As We approach our May 14th deadline for CSA sign ups, I am excited to share that we are more than 1/4 away from our goal of 100 CSA members. Many folks are return members from Grindstone Farm's CSA, and I'd like to take a moment to thank all those who have chosen to continue to support the transition process up here in Pulaski! You know who you are. We have added a couple more pod sites to the website, and are still waiting on confirmation on our Oswego YMCA site. If you'd like to offer to host a site in Oswego, or suggest one please contact us. Again, we'd like to have at LEAST 5 members picking up per site. So far, our biggest hits are Green Planet Grocery in Fairmount, and on Farm. It is truly promising to see so many on farm pickups and I hope it will help to connect our members with their farm.
I've been busy seeding and finalizing crop plans for both our leased acreage at Grindstone, and our property here. Finding the time to write a worthwhile blog and collecting my thoughts at the same time has been a challenge, but my goal is to start writing weekly updates, so check in regularly!
As I shared in the last article, we have signed the NOFA Farmer's Pledge in conjunction with being on the certification at Grindstone. We did this for several reasons. We truly support NOFA's educational offerings, and support for small sustainable farming without all the hurdles of becoming certified. I feel the Framer's Pledge goes "beyond organic" to quote Elliot Coleman; in that it includes fair labor practices as well as organic production. We will be focusing on our property this spring to start some perennial crops, including asparagus, seed saving projects, as well as cover cropping and pasturing the chickens and the goats. We may be offering some non certified Farmer's Pledge crops from these fields as well; specialty items that we don't have much seed for, as well as wild harvested berries. (The property has a few swathes of wild blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and elderberries)
Within the sustainable agriculture community there has been much discussion over organic certification. Local vs. organic debate. I hear it everyday at the Regional Market in Syracuse, as we are only selling organic bought in items at this point. While I feel we should buy local when possible- the reality is that in Central New York, winters are a tough time to source clean local food. I weigh the differences between buying a herbicide sprayed local crop to buying an organic one from somewhere else in the country. While many may argue the usage of fossil fuel to get that organic product from the other side of the country, I feel I'd rather support and organic farm in say Florida, than a conventional farm polluting our water ways nearby. And maybe I'll chance jumping off the bandwagon to say that while I support the local food movement passionately, I also like to eat foods like oranges, avocados, lemons, mangoes; food that we aren't yet growing here in NY. But as technology and sustainable energy comes more into play, we may be seeing year round growing of items like this that NY climate doesn't allow for.
There are many great NY farms growing greens year round, and we intend to work our way up to that. Last week, Travis worked with some of our partners at Grindstone to get the heating system set up in the germination greenhouse, which will be run off of farm made bio diesel from waste veggie oil. Working cooperatively with Grindstone Farm, I see both farms and our other local partners achieving higher level of sustainability. Where there's a will there's a way, and many creative inputs will yield a more diverse longer season for us in the Northeast in the coming years, and that's something to get excited about; stand behind and support.
As the days get longer, we can be looking forward to spring greens, asparagus, peas, and the bounty that CNY farms offer.
Gavy and Freyja are taking care of flower seeding for the bees and butterflies, and want to build a kid's garden. Any input and involvement from our CSA community is happily welcome. We hope for it to be a place for children to play while parents are fulfilling workshares, and education area where kids can just play in the dirt and be in tune with the world around them. I have a trip planned to visit Hawthorn Valley's farm and Waldorf school later this month, and we are eager to learn from this biodynamic farm h
I will be holding off until next week to start some of our root veggies trying hard to stick with the moon cycles I have planned around. If all goes as planned we will be constructing our new high tunnel in the next month as well. It's crunch time, and I couldn't be happier!
To date we have seeded several beds worth of swiss chard, kale, lettuce, early tomato and pepper starts.To close, I'd like to share a short list of some of the great organizations we met at the MOSES (Midwest Organic Sustainable Education Service) Conference.
www.growingpower.org -a Milwaukee based community farming and education organization
www.cornucopia.org- a non-profit supporting small scale sustainable agriculture nationwide
www.blueriverorgseed.com - grain seed company who've created a corn hybrid that won't cross pollinate with gm corn!
www.rodaleinstitute.org - educators in sustainable farming practices specializing on no till
www.wwoofusa.org - listing intern opportunities on organic farms in the US and around the world
www.a-b-c-plusinternational.com - a livestock and pet feed company that doesn't use GMOS and offers intestinal remediation products for animals who've been fed GMOS.
There were many more, but those are the ones that stick in my memory right now. Check them out and enjoy.
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