shutter me winders

Don't ask me how, but I took a "3-day weekend" and traveled to St. Mary's MD. Which happens to be home to St Mary's college. Which happens to have a Campus Farm. And I happened to have an inside escort to a certain hidden mecca.
(they also have a blog but go there after you read my blog... heh heh heh ...serious dont click yet
http://www.smcm.edu/chancellorspoint/blog/2010/04/21/a-greenhouse-is-born )

As I entered the opening, I saw an incredible flat protected area of about 5 acres. (mmmm I said, perfect for a "few rows" of veg........ NOW whether they decide to add more crops to the surrounding fields I do not know, but what I saw was a very inspired and energetic display of virtuous gumption.



I mean look at this. Cobbled together with recycled materials. (Romantic thoughts of foraging old houses and barns enter here) Im sure it wernt so. Imagine making all that stuff FIT TOGETHER, yeah, nuff said.

Rain barrels providing some H2O but St. Mary MD seems to get less rain than we do, so it might be a pipe dream that.

But daggonit that is some impressive architecture.

Reminds me of an imagined prototype of the Solviva project, maybe that held some inspiration for the creators. maybe.




Inside shows a few more innovations. Shutters used as the platform for flats of seeds. drainage? yes, support? yes, irrigation? yes, coolness? yes!

Now I will rely on my local spies to alert me of any new innovations and expansions of this chancellors point campus farm project and anything new happening in the other college display farm that is down the street from the actual college. They grow historically correct veg & herbs.

My sources gave me a private tour and I was able to gather this image for your pleasure.
It APPEARS that in historic St. Mary's City, they ALSO grew ARUGULA! I have it on good authority that no blonds were harmed in the adornment shown below.

GOLD RUSH!

February brought us some wunnerful warm days right here smack dab in the middle of it. I'm partial to Feb, its my birthday month, maybe that's why winter doesn't bother me. That is if I'm prepared for it.... given my new vocation preparation is KEY, gotta keep the food flowing even under snow. We got caught short this year. I have the photos to prove it. But enough of that!! Feb came through with some real gems, Wednesday was 50's, Thursday 60s and today nearly 70! So we decided to go out and get ya some food. We were able to HARVEST pure deliciousness!!

We won this round with the voles check out the nuggets we found underground!!



The arugula was a little more tricky to mine. More like panning for gold, check out our set up. Time intensive yes, but it is worth it! wait until you taste this Arugula. Organic seasonal food, that's what life is all about.

Panning for gold...

For those lucky folks who ordered in time for this weeks delivery, tell me what you did with your haul! I'd have a hard time not just eating it right out of the bag.

let the race begin!

I think it's official, the season has started. How do I know? Is it the weather report? Is it the length of the days? Not completely untrue but not what I'm talkin 'bout. We started seeds! YUP. dirt & seeds and lights & stuff. We anxiously await the little buggers.

A few days later.........

Another way I know is that Hattie has decided to offer our carrots for this weeks delivery. Lil bitty gourmet baby carrots, the sweetness you dreamed about is available for your reality! Tell me that is not exciting! And we are gonna harvest the arugula that has been teasing us for the last 3 months.
Limited supply! Order early!

Flip a tuit

I had to choose. I couldn't do it all. Seventeen Choices for the first hour, 17!!! I found 5 of interest. But since I lost my time travel unit. So I chose door number one, then two, then one. The one that most interested me was 'getting the most nutrition from your garden' . Now this was presented as putting food by but turned out more interesting. The color of the veg can tell you what bioactive phytochemicals it contains. They basically help us humans fight disease and repair cell damage.

So clearly, eating a WIDE VARIETY of COLOR is beneficial in more ways than just pretty for the eyes. I can tell you right now I am about tired of eating beige and brown food. ( I didn't put any food by this summer and I am hoarding what is left of my carrots...gulp) So when you decide to preserve your yummies for eating in the dead of beige food times... its important to retain all those nutrients, for beauty as well as nutrition.

Next the whole 2000 of us squished into a room the size of a NYC apartment to pik up trix on trellisin. We were entertained and took home some ideas for our beans and maters.

Time is moving fast and it was Saturday already and I barely have any swag.I even brought my large backpack! The vendor corridor was overwhelming, I got distracted by some chicks. Did you know that guinea fowl eat ticks?! I tell ya these peeps were very popular.

I loaded up on seed catalogs. Chatted up the Vermiculture dude. Picked up brochures on worms and compost and Bio Tech innovations. How to grow ginseng, blueberries and taters. No Till concept, Permaculture, seedsaving. and Lions and tigers and BEARS oh my.

But you know there are other classes to get to before the ice storm cometh....
The next choice was a favorite of mine, counteracted all the first day depression. Again it was so much more than the title exposed... Greenhouse systems for year round food production without fuel or pesticides. Now that sounds good all by itself. But Ana Edey founder of Solviva creates a world where we can all live self contained without having to buy food, but in fact selling what is left over. We use the sun for energy and heating and animals for heating backup and food. And its all right there in your 2,000 squarefoot green house. All the animal air is cleaned by what she calls an Earth Lung, sent into the plants for them to use and then of course they dispense the oxygen for us. The unit can produce fish, eggs, meat, vegetables and herbs year-round, without any heating fuel or cooling fans, and without any toxic pesticide. And the animal wastes do not cause water pollution.Here is a little looksee at One of her greenhouse sketches I borrowed from her website ( http://www.solviva.com/recommended_reading.htm) Website is a little frustrating, she builds these amazing houses, not websites... On the left is the veg & plants and a fish farm an the lower right is the animals and above right is the living quarters. I can't do it justice here, but if you look into it, it is absolutely doable and incredible. She lived and worked the green house for 9 years, so it has been done. Oh PS: composting toilets was another aspect to these houses. WOW.
Takes living sustainably to a WHOLE other level. check it out, whynot!...

So the only other exciting bit of news I have is that I am totally doing a worm farm, my little bit of sustainability; recycle kitchen scraps & newspaper, make dirt and compost tea for the health of plants. I will start small and who knows maybe by mid summer I will have compost tea for you to use ... afterall I did get a round tuit ....

freeze dried sardines

This post might be a bit dry, but you never know 'cause there were some juicy bits at the conference. (for those not following along, the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture conference) There were more than 2000 people up there! For any space other than a stadium that is alotta humanity to squeeze into and around. Luckily they were mostly 'of like minds', farmers to environmentalists to karmic achievers. I'd like to consider myself a little of all of those mentioned.
Some people have been at this sustainable gig a long time, watching the gloomy cloud of CAFO & GMO get darker. Fighting the good fight to convince folks that the watershed matters, and that the way to fix the problem is not to pour more chemicals on it but to stop! & let mother earth heal it and then don't eff it up again. Of course it ain dat simple, cuz people want money & lots of it. The more they get the more they want/think they need.

After a grueling morning of podium pounding I was completely depressed. ( I could wow you with percentages and numbers and stuff ; but if you know me, well you know homey don't do numbers!) Suffice it to say the little kids now have seen about 85% of all fossil fuels ever burned. Whereas grandpa saw only a few percent. So in a few generations we have barreled through more than grandpa ever imagined. The more we get the more we take.....darkness.

And we learned that even after the lawyers PROVED their case (with science) against GE alfalfa, it was approved & passed with no regulations. (http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/) Makes me wanna crawl under a rock for sure now.....total dark days ahead.

I wonder if you all know that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was employed by Monsanto, the GMO evil giant who bullies its way (with cash paybacks probably). Doesn't that seem like a conflict of interest? Our government continues to put big business ahead of the people. Something is very wrong with that.... dark, dark, dark.

Are you sufficiently depressed? wanna just curl up & die? This conference was supposed to be uplifting, inspiring... jeez I feel like I got sent to the principals office. And this was just noon the first day.

So there is no way out right? David fights Goliath without fairy tale ending. Just take my little square and do the best I can with what I have and hope the roundup doesn't become my drinking water, and I have to get GMO'd so I can survive the roundup water. bleh.

We can't be passive but apparently we also don't have to march on the White House. At the very least we can tell the companies that would buy the genetically engineered crap that we won't buy the product if they use it. If they can't sell the alfalfa they won't grow it. Make sure that they have to label GMO products, we can speak with the wallet which is apparently the only thing they understand. If 'they' engineer it, they can trademark it & control the whole shootin match. They use the fear that we are going to run out of food, (when the reason is because we are not living sustainably )

The easier answer is to stop killing and raping the earth let her heal and start right here, now, make this the beginning of a sustainable world. Why do you have to have more more more? You likely have more than you need. Think about the future generations. Don't even get me started on over population. Really, you won't like me....

Okay so now have I totally turned you off of this sustainable stuff. It's really not that bad, (the sustainable stuff ) its really good! And can be easier than you think. And better than you ever imagined!
Will you come back for more uplifting stories about PASA? There are some, really. please ? I promise only to use daisies and puppy dog slobber. And I won't even whine about the ice storm that made us leave before we wanted to.
Say you will.... I'll be right here. I will write it anyway, you might as well read it.