Posts Tagged ‘sustainable farming’

Date Night Done Right {and The Greenhorns}

Posted on November 14th, 2012 by Tonia No Comments

Mike and I went on a date last night to our local theater {StageNorth} where the Bay Area Film Society was showing a film called The Greenhorns about the recent wave of young people across the country who are turning to farming as a career and lifestyle. There was good turnout for the event- mostly farmers and people interested in farming/local food- and the film society got a local BBQ master to cater. We loaded our plates with pulled pork sandwiches and potato salad and chatted about hoop houses and winter composting with our friends.

When the film started, we were handed bags of organic heirloom popcorn, covered in organic butter provided by one of the local dairies, and a bar of dark organic chocolate. As much as we enjoyed the film {although, it was preaching to the choir a little bit…}, the movie-snacks were a highlight for me! I’m a sucker for dark chocolate, what can I say! It was so fun to snuggle up next to Mike with our delicious snacks, surrounded by most of our closest friends.

After the film, there was a panel discussion with five organic farmers from the area {all of which are in their late 20’s and early 30’s}. The film was a great conversation starter, and some great questions were raised and discussed. It was unanimously decided that we are all so lucky to live in an area that is supportive to the local food movement, and that we have so many young people who are willing to devote their lives to the hard, hard work of growing food for the community.

The party eventually moved to a pub in town, and we didn’t end up getting home until after midnight. Not bad for a Tuesday!

Planting, Planting, Planting

Posted on May 20th, 2011 by Tonia No Comments

It has been a very exciting day here today. We seeded some of our hardier varieties of greens, as well as potatoes and corn into the ground!

It felt great to plant right into the *real ground* after dealing with the tomatoes and basil for weeks now, which needed to be planted, transplanted, and transplanted again into bigger and bigger planters, and carefully monitored so they have enough water and sunlight. As much as we love tomatoes and basil, there’s something extra cool about a plant that can grow successfully from a seed, out in the elements, all alone, with minimal maintenance.

Those right there are tiny baby fruit trees, which we grafted onto tiny baby rootstocks. But that’s a whole ‘nother post, coming soon.

Mike got to try out a really neat tool that my parents gave us…we call it The Corn Planter, because we’re not really sure what it’s really called. They brought it home from Paraguay with them after their time in the Peace Corps. As the name suggests, it works great for planting corn!

…And Mike is starting a new fashion trend: Bean boots with socks and shorts. It’s really catching on.

Bob {one half of the cool couple renting our cottage} planted several rows of potatoes and onions. Mmmmm…I’m already salivating just thinking about the delicious feasts we’ll be having this summer, if all goes well!

Oh yeah, remember yesterday’s post? This beautiful broadfork is the finished product. It saves your back when tilling up the ground, and speeds up the process about 3x. Yay!

Also today: The trees are just beginning to bud out, the hummingbirds have arrived at the feeder on the back-porch, we got our first sunburn, and the co-op started stocking the first peaches of the season.

Happy Earth Day!

Posted on April 22nd, 2011 by Tonia 2 Comments

What better way to celebrate our beautiful Earth than by getting out and working it? Yesterday and today we tilled up a patch of dirt that is going to be our garden. It’s very exciting!


It’s very exciting! Did I say that already? We’re just so excited to have a garden. The folks renting our cottage helped, and together we were able to prepare a very healthy-sized area.

There is going to be a lot of food coming out of this dark brown rectangle soon. Check out that soil! We are really happy with the quality, especially considering it has never been planted in before. And after we work some compost into it, it will be even better.

…Charlie much enjoyed all the roots we were digging up and tossing aside.

The smell of dirt, the wiggle of worms, the knock-knock-knock of woodpeckers in the trees, the scritchy-scratch of the chickens as they investigate the newly turned soil for bugs…these are the sights and sounds that we’re enjoying on Earth Day 2o11. I am so grateful to Mother Earth for providing us with everything we need to live happy, healthy, fulfilled lives.

Thoughts on Food

Posted on February 15th, 2011 by Tonia 2 Comments

Food is a major, major part of our lives. We love it, we need it. Mike and I spend a large amount of our household budget on groceries {since it’s winter and our garden is under 3 feet of snow, our grocery bill is at its peak right now.} And we spend a large amount of our evening hours cooking together. We are still learning, so every new recipe/meal is kind of an adventure for us.

Mike and I are not alone…basically every human on earth eats food, usually at least three times a day. Through food- the production, harvest, transportation, preservation, consumption, and disposal of food- the human race greatly impacts the world. Take, for example, the banana fruit. In the 1880s Americans did not consume, or did not even know about the existence of bananas. By the 1890s this fruit was sold in the main American cities in individual packages as a luxury good. By 1910 they were considered a cheap fruit, part of the basic diet of the growing American working class. After the 1930s Americans could find bananas in any grocery store in the country at any time of the year.

Bananas stopped being considered an exotic fruit and became common. A national mass consumption of bananas was possible because of the production and distribution network made by Chiquita and Dole. In the early twentieth-century, these companies created a network that included plantations in Central America, railways, steamships, telegraph lines, harbors, and a distribution system in the US. Bananas are an extreme example, but it’s true that most of the food we eat, not just “exotic” types like bananas, travel over 1300 miles from farm to grocery store.

Have you ever heard Brian Regan’s joke about logging trucks passing each other on the highway? This is the same question I am asking about food. If we have it over here…why are we getting it from way over there?

Mike and I decided to sell our home, leave our jobs, and move out of the city in part {a large part} because we want to grow our own produce and raise our own poultry. We’re ecstatic that we moved to an area of the state where locally grown organic produce, meat and dairy is available in glorious abundance. If we thought cooking was fun before, it’s 100 times more fun now that we’re working with beautiful local ingredients!  As the snow melts we will start our own garden, but in the meantime we feel fantastic about the fact that we’re supporting our farming neighbors by buying their goods.

Recently some friends from the city came to visit and offered to buy the ingredients we needed for making dinner that night. They commented on the comparatively high prices at the grocery store- one big bag came to about $70. It’s true, prices are higher here than at a big chain grocery store. But I believe that the high prices are the true cost of food.

The discount prices at those big stores are part of a larger problem- commercial agriculture- supported by low fossil fuel prices- killing off small family farms. When you’re only paying $1.35 for a bunch of bananas that were grown in a completely different country and then transported thousands of miles, ask yourself, “If I’m not paying for the true cost of the production and transportation of these bananas, who is?” Believe me, someone is paying for it.

“The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.” – John F. Kennedy

And if you’ve ever had a garden yourself, you know how much work goes into raising a successful crop of anything. Would you want to {or be able to afford to} sell your goods for anything less than an amount that makes all that work worth it? No way. After considering that, Mike and I realized that the prices at our grocery store were more than fair, and we are happy to pay them even though it means we have to skim from other areas of our budget to make it happen. Our budget is all about priorities, and food is a major priority.

Even so, we realize we’re blessed to be able to afford the kind of food we want to eat. Not everyone is so lucky. Which is kind of crazy…since when is organic/local/whole food only for those affluent enough to be able to afford it? Back in the day, it was the opposite: poor folks grew their own food or traded with neighbors for what they needed, rich folks were able to buy packaged/processed food…the very foods that are the most affordable nowadays.

“Corn is an efficient way to get energy calories off the land and soybeans are an efficient way of getting protein off the land, so we’ve designed a food system that produces a lot of cheap corn and soybeans resulting in a lot of cheap fast food.”  – Michael Pollan

Dan Barber, the celebrated chef behind Blue Hill Farm, was interviewed by Krista Tippet on her NPR show {listen to it here} and he said that we’re in the beginning stages of a food revolution in which the tables will turn once again, and local agriculture will win out over large commercial agriculture. According to him, social change in many cases starts with the affluent and then trickles down to everyone else. He uses women suffrage as an example {affluent, well-educated women were the front-runners of that movement}.

Chef Barber is probably mostly right…but he’s forgetting about grassroots movements like urban farming programs, where entire inner-city communities are working together to convert abandoned lots into productive gardens {watch this short video}.

“Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state.” – Thomas Jefferson

No matter where or how the revolution is starting, it’s important that we all do our part. Start small: cut out meat from your diet unless it comes from a local/free-range/organic source…Treat exotic produce as a luxury {anything that can’t be grown in your local environment and needs to be transported from far away qualifies as “exotic”. For us, this means bananas, mangos, avocados, etc}…Start a garden, even if it’s just in a few planters on your fire escape…Join a CSA if there is one in your area.

Recommended readings on this topic/resources: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan / Slow Food / Local Harvest / Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver