk in to one it tends to dump all that moisture down the back of your neck sending a delightfully invigorating stream of water down your back and into your underwear). Fortunately, on Wednesday I did harvest some greens-turnip greens (yuk!) and spring mix (yum!) and yesterday Eugene dug more sweet taters so really the only unpleasant things to harvest will be chard and kale and perhaps some arugula (if I can find any that has not been wind burned or is too big). Oh, and we need more cilantro and parsley for tomorrow too and maybe the lettuce is big enough to cut. With two of us harvesting this should take us about 2 hours, perhaps less, of outside work. Than another couple of hours in the hoophouses harvesting and pollinating. Than another couple of hours cleaning and packing greens and roots and we are basically done with prep for market tomorrow except loading the van which can be done this evening.
And I also am expecting a visit from most of my male relatives (we will have a house of testosterone this weekend!). My brother, Dad and favorite cousin are arriving from Tiger country (that's Detroit to those few of you NOT paying attention to the World Series) some time this afternoon. I have no idea when they are leaving and don't care, they can stay for weeks if they want. Generally, when my Dad visits we do a trip down to Jungle Jim's, the world's best grocery store. I have not been to JJ's in several months and need to restock on several items-Olive oil, maple syrup, vanilla powder, flavorings such as hazelnut and orange, a case of cheap but excellent wine, a good feta (the local Kroger's and Wal-Mart both have feta but not good feta), exotic fruit and other things I have not even thought of. I guess, if we do not do a family trip to JJ's Eugene and I will have to go on our own in the next 2 to 3 weeks. The reason why I have doubts about getting to JJ's is because we are over scheduled for the weekend. We have relatives visiting, a farmers' market saturday Morning, the farm store will be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday and Eugene agreed to show an Earlham Student around the farm Sunday afternoon which would be the most logical time to go to JJ's if everyone decides to leave Monday (which they might, though I am dealing with folks who are either retired or self employed or seasonally employed so they likely will be able to stay past monday). I told him that this weekend was not the best time to schedule a farm tour and if we do decide Sunday is the day to go to JJ's he gets to stay home and tend the store and do the tour (it's his alma mater after all and he did the scheduling).
I hear the husband stirring upstairs and rain pouring on the roof (a really nice sound). The Arlo dog has just walked into the computer/guest room (he sleeps outside most nights but I let him and the other dog in when I get up around 5am and Arlo generally goes upstairs to sleep on the floor beside Eugene. Nate, the other dog does not do stairs). It is time for me to end this entry and go coffee up and watch some morning news-The Daily Buzz being the preferred news show
And I also am expecting a visit from most of my male relatives (we will have a house of testosterone this weekend!). My brother, Dad and favorite cousin are arriving from Tiger country (that's Detroit to those few of you NOT paying attention to the World Series) some time this afternoon. I have no idea when they are leaving and don't care, they can stay for weeks if they want. Generally, when my Dad visits we do a trip down to Jungle Jim's, the world's best grocery store. I have not been to JJ's in several months and need to restock on several items-Olive oil, maple syrup, vanilla powder, flavorings such as hazelnut and orange, a case of cheap but excellent wine, a good feta (the local Kroger's and Wal-Mart both have feta but not good feta), exotic fruit and other things I have not even thought of. I guess, if we do not do a family trip to JJ's Eugene and I will have to go on our own in the next 2 to 3 weeks. The reason why I have doubts about getting to JJ's is because we are over scheduled for the weekend. We have relatives visiting, a farmers' market saturday Morning, the farm store will be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday and Eugene agreed to show an Earlham Student around the farm Sunday afternoon which would be the most logical time to go to JJ's if everyone decides to leave Monday (which they might, though I am dealing with folks who are either retired or self employed or seasonally employed so they likely will be able to stay past monday). I told him that this weekend was not the best time to schedule a farm tour and if we do decide Sunday is the day to go to JJ's he gets to stay home and tend the store and do the tour (it's his alma mater after all and he did the scheduling).
I hear the husband stirring upstairs and rain pouring on the roof (a really nice sound). The Arlo dog has just walked into the computer/guest room (he sleeps outside most nights but I let him and the other dog in when I get up around 5am and Arlo generally goes upstairs to sleep on the floor beside Eugene. Nate, the other dog does not do stairs). It is time for me to end this entry and go coffee up and watch some morning news-The Daily Buzz being the preferred news show
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Farm Tours
Yesterday and today have been devoted to giving farm tours to a class from Earlham College, a Quaker School on Richmond, IN. This is the 5 or 6th time we have given this tour to this group. We did not do it last year because we were in the middle of moving the farm from the Crubaugh farm to this farm and had no time or really a farm to tour.
The students are a mix of all years and majors. They are studying sustainability and are taken to two farms. A conventionally managed grain farm owned by Earlham and us, a small organic produce farm. After doing the two tours they than have to write a paper comparing and contrasting the the two ways of doing agriculture.
One day I would like to read some of these papers to see where these people are at in their thinking about agriculture.
So what we do with the groups is take them out to the market garden and than stand around and talk about what we do, the state of organic agriculture, the difference between local organic/not certified small organic farms and industrial organics and other germane subjects and answer a lot of questions. The end of the tour takes them through the farm store where they can buy things if they want. The group yesterday had no time and no one expected to be able to shop so few had money the ones that did bought a lot of honey and other items.
I really like doing farm tours. I have always enjoyed public speaking (the one thing about 80% of the population would rather die than do) and I like discussing organic/sustainable farming topics. over the years we have given about 20 farm tours. Some have been about season extension/hoophouses. Some have been pretty general, mainly a stroll through the market garden talking about what is growing. Some are directed to students and speak mainly about sustainability issues. Some are for other market farmers or MF wannabes and are about how to set up a market garden and how to market.
I would like to get into doing more of these and doing all day tours/workshops so we can delve deeply into a subject instead of simply scratching the surface.
The students are a mix of all years and majors. They are studying sustainability and are taken to two farms. A conventionally managed grain farm owned by Earlham and us, a small organic produce farm. After doing the two tours they than have to write a paper comparing and contrasting the the two ways of doing agriculture.
One day I would like to read some of these papers to see where these people are at in their thinking about agriculture.
So what we do with the groups is take them out to the market garden and than stand around and talk about what we do, the state of organic agriculture, the difference between local organic/not certified small organic farms and industrial organics and other germane subjects and answer a lot of questions. The end of the tour takes them through the farm store where they can buy things if they want. The group yesterday had no time and no one expected to be able to shop so few had money the ones that did bought a lot of honey and other items.
I really like doing farm tours. I have always enjoyed public speaking (the one thing about 80% of the population would rather die than do) and I like discussing organic/sustainable farming topics. over the years we have given about 20 farm tours. Some have been about season extension/hoophouses. Some have been pretty general, mainly a stroll through the market garden talking about what is growing. Some are directed to students and speak mainly about sustainability issues. Some are for other market farmers or MF wannabes and are about how to set up a market garden and how to market.
I would like to get into doing more of these and doing all day tours/workshops so we can delve deeply into a subject instead of simply scratching the surface.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
The Weekend
It's been a nice weekend, weather-wise and that means things have been progressing smoothly here. Eugene, after what seems like years (but has really just been 4 or 5 weeks) has finished painting the upper roof. It is now a brilliant red and looks quite fetching. As I write, he is finishing the lower roof (see picture).Eugene also got 5 of the garden beds tilled for (hopefully) a final time before we plant the garlic which needs to go in in the next 2 weeks or so-at least before the ground freezes for the winter. I started cleaning the grass out of the beds. Rake an area than squat down and start fishing for grass roots and shoots and toss them out of the bed and rake another area. At this point this work seems meaningless but if we keep on doing this over the next few years we will have beautiful weed free beds for the long term. this is something no herbicide in a bottle will ever do, get a garden free of weeds for the long term. the best a chemical herbicide can do is get rid of the weeds short term (and do some good damage to the flora and fauna in the soil to boot).
I got a bunch of bare wood on the porch primed and ready for painting and if the wood does not get painted this fall it will be covered for winter weather. A lot of the porch still needs scraping and a good cleaning-it is dirty up in those rafters.
Today we did education. A small group of Earlham students came out to interview us and see the new farm and ask us questions about what we do and why. They had all come out to the old farm last year on a field trip to learn about sustainable agriculture.
They asked us questions like why do you farm (and other small topics) and we answered their questions and took them on a short walk around the place and told them a bit about what we wanted to do with the place.
Hopefully this will be the first in a long line of such tours. We here at Boulder Belt feel education is key to getting this idea of sustainable and local agriculture off of the ground.
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