PASA Conference, Organic biodegradable mulch

I’ll be presenting three workshops at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Farming for the Future Conference February 7-10, 2018. The event is at State College, PA, and will likely draw in 1500-2000 people.

Storage Vegetables for Off-Season Sales Friday 12.50 – 2.10 pm

Grow crops you can sell during the winter, while allowing yourself some down-time and reprieve from outdoor work. Choose suitable crops, schedules and storage conditions. Understand your weather and basic crop protection. This workshop will provide tables of cold-hardiness and details of four ranges of cold-hardy crops (warm and cool weather crops to harvest and store before very cold weather; crops to keep alive in the ground further into winter, then store; hardy crops to store in the ground and harvest during the winter, and overwinter crops for early spring harvests before the main season). It includes tables of storage conditions needed for different vegetables and suggestions of suitable storage methods, with and without electricity.

Crimson clover cover crop.
Photo McCune Porter

Cover Crops for Vegetable Growers Saturday 8.30 – 9.50 am

Using cover crops to feed and improve the soil, smother weeds, and prevent soil erosion. Selecting cover crops to make use of opportunities year round: early spring, summer, fall and going into winter. Fitting cover crops into the schedule of vegetable production while maintaining a healthy crop rotation.

Misty November morning in the hoophouse.
Photo Pam Dawling

Fall and Winter Hoophouses Saturday Feb 10 12.50-2.10pm

How to grow varied and plentiful winter greens for cooking and salads; turnips, radishes and scallions. How to get continuous harvests and maximize use of this valuable space, including transplanting indoors from outdoors in the fall. The workshop includes tips to help minimize unhealthy levels of nitrates in cold weather with short days. Late winter uses can include growing bare-root transplants for planting outdoors in spring.

There will be handouts for each workshop and book-signing on Friday at 5.15pm.

The Farming for the Future Conference is PASA’s featured event, held annually in February. We seek to gather a diverse audience from the sustainable food system including farmers, educators, processors, advocates, and eaters – please join us! Each year we feature:

  • Over 100 speakers representing the best from the sustainable agriculture field and our membership.

  • A variety of sustainable farming and food system programming including full-day tracks, half-day sessions, and 80-minute workshops across the fours days of the event.

  • Over 90 Trade Show vendors representing the broad diversity and deep expertise of our community.

  • Opportunities to network and socialize over receptions and meals that feature regionally-source ingredients.

  • An ag-themed Future Farmers program for kids (K to Grade 8).

  • Special events like music, movie, yoga, knitting, and more!


I’ll return to Pennsylvania in September for the Mother Earth News Fair – see my Events page for more on that.

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Organic Biodegradable Mulch

The Fruit Growers News announced

“Minnesota-based Organix Solutions has received a certification of its product line of black soil biodegradable agricultural mulch film. The OK biodegradable SOIL Certification from Vinçotte International verifies that the product, called Organix A.G. Film, will completely biodegrade in the soil without adversely affecting the environment according to international standards, according to a release from Organix.”

These mulch films are made with ecovio, a compostable biopolymer by BASF – a material that completely biodegrades in a commercially reasonable period. Microbes in the soil  break down the film into CO2, biomass and water. You can  to order online from the Organix link.

This is big news for certified USDA Organic growers, if they can get their certifier to agree with Vinçotte International and certify this material. Previously available biodegradable mulch films have not been accepted as Organic. Here’s a brief history:

In 2014 biodegradable biobased mulch films were added to the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances permitting their use in organic production as long as they met certain criteria, and were not made from genetically modified organisms. The criteria are:

  1. Meeting the compostability specifications of one of the following standards: ASTM D6400, ASTM D6868, EN 13432, EN 14995, or ISO 17088;
  2. Demonstrating at least 90% biodegradation absolute or relative to microcrystalline cellulose in less than two years, in soil, according to one of the following test methods: ISO 17556 or ASTM D5988; and
  3. Being biobased with content determined using ASTM D6866

In January 2015, National Organic Program (NOP) Memo 15-1 further clarified that these mulches cannot include any prohibited ingredients. OMRI researched the availability of these mulches  and found no product on the market in 2015 that met the standard.

Bioplastic mulches are made of several polymers, some derived from renewable vegetable biomass and others from biodegradable fossil fuel materials (petroleum products).

As explained by Johanna Mirenda, OMRI Technical Director in The Dirt on Biodegradable Plastics in 2015:

For example, some currently available biodegradable mulches are made primarily with polylactic acid, an ingredient derived from corn starch, tapioca root, or sugarcane, but they also contain feedstocks derived from petroleum chemicals. More details about the makeup and manufacturing process are available in OMRI’s Report on Biodegradable Biobased Mulch Films, authored for the USDA.

Read the full Final Rule here.

And here’s a thoughtful, constructive article from Broadfork Farm in Canada after Canada’s Organic Certification Scheme decertified biodegradable mulches in 2016.

I’ve written in the past about our use of biodegradable mulch and how we roll it out by hand, with a team of people.

Rolling biodegradable plastic mulch by hand
Photo Wren Vile

Events I’ll be presenting at

Now I have the first three events of 2015 under my belt (Virginia Biofarming Conference, PASA Farming for the Future Conferece and the West Virginia Small Farms Conference, I am thinking about the next ones. Here’s the list for the rest of 2015:

MENFairLogoMother Earth News Fair, Asheville Anticipated Weekend Attendance: 15,000.

Dates: Saturday April 11 – Sunday April 12, 2015

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

Registration: $25 weekend pass.

motherearthnews.com/fair/north-carolina.aspx#axzz2k02EAfZq

motherearthnews.com/fair/exhibit.aspx#axzz3GJibTyC4

My Workshops: Hoophouse Spring and Summer Crops, Hoophouse Fall and Winter Crops

Booksigning


 

HHF Save the Date_2015Heritage Harvest Festival

Dates: Friday-Saturday September 11-12 2015

Location: Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia

Tickets: TBD. $10 in 2014, plus $10-15 per premium workshop

http://heritageharvestfestival.com.

My Workshops: Crop Rotations (Friday 1.30pm Premium Workshop in the Woodland Pavilion), Asian Greens (Saturday 4.30 pm in the Organic Gardening Tent at the Mountaintop – free workshop)

Book-signing


 

MENFairLogoMother Earth News Fair, Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. (to be confirmed) Anticipated Weekend Attendance: 18,000

Dates: Friday-Sunday September 18-20, 2015

Location: Seven Springs Mountain Resort, 777 Waterwheel Drive, Seven Springs, Pa. 15622

Registration: $20 weekend pass

motherearthnews.com/fair/pennsylvania.aspx#ixzz2k4f4jIuB

My Workshop topics to be decided

Booksigning


MENFairLogoMother Earth News Fair, Topeka, KS (to be confirmed) Anticipated Weekend Attendance: 12,000

Dates: October 24-25, 2015

Location: One Expocentre Dr., Topeka, KS 66612

Registration: $20 weekend pass

http://www.motherearthnews.com/fair/kansas.aspx

My Workshop topics to be decided


SAC-logocfsa-event-bug1-50x50Carolina Farm Stewardship Association Conference.

Dates: Friday – Sunday November 6-8, 2015

Location: Durham, NC

Registration: TBD http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/sac-register/

http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/

My Workshop topics to be decided


Heritage Harvest Festival, Mother Earth News Fair and plenty of watermelons

HHF_20141I’m gearing up for my Cold-hardy Winter Vegetables presentation on Friday September 12 at 9 am at Monticello (near Charlottesville, VA) as one of the Premium Workshops of the Heritage Harvest Festival. After my presentation  I will be signing copies of my book Sustainable Market Farming (see the tab About Pam’s Book) at 10.15 am at the Monticello bookstore. Come by for a chat, even if you’re not buying a book that day. Image-front-cover_coverbookpage

Jeanine Davis, author of  Growing and Marketing Ginseng, Goldenseal, and Other Woodland Medicinals will be signing copies of her book at the same time.

Last time I looked there were still some tickets available for each of the premium workshops except Peter Hatch’s tour of the vegetable garden.

The Heritage Harvest Festival is a lovely event, promoting and celebrating gardening, sustainability, local food, crafts and the preservation of heritage plant varieties. This is the 8th Annual HHF, hosted by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in partnership with Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. There are food booths, music, a beer garden, events for children (last year they were splitting fence-posts and making split rail fences). There is also a seed swap, so bring what you have to offer and take home something different.

This year there is also a Special Thursday event on Edible Landscaping with Rosalind Creasy and our own Ira Wallace. 1-4 pm, $45. On Friday there is also a special Harvest to Hearth event where you can watch a demonstration of cooking on a fire in the Monticello kitchen. 9-11 am, $55. If you are making a special occasion of the weekend there is the Chefs’ Harvest Dinner  6:30 – 9 p.m Friday. It’s $125 and it’s bound to be good. Outside my price range, by quite a bit.

If you can only come for one day, come for the main event on Saturday, with booths where you can watch crafters, buy seeds, plants, tools; taste more varieties of tomatoes than you knew existed; attend various free workshops and tours of the Monticello vegetable garden and woodland walks. Adult general admission for Saturday is $10 until September 11, $15 At the Gate. Child tickets and family tickets are also available. It’s a fun day at a fair price. Lots to see and do, and a beautiful setting.

Ken Bezilla of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is offering his workshop Fall & Winter Veggies: Zero Degree Gardening for free at noon on Saturday at the Vegetable Gardening Tent. So if all the $10 tickets for my workshops are sold out, or you can’t make it on Friday, go to his workshop on Saturday! Or just to hear a second opinion!


MENFairLogoOn Friday, after my book signing and hers, I’m zooming off with Cindy Conner of Grow a Sustainable Diet fame, up to Pennsylvania for the Mother Earth News Fair at Seven Springs. No, it wasn’t our idea to have both events on the same weekend, but we’ll make it work!

A weekend pass is only $25 (and you’ll need to find accommodation). It’s only $15 if you hurry up and pre-order! Food is available at the Fair, but bring something in case the lines are long. The Fair website has links to hotels and campsites, and there are some rooms at the Seven Springs resort itself. It’s a huge event, with row upon row of vendor and exhibit booths, and 12 workshop locations offering a series of 4 workshops on Friday afternoon, 6 on Saturday and 5 on Sunday. That’s 180 workshops for grown-ups. And there’s a kids’ program too.

The complete list of speakers is here. And the schedule is here. Keep reading. (ignore the funny gap which I can’t seem to get rid of)

I’m presenting Crop Rotations for Vegetables and Cover Crops. I’m doing this one twice, 10 – 11 am on Saturday at the Seed Stage and 11.30 am -12.30 pm on Sunday at the New Society Publishers stage. The blurb says: “We will provide ideas to help you design a sequence of vegetable crops that maximizes the chance to grow good cover crops as well as reduce pest and disease likelihood. We will discuss formal rotations as well as ad hoc systems for shoehorning minor crops into available spaces. The workshop will discuss cover crops suitable at various times of year, particularly winter cover crops between vegetable crops in successive years. We will include examples of undersowing of cover crops in vegetable crops and of no-till options”

I’m presenting Fall Vegetable Production on  Saturday 1-2 pm at the New Society Publishers stage and again on Sunday 4-5 pm at the Storey stage. “Learn how to optimize production by choosing a suitable combination of warm weather crops, cool weather crops and cold-hardy crops. Hear seasonal tips on dealing with hot weather, followed by information on dealing with cold weather, as well as advice on scheduling late summer and fall plantings, thoughts about season extension and an introduction to winter hoophouse growing.”

I’m also doing a book signing on Saturday 2-2.30 pm at the MEN bookstore.

and
Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/fair/workshops-and-speakers-pennsylvania.aspx#ixzz3C5xXb3Rz

and for those nearer Kansas than Pennsylvania, I’ll be at

Topeka, Kan. | Kansas Expocentre | Oct. 25-26, 2014


Meanwhile we are getting a sudden spell of hot weather and have started catching up on tilling raised beds for fall crops, and in some cases, oats as a winter cover crop. We have decided to stop harvesting watermelons for eating at 531. I wrote about our decisions about how many watermelon to plant and to harvest in 2012. We’ve had a banner year! We had the biggest melons ever – some were hard to lift! And the flavor has been delicious! And the foliage is still in good shape, not diseased. A big success. We harvested about 40 so far for seed, and will do one big bulk seed harvest round on Wednesday. Next year you can grow our Virginia Select Crimson Sweet watermelon! Buy the seed from Southern Exposure.

Crimson Sweet Virginia Select watermelon. Credit Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Crimson Sweet Virginia Select watermelon.
Credit Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

 

Skunks, sweet corn and packing for Mother Earth News Fair

Fruit Label Sticker Card 3

I always hated how plastic fruit labels concentrate in compost as the huge piles of mixed ingredients convert into much smaller piles of lovely fertilizer. So I invented these Fruit Label Sticker cards, which we pin just above the compost bucket. they work a treat! Everyone loves to put stickers on cards, it seems, even if the “card” is just a hand-drawn scrap of paper like these. Hardly any plastic labels make it into the compost these days. Look what happened when we were given several boxes of ripe avocados;

Fruit label Sticker Card 4

Look more carefully! The labels all say Golden Del. I suppose that’s why they were given away. Wrong labels. Crazy world. Perfectly nice avocados. I’m a locavore, but I like treats from warmer climates from time to time. And gifts are always to be appreciated.

We’re harvesting our fifth planting of sweet corn (Bodacious, Kandy Korn, Sparkler and Silver Queen), and I beefed up the raccoon traps following the suggestions from Joanna Reuter of Chert Hollow Farm, staking the traps down and smearing peanut butter high on the stake in the back of the cage. Well, the first morning I caught a small, very white skunk! I let it out carefully. The next morning I caught the same skunk again. And the third morning, again. The little animal never seemed ferocious or scared, more curious about how to get out. I was more scared than it was, I think! I bet you’re wondering how I released it. Well, I gently laid a large plastic bag over the top and nearside of the trap (just in case. . . ) and gingerly unlatched the door. Then  I used a strong stick to lever up the door a bit, as it is a tight fit. Then I bravely put my foot on top of the trap and pulled the door up by hand. Then I dropped the stick and ran! Later the skunk ambled out. By the third morning I think it was happy with the arrangement. A small can of cat food is a big meal for a small skunk, after all. But I was tired of the game, so I took the traps away. Raccoons don’t seem to like Silver Queen as much as Kandy Korn anyway, maybe because the husks are tighter and harder to rip off. Actually I like Kandy Korn better than Silver Queen too.

Meanwhile we are working on setting up a temporary electric fence around the last corn patch, with our new solar charger. The corn looks to be Raccoon-Ready, so I hope we get the fence up soon. I’m leaving it in someone else’s hands, as I’m off to the Mother Earth News Fair at Seven Springs Pennsylvania tomorrow. I’ll be speaking on Cold-hardy Winter Vegetables, twice. and here’s breaking news for Mother Earth News fans in the Asheville, NC area: A MEN Fair April 12 – 13, 2014, at the WNC Agricultural Center.

MENFairLogo

Virginia Festival of the Book Update . And more event updates.

Virginia Festival of the BookI will be a presenter at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, Virginia, March 20-24 2013. I’ll be talking about my book Sustainable Market Farming, and growing vegetables sustainably to feed ourselves and our community.My panel discussion, the Locavore track, will be on Thursday March 21 at 6pm, at the JMRL Public Library, 201 East Market Street. It’s free! See you there.

I’ll be signing and selling copies of my book, so if you want a signed copy, and you want local authors to get the money they’ve earned (rather than have it go to that cheap online store!), come and get one. Of course, you also get the chance to leaf through and see it is the book for you!

Also on the Locavore panel will be Jackson Landers, author of The Beginner’s Guide to Hunting Deer for Food and Eating Aliens (about hunting invasive animal species for food). Here’s an interesting interview with Jackson Landers from 2010 and his blog The Locavore Hunter.

Here’s my list of upcoming events:

I’ll be taking part with Ira Wallace in teaching a module of the VABF Farm School on Monday 3/18/13 at J Sergeant Reynolds college. We’re talking on Sustainable Farming Practices. The purpose of this program is to help beginning farmers and ranchers in Virginia to make informed farm planning decisions as part of a whole farm plan.  This six week comprehensive program (Monday evenings from 6:00-9:00pm) will introduce students to these curriculum modules:

  • Introduction to Whole Farm Planning (2 sessions)
  • Marketing
  • Sustainable Farming Practices (2 sessions)
  • Holistic Business Management

On June 27 2013, I’ll be giving a presentation on Planning for Fall Vegetable Production at VSU’s Randolph Farm, as part of the Annual Summer Vegetable and Berry Field Day, which runs from 9am to 3pm and includes a field tour, a chef competition and then a choice of educational sessions.

I’ll be presenting two workshops at the Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, Friday September 6 and Saturday September 7.  it was a lovely event last year, with perfect weather. let’s hope for similar again. I’ll be presenting my workshop  on Producing Asian Greens on Friday Sept 6 and one on Succession Planting on Saturday Sept 7.

I’ll be at the Mother Earth News Fair at Seven Springs, PA September 20-22, 2013. If you haven’t been to a MEN Fair before, consider going. They’re a lot of fun and a lot of useful information, all at a very reasonable price. Weekend tickets are $20 if you pre-order by March 31, 2013: (Price at the gate: $35). There are workshops on renewable energy, small-scale agriculture, gardening, green building and more. There are vendors of books, tools and organic foods. You can book a room at the Seven Springs resort, or camp nearby. Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/fair/SevenSprings.aspx#ixzz2F3JVesVm

My books are selling well. I’m selling them by mail order and via my website (see the front page) and in person at events I attend  People wanting e-books, go to New Society Publishers.Trade orders go to this link.

southern-sawg-producing-asian-greens-for-market-pam-dawling

I’ve gathered my presentations from the SSAWG Conference and put the slideshows on Slideshare.net.

Producing Asian Greens for Market.

 

southern-sawg-intensive-vegetable-production-on-a-small-scale-pam-dawling

Intensive vegetable production on a small scale

 

See you at the Virginia Festival of the Book!

Virginia Festival of the BookI’ve just received confirmation that I will be a presenter at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, Virginia, March 20-24 2013. I’ll be talking about my book Sustainable Market Farming, and growing vegetables sustainably to feed ourselves and our community. My panel discussion, the Locavore track, will be on Thursday March 21 at 6pm, at CitySpace, 100 5th St NE. I’ll post more when I have more information.

Also on the Locavore panel will be Jackson Landers, author of The Beginner’s Guide to Hunting Deer for Food and Eating Aliens (about hunting invasive animal species for food). Here’s an interesting interview with Jackson Landers from 2010 and his blog The Locavore Hunter.

Here’s my list of upcoming events:

I’ll be at Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference, January 25-27 2013 at Little Rock, Arkansas presenting parts of three workshops. One on my own on Producing Asian Greens for Market; one co-taught with Edwin Marty of the Hampstead Institute, Alabama on Intensive Production on a Small Scale; and as part of a panel on Integrating Organic Seed Production into Your Diversified Farm: Is it Right for You?

I’ve also agreed to do a workshop at a Virginia university in January on Planning for Successful Sustainable Farming – no details yet.

Then at the Virginia Biofarming Conference in Richmond, Virginia on February 8-9, I’m giving a workshop on Crop Rotations for Vegetables and Cover Crops.

After the Virginia Festival of the book in March, I have no workshops planned until September.  I’ll be at the Mother Earth News Fair at Seven Springs, PA September 20-22, 2013. If you haven’t been to a MEN Fair before, consider going. They’re a lot of fun and a lot of useful information, all at a very reasonable price. Weekend tickets are $15 up until January 31. (Price at the gate: $35). There are workshops on renewable energy, small-scale agriculture, gardening, green building and more. There are vendors of books, tools and organic foods. You can book a room at the Seven Springs resort, or camp nearby. Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/fair/SevenSprings.aspx#ixzz2F3JVesVm