Tag: Virginia Association for Biological Farming Conference

Events I’m speaking at this fall and winter

 

At CAFF (The Center for Arkansas Farms and Food) in September I presented High Tunnel Season Extension

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CAFF - Extend Your Growing Season into Colder Weather with High Tunnels
 I’m spending October home on the farm, preparing and planting the hoophouse with winter crops. Meanwhile I’m applying to speak at quite a few sustainable agriculture conferences and preparing slideshows, handouts and talks. I’m going back to in-person conferences. We have very limited Wi-Fi in this part of rural Virginia and video-conferencing is just not possible. I managed to make some recorded narrated slideshows during the pandemic and I picked up more writing work. But there is an undeniable something I get from in-person conferences!

In the past year I’ve been at two in-person events: The very safely and carefully orchestrated PASA conference back in February, and the September CAFF presentation, half of which was outside touring the farm and half in a large airy lecture room. Now I’m lining up quite a few conferences. Go to my Events page on this website to get all the details, including links to register. Hope to see you at one of these:

I will be facilitating the Farmer Roundtable: Working Through Production Challenges on Saturday, November 5, from 1:30 – 2:45 pm with time to linger afterwards.

CFSA 2022 Conference banner

I will be presenting a 75-minute workshop on Spring and Summer Hoophouse Use, especially how to manage extreme heat and diseases in hot and humid climates.

Tennessee Local Food Summit logo
  • January 6-8 (Fri-Sun), 2023, Virginia Association for Biological Farming is hosting the Virginia Biological Farming Conference, Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center. Conference INFO Home Page

I hope to be presenting a half-day pre-conference session on Friday January 6, on Year-Round Hoophouse Vegetables. Also maybe a regular length session during the main conference.

VABF 2023 Conference banner
  • January 14, 2023 (Saturday), NOFA-MASS Annual Winter Conference. Northeast Organic Farming Association, Massachusetts Chapter. https://www.nofamass.org/conferences/ Worcester State University on Saturday January 14 and online Sunday January 15. I hope to give a presentation on Saturday.
  • February 8-11, 2023 (Weds to Sat 2.30pm), PASA 2023 Sustainable Agriculture Conference. Lancaster Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, 25 S Queen St, Lancaster, PA. https://pasafarming.org/conference/

I will be presenting two 60 min or 75 min workshops:

Alliums Year-Round (Brand New!)

Crop Planning for Sustainable Vegetable Production.

Virtual Conference: January 17–19

Feb 25-26, 2023, Organic Growers School Spring Conference, Mars Hill University, Asheville, North Carolina

Along with Ira Wallace, I will be presenting a half-day (3 ½ hours) workshop Year-Round Gardening 

The workshop will be on Saturday and repeated on Sunday

Organic Growers School logo

One Folk School Road, Brasstown, NC 28902

I will be teaching a week-long course, Growing Vegetables Year Round

Campbell Folk School logo

I will be presenting two 60 minute workshops, one each day

I will be presenting two 60 minute workshops, one each day. Different workshops from the Kansas Fair.

Check back on my Events page often, as events and details are firming up

Winter Gardening and Farming Conferences and Reading

I’ve just updated my Events page with more details about the events I’m speaking at. Coming up really soon is the Virginia Association for Biological Farming Conference. Here is a flyer for it:

I’ll be offering a half-day (1-5 pm) workshop on Friday 1/11: Year Round Hoophouse Vegetables.

On Saturday 1/12, 2.30 – 4 pm, I’m offering a 90 minute workshop on Cold Hardy Winter Vegetables, and on Sunday 1/13, 4 – 5.30 pm a 90 minute workshop on Crop Planning for Sustainable Vegetable Production.  

I’ll provide handouts for all my workshops, and there will be book signings and sales after each workshop. You can read more details on my Events page or on the VABF website.

I’m having a busy January! The very next weekend, January 17-19 (Thurs – Sat), I’ll be at the 2019 Future Harvest CASA, at College Park Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. I’m offering two 90 min workshops, with book sales and signings after the workshops.

Lettuce Year-Round, Friday 1/18 2.00 – 3.30 pm and  Cover Crops for Vegetable Growers, Saturday 1/19 2.00 – 3.30 pm

And then January 23-26, 2019 (Weds to Sat), I’ll be at the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference, Little Rock, AR.

On Thursday January 24, I’m doing a 1 – 5pm Mini-course (4 hours) Hoophouse Production of Cool Season Crops

On Friday January 25, 8 – 9.15 am (75 mins), I’m offering Diversify Your Vegetable Crops.

Book sales and signing Thursday evening.

And then it’s February, and I’m on to the PASA Conference

February 6-9 2019 Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. Lancaster County Convention Center.  I’m offering three 90 min workshops:

Sequential Planting of Cool Season Crops in a High Tunnel, Friday 8.45 am – 10.15 am

Lettuce Year Round, Saturday 8.45 am- 10.15 am

Succession Planting for Continuous Vegetable Harvests Saturday 10.30 am -12 noon.

Handouts, Book-signing, Recordings for sale.

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And if you can’t make it to these events, I have found plenty of good reading on gardening and sustainable agriculture.

Reader Anne Donley sent a link to this fascinating news from the Guardian.com:

Finalists for the Royal Academy of Engineering Africa prize reveal their designs, The team has shortlisted 16 African inventors from six countries to receive funding, training and mentoring for projects intended to revolutionize sectors from agriculture and science to women’s health. Some of the ideas presented include

  • Vertical vegetable growing boxes which grow up to 200 plants and  include a wormery! Wonderful step to more food security.
  • Moisture extraction from the air using silica gels, then solar power to heat up the moisture to provide clean water. Kenyan Beth Koigi  points out that

“There’s six times more water in the air than in all the rivers in the world. With every 1F increase in temperature, water begins to evaporate on the ground but increases by about 4% in the atmosphere, and that’s water that’s not being tapped.”

  • Gloves that translate sign language into speech

  • Smart lockers that dispense medicines.

Growing for Market January issue is out

The Organic Broadcaster is out

Gena Moore at Carolina Farm Stewardship has some great research on the efficacy of various biopesticides.

Modern Farmer is a good online resource for news. They offer a weekly digest via email, or you can go to their site and click on the stories you are interested in. Themes include Farm, Food and Lifestyle, Animal Heroes, News.

Lettuce in December, events updates

Rouge d'Hiver hardy romaine lettuce. Photo Bridget Aleshire
Rouge d’Hiver hardy romaine lettuce.
Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Here’s my monthly article on lettuce varieties month-by-month. I wrote about Lettuce in November a month ago. Of course, at this dark and chilly time of year, plants don’t grow much and our lettuce story is very similar this month to last. Except that we have so much! We are harvesting our hoophouse lettuce mix as well as leaves from the big lettuces in the unheated greenhouse and the hoophouse.

In the unheated greenhouse, we have Green Forest romaine, Hyper Red Wave leaf lettuce, Red Tinged Winter leaf lettuce, Oscarde red leaf lettuce and North Pole bibb. all are looking well.

In the hoophouse in the first planting we have Green Forest, Hyper Red Rumpled Wave,  Oscarde, Panisse, Red Salad Bowl, Revolution, Star Fighter and Tango. In the second planting we have some of the same and some different ones: Green Forest, Hyper Red Rumpled Wave, Merlot, Panisse, Revolution, Red Tinged Winter, Salad Bowl, Star Fighter and Winter Wonderland. We are currently harvesting leaves from all the greenhouse and hoophouse lettuces in turn.

These are all looking well too, apart from a few Salad Bowl that have crashed with Sclerotinia Lettuce Drop, known “affectionately” to us as Solstice Slime. It happens at this time of year, around the Solstice – cold damp soil and the presence of spores of this widespread fungus cause destruction of the crown of the plant, which spreads to the leaves and causes the whole plant to collapse into a slimy beige lettuce pancake.

Sclerotinia Drop of lettuce. Photo http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r441100711.htmlSclerotinia Drop of lettuce.
Photo http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r441100711.html

Here is a link to a helpful publication from eXtension: Disease Management in Organic Lettuce Production

Our approach is to try not to over-water in cold weather, and to carefully remove pancaked plants, just before leaving the hoophouse, throw them down-wind into the pasture, and then wash our hands before returning.

Other winter-hardy lettuce we have grown in other years include Marvel of Four Seasons, New Red Fire,  Pirat, and Rouge d’Hiver. There are hardy bibb lettuce too: North Pole, Red Cross, Sylvesta, and Winter Marvel, but we have stopped growing them in the winter hoophouse as they are not so useful for harvesting by the leaf and they are more prone to collecting dampness and getting diseased.

I’m sad about the poor showing of our Multileaf lettuces, due I think to keeping pelleted seed too long. My consolation is that we have three lettuce varieties that have a somewhat similar plant type (lots of small leaves that can be removed, letting more grow):  Oscarde, Panisse and Tango.

Oscarde letuce Photo Washiington State U Ag Research
Oscarde lettuce
Photo Washington State U Ag Research
Panisse lettuce. Photo Johnnys Seeds
Panisse lettuce.
Photo Johnnys Seeds
Tango lettuce Photo Kathryn Simmons
Tango lettuce
Photo Kathryn Simmons

I’ve been taking more bookings for speaking events and groups touring our gardens here. It’s looking promising for me to be at the Mother Earth News Fairs in Asheville (May 6-7) and Vermont (June 10-11). I’ve added in a visit here from the Tricycle Gardens group from Richmond on March 24 and one from the Louisa Master Gardeners on April 13. I’ll add info to my Events page (see the tab at the top of this page) as I get it.

I’ve got my slideshows and handouts ready for the Virginia Association for Biological Farming Conference which is coming up in just a few weeks, January 10-11.

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Events December 2013 – April 2014

LFH_Logo2Local 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.

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cropped-vabf-virginia-grass-fed-cattleVirginia 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

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Website_banner_v2PASA (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.

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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

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AiscAvnOsQFURv1wbixykzdTEl5dCrYHumxaW5HMlv_9XK1UpLeQQEgEAD9gMcdG9L_RhllIVVAnqOEAkdAwxOJeL_fFsxWEKQyzNfllayMqc7g=s0-d-e1-ftlogo_sfcCSA 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!

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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

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