Well, we are getting back on the horse/bicycle after being hacked, and hoping to return to normal. Here is my other presentation from the SSAWG conference: Storage Vegetables for Off-Season Sales.
The three presentations I gave this past weekend at the PASA Conference can be found at SlideShare. Click the link to get directly to the first of the pages with my presentations on it, or go to the SlideShare site and put my name or that of the presentation you want in the search box. I presented Growing Sweet Potatoes from Start to Finish, Crop Rotations for Vegetables and Cover Crops and Succession Planting for Continuous Vegetable Harvests
Dealing with the hack has taken a lot of time and energy, so this post will be short. Today has been unseasonably warm, and atypically windy. We have been pruning blueberries, preparing raised beds and harvesting spinach, leeks and garlic scallions, our first “new” crop of 2017. Usually I reckon on starting to harvest these March 1st, but they have grown a lot recently. They are about 6″ tall. A very flavorful fresh taste for this time of year (the Hungry Gap) when we mostly get leafy greens and stored roots.
Simply set aside all the tiny garlic cloves when you do your main planting, prepare a series of furrows close together. Tumble in the cloves, shoulder to shoulder, any way up. Cover the furrows, mulch over the soil and wait for early spring. When the garlic scallions are at least 6″ tall, start digging them up. Use them raw if you are inclined, or chop and cook them in omelets, stir-fries, soups, anywhere you’d like the taste of garlic. Pow!
I’ve got my Events Page organized now, so you can check there whenever you’re wondering where I might show up next, addressing a conference or a classroom.
In January, I will be speaking at two conferences: VABF and SSAWG.
Two 90 minute workshops:Cover Crops for Vegetable GrowersandSpring and Summer Hoophouses. Book signing and sales.
Jan 25-28, 2017 Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Practical Tools and Solutions for Sustaining Family Farms Conference http://www.ssawg.org/january-2017-conference/ Location: Hyatt Regency Hotel and Convention Center, 401 West High St, Lexington, KY 40507. 888 421 1442, 800 233 1234. Registration:http://www.ssawg.org/registration
Two 90 minute workshops:Diversify your Vegetable Crops(Friday 2-3.30pm) and Storage Vegetables for Off-SeasonSales (Saturday 8.15-9.45 am). Workshops will be recorded. Book signing (Thursday 5pm) and sales.
I recently discovered an interesting website and blog: Family Food Garden by Isis Loran. I found it because Isis recommends my book Sustainable Market Farming in her article on designing for large-scale family food production. She lives in zone 5 in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada.
Isis Loran is collecting and sharing a lot of good information, and she has written a book Planning and Designing the Family Food Garden (which I haven’t seen yet). The E-book is $12.99 online, and you can preview 12 pages before buying.
She also sells a 23 page garden planner via Etsy, the craft retail site, for $11.05 Canadian.
For growers more at the farmer end of the scale than the family garden end, the November/December issue of the Organic Broadcasterfrom MOSES is out.
There’s an article Farmers use creative mix of new technology, adapted equipment to grow row crops. Carolyn Olsen writes about a 36 burner flame-weeder they made from a sprayer!
In Expanding market offers opportunities for herb growers to create value-added products, Jane Hawley Stevens, of Four Elements Organic Herbals, writes about growing more than 150 varieties of herbs on their 130-acre certified organic farm near Madison, Wisconsin. In SILT offers permanent solution to affordable land access in Iowa, Denise O’Brien describes the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT), a new model that reduces land costs for sustainable food farmers for generations to come. SILT permanently protects land from development, for truly sustainable production of food. Retiring farmers are donating land to this worthy cause.
There are more articles, some about livestock, one about the questionable organic certification on some imported grain crops, one about farm finances, and many more.
Lastly, I’d like to hear from you if you know of a college using my book for a text for sustainable agriculture courses. I know of a few in Virginia, but I’d like to hear more. At the Carolina farm Stewardship Conference at the beginning of November, I met a student at the Central Carolina Community College. The “green-collar” workforce in the “Green Central” program learns about Sustainable Ag and according to the student I spoke with, they chose my book because it is more regionally appropriate for the Carolinas.
I’d like to make more contacts with teachers of sustainable ag courses, and look into marketing my book as a text.
Hoophouse lettuce in winter at Twin Oaks. Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
