Year-Round Hoophouse Vegetables slideshow, VABF Handouts

Tatsoi in the mist, November.
Photo Wren Vile

Busy Conference Season is here!

I just got back from the Virginia Association for Biological Farming conference in Roanoke. There I gave a half-day presentation on Year-Round Hoophouse Vegetables, which you can watch here:

Year-Round Hoophouse Vegetables 240m

The conference was very well-attended, and not everyone at my workshop on Friday, or the Alliums Year-Round 90 minute workshop on Sunday morning got a handout. I promised to post them here, and now I’m making good. I’m also posting the handout for the third workshop I gave, Asian Greens in the Winter Hoophouse. This rounds out the set, and gives a chance to those who went to a different workshop at that time to get a look in.

Year-Round Hoophouse Vegetables 8 pg handout 2023
Alliums Year-Round
Asian Greens in the Winter Hoophouse 2023

This coming weekend I will be venturing north to NOFA-Mass and giving a presentation on Crop Planning for Sustainable Vegetable Production.

To those who are wondering what happened to my monthly post Fruit for the Month, I postponed it. There isn’t so much fruit in January, is there?

Mother Earth News Fair, Local Food Hub, other events

10646717_696746683734934_2365867868579925687_n I got home last night from a wonderful Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs Pennsylvania. I heard it was a record-breaker in attendance. It’ll probably be a week before we know for sure. I gave two of my traditional favorite workshops, Succession Planting for Continuous Vegetable Harvests and Crop Planning for Sustainable Vegetable Production. They are on SlideShare, with most of my other sustainable farming slide shows, and I’m inserting them here for new readers.We ran out of handouts at the Succession Planting workshop, but the MENF staff made more, so I hope everyone who wanted one got one.

Succession planting for continuous vegetable harvests 2015 Pam Dawling 90mins from Pam Dawling

Crop planning for sustainable vegetable production 2016 Pam Dawling from Pam Dawling

footer-seal@2x

On Thursday 9/29 I will be offering a new two hour workshop on Cover Crops for Vegetable Growers with the Local Food Hub. 4-6 pm in Room 246, Albemarle County Office Building, 401 McIntire Road, Charlottesville, VA. COST: $10; free for Local Food Hub partner farms. Still some seats available, as of Tuesday morning. QUESTIONS? Email Adrianna Vargo, Director of Grower Services, at adrianna@localfoodhub.org.

Crimson clover cover crop Photo by Bridget Aleshire — Crimson clover cover crop
Photo by Bridget Aleshire

images On Saturday 10/1 I will be at Lynchburg College, 1501 Lakeside Dr, Lynchburg, VA 24501 (SW Virginia) with Ira Wallace of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, co-presenting The Seed Garden: Planning for Seed Saving and Lots of Vegetables. That’s 10.00 am to 12.30 pm. My contribution will be to talk about including a few seed crops while mainly focusing on producing vegetables. We’ll have show and tell as well as slides.

I have started an Events Page here on my website, but while I keep running from one event to another, I’m not spending the time to make it pretty. Hopefully next week. For those in Vermont – you will be getting your own Vermont Mother Earth News Fair in July 2017, and I hope to see you there!

Below is info on an interesting symposium for those doing urban agriculture.

Urban Agriculture Symposium

VIRGINIA COOPERATIVE EXTENSION, ARLINGTON COUNTY OFFICE

Fairlington Community Center, 3308 S. Stafford St., Arlington VA 22206

Telephone 703-228-6400

Contact: Kirsten Buhls, Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension Agent kbuhls@vt.edu

The 2016 VCE Urban Agriculture Symposium will be held on Saturday, Oct. 1, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Fairlington Community Center, 3308 S. Stafford St., Arlington 22206. The symposium is being held in conjunction with Urban Agriculture Month in Virginia and is sponsored by VCE and Greenstreet Garden Center in partnership with Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia.

The keynote speaker will be Carlin Rafie, assistant professor at Virginia Tech and VCE adult nutrition specialist, who will discuss the relationship between nutrition and health. In breakout sessions, Virginia Tech researchers and other experts will focus on perennial and tree crops for the urban gardener; research on growing food with biosolids; growing nutritious, low-maintenance vegetables; small-space gardening of the future; aeroponic containerized farming; teaching the next generation of gardeners; and growing microgreens and sprouts at home for winter nutrition.

Registration is open to all. The fee is $25 and covers the cost of supplies as well as refreshments and lunch for participants. More information and a registration form are available at mgnv.org; click on the link http://bit.ly/VCEUrbanAgSymposium.

Questions? Call 703-228-6414 or email mgarlalex@gmail.com.

Meanwhile in the garden, we have got lovely little kale and bigger spinach seedlings, and we are thinking about potato and sweet potato harvests in a couple of weeks.

Sweet potato harvest with carts. Usually we use a truck! Photo Nina Gentle

Slideshow on late fall, winter and early spring vegetables; Upcoming events; Know your weeds.

Last week I gave a workshop on late fall, winter and early spring vegetables for some of the growers for the Local Food Hub in Charlottesville, VA. The goal was to help local growers of sustainable produce to grow more vegetables for late fall, during the winter, and again in early spring, so that Local Food Hub can supply this good food to more people locally. Here’s a pdf of the slideshow I presented. We also had worksheets for the five priority focus crops they had chosen: bunched carrots, bunched beets, romaine lettuce, spinach and cooking greens (kale, collards, chard and Asian greens). I enjoyed meeting the other growers and came away with some ideas myself.

I’ve started to take bookings for fall workshops. So far, this is where I’ll be:

Heritage Harvest Festival, Monticello, near Charlottesville. Friday September 12, 9-10am Growing and Storing Cold-Hardy Winter Vegetables

Mother Earth News Fair, Seven Springs, PA. Saturday and Sunday September 13-14, times to be decided

Crop Rotations for Vegetables and Cover Crops

Crop Planning for Sustainable Vegetable Production

Meanwhile, at home in our gardens, we’ve been dodging big rainfalls to get our garlic harvested. Not as much as last year – we lost quite a lot to the cold wet winter weather. But what we have got is now hanging in netting in our barn to dry and cure for a few weeks.

Also on our “very pressing” list of things to do is to cut our seed potatoes and get them planted. I wrote previously about our June potato planting. Most of the garden looks very good. I’m especially noticing that our recent corn planting has few weeds – it was last year’s watermelon patch and had the biodegradable plastic mulch. I had heard other growers say the biodegradable mulch reduced weeds in future years. It’s very gratifying to see that with my own eyes. We are uncovering various cucurbits that are now flowering, so that the pollinators can get o work. (We had them covered to protect the small plants from striped cucumber beetles.) The watermelons look pretty good. the second cucumbers were full of weeds, but we are working our way along the row.

Many of the raised beds look very weedy, but nothing a big round of rototilling won’t fix! Our nine pea beds need to go. It’s a happy bit of timing that our first green beans are ready as soon as the peas give up! That way we don’t have to pick both at once.

Talking of weeds, I enjoyed a recent post by Margaret Roach on her blog A Way to Garden. In particular she mentions mugwort, which we have as an escapee from a previous deliberate planting. She also has a nice photo of galinsoga, one of our worst summer weeds in the raised beds, and links to various other weedy pages.

Events December 2013 – April 2014

Local Food Hub, Charlottesville, VA

Date: Wednesday Dec 11, 2013
Time: 3:00 – 6:00 pm
Change of Location: The new location is:

Albemarle County Office Building

Room A

1600 5th Street Extended

Charlottesville VA 22902

Cost: $25 (free for Local Food Hub Partner Producers)

http://localfoodhub.org/our-programs/workshops/

Providing for the Full Eating Season: Succession Planting for Continuous Harvests of Summer Vegetables, and Growing and Storing Cold-hardy Winter Vegetables

People eat year-round and growers need to expect this! Learn how to produce a consistent supply of produce throughout the year. The first half of this workshop will explain how to plan sowing dates for continuous supplies of popular summer crops, such as beans, squash, cucumbers and sweet corn, as well as year round lettuce. Using these planning strategies can help avoid gluts and shortages. The second half of the workshop will tackle growing at the “back end” of the year, with details on crops, timing, protection and storage. Why farm in winter? Here’s the information to succeed – tables of cold-hardiness, details of four ranges of cold-hardy crops (fall crops to harvest before serious cold, crops to keep growing into winter, crops for all-winter harvests, overwintering crops for spring harvests); scheduling; weather prediction and protection; hoophouse growing; and vegetable storage.

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Virginia Association for Biological Farming Conference, Richmond, Virginia.

Dates: Thursday January 30-Saturday February 1, 2014

Location: Doubletree by Hilton Hotel, Richmond-Midlothian, VA
Registration: $130.00 for members

http://vabf.org/conference/

Book-signings scheduled throughout the conference

“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

PASA (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture) Farming for the Future Conference

Dates: Wednesday February 5 – Saturday February 8, 2014

Location: State College, PA

Registration: $145 for members for Friday and Saturday?

http://www.pasafarming.org/events/conference

Book-signing

Producing Asian Greens

Detailed information for market and home growers. Many varieties of tasty, nutritious greens grow quickly and bring fast returns. This session covers production of Asian greens outdoors and in the hoophouse. It includes tips on variety selection of over twenty types of Asian greens; timing of plantings; pest and disease management; fertility; weed management and harvesting.

Cold-hardy Winter Vegetables

Details on crops, timing, protection and storage. Why farm in winter? Here’s the information to succeed – tables of cold-hardiness, details of four ranges of cold-hardy crops (fall crops to harvest before serious cold, crops to keep growing into winter, crops for all-winter harvests, overwintering crops for spring harvests); scheduling; weather prediction and protection; hoophouse growing; vegetable storage.

“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““

Lynchburg College

Date: Saturday February 15 2014 10am to 3 pm

Location: Lynchburg College, SW Virginia

Feeding Ourselves Sustainably Year Round

10-11 Grow a Sustainable Diet–Cindy Conner

11-11:10 Break

11:10-12:10 Year Round Gardening–Ira Wallace

12:10-1:10 Lunch

1:10-1:50 Understanding and Using Seed Catalogs –small group activity.

1:50-2.00 Break
2.00-3.00 Crop Rotations, Cover Crops, and Compost — Pam Dawling

Details to be confirmed soon

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

CSA Expert Exchange Online Conference, Small Farm Central and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture

Dates: March 6-7, 2014

Location: Online

Registration: $70 for access to both days

www.csafarmconference.com

Crop Planning for Sustainable Vegetable Production

A step-by-step approach to closing the planning circle, so that you can produce crops when you want them and in the right quantities, so you can sell them where and when you need to and support yourself with a rewarding livelihood while replenishing the soil. Never repeat the same mistake two years running!

“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`

Mother Earth News Fair, Asheville (confirmed 12/21/13)

Dates: Saturday April 12 – Sunday April 13, 2014

Location: Western North Carolina Agricultural Center, 1301 Fanning Bridge Road,
Fletcher, NC 28732

Registration:?

http://www.motherearthnews.com/fair/north-carolina.aspx#axzz2k02EAfZq

Workshop topic to be decided

“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““