lessons learned from the VABF conference, part two...

The second day of the Virginia Association for Biological Farming Conference was a whirlwind of ideas, inspiration, and great food!

The conference offered SO MANY good topics and speakers this year.  It was terribly difficult to choose, but just before closing our eyes in the hotel the night before, Lanette and I had decided and marked in our conference schedules which sessions we'd attend.  After some sleep, some yummy brought-from-home breakfast goodies, and some caffeine, we were off to the conference!  Presentation files from all of the great sessions can be found HERE.

Workshop:  Selecting Farm Land and Location: Own, Loan, or Lease: The Waterpenny Example presented by Sue Ellen Johnson, Cliff Miller from Mount Vernon Farm, and Rachel Bynum from Waterpenny Farm

Perhaps I'm getting older, but I didn't realize until I walked into the room and chose my seat for this session that I'd met Cliff Miller and Rachel Bynum and visited their farms!  The hubs and I took a trip and attended the Rappahannok Farm Tour a few years back and these two farms were on the tour.  It was a great surprise and truly enhanced my experience in this session as these two farmers discussed the long term lease (40 years!) between Mount Vernon Farm and Waterpenny Farm.

Takeaway Tidbits:
   - Farmland must support your objectives!  
   - Longterm goals to consider:  livelihood, lifestyle, and legacy
   When considering land for farming, be honest with yourselves and take a long hard look at...
   - Land:  How much?  For a median income, you'll need 700 acres for a hay farm, 500 acres for a cattle farm, 30 acres for orchards, between 1 and 20 acres for nursery crops, 5 acres for a vegetable farm, 3 acres for a flower farm, 1 acre for a hydroponic greenhouse, and only 1/2 acre if you just want a subsistence garden and chickens or a subsistence garden and 1 cow.  In our region of Virginia, potted plants and cut flowers currently return the highest profits.
   - Land: Kind/Quality?  Be sure to check soil type/composition, topography, current fertility, current plant cover (what's it going to take to clear the land?), soil moisture/water table/drainage.
   - Water:  existence, locations on farm, functioning system of wells, capacity (for irrigation, for livestock, for washing), potability (can you wash your market veggies with it?), ponds/creeks/river/floodplain.  Water issues can be limiting.
   - You've found a farm!  Now:  walk the farm many times, talk to locals about farm's history, feel/smell the soil, evaluate current production potential, look at the functionality/maintenance/looks of farm's structures, carefully consider the septic system (particularly for agrotourism which means lots of guest to your farm needing to use the facilities!), consider the location and the distance/time to market, check local zoning, is there room to grow?

Organic Food Festival Potluck Lunch - an amazing array of organic foods brought by the attendees!  I brought homemade oatmeal bread with honey apple butter and strawberry honey jam.  Lots of delicious choices here!

Between to-doings, I made mad dashes to the Silent Auction, vendors in the Exhibition Hall, seed swap, and the ladies room!

Plenary Presentation:  Ray Archuleta, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Greensboro, NC, "Healthy Soils for Healthy Profits".  Mr. Archuleta is loud, proud, and on a mission to get our soils biologically healthy!  A showman and a scientist, this guy was very entertaining AND informative with interactive soil demonstrations, a slide show, and huge helpings of inspiration!

Workshop:  43560 Project presented by Clif Slade, Vegetable Specialist and 43560 Project Manager

Takeaway Tidbits:
   - "One acre of soil can do it" - 43560 = number of square feet in a single acre; this project set out to prove that if you could grow 1 head, 1 pound, or 1 bunch per square foot, selling at $1 - $1.25 per square foot, the gross income would be $43,560.
   - This was an "all in/all out" plan - plant in Spring, raise to harvest, done; plant buckwheat and clover for the rest of the summer; begin again in September for a second harvest to sell.
   - If you have a soil pH of 6.5, you're ready to consider this method; a low pH will have lots of weed problems and plants won't do well.
   - Marketing is key!!!  Utilize on farm sales, growing for CSA owners, selling your produce as a complementary items to PYO farms, restaurants, value-added items (painted, "adoptable" pumpkin babies); be a dependable supplier of whatever you produce.
   - Fertilization:  One 5-gallon bucket of pelletized poultry manure per 500 square feet; ten 5-gallon buckets of compost per square feet (sifted by hand), weekly applications of vermicompost tea.
   - Corn, tomatoes, cantelope, and watermelon cannot profit $1.25 per square foot in an "all in/all out" plan.

More visits to the vendors, and then the catered dinner.  Having spent the entire first day with Gunther Hauk and beginning to feel weary, we reluctantly decided to skip his plenary presentation. 

With cramped note-taking hand and overfull brain, I made my way to the Jeep with Lanette and headed to the hotel for a lovely soak in the hot whirlpool.  One more wonderful day to go!

lessons learned from the VABF conference, part one...

Recently a friend and I embarked on a journey together... to the Virginia Association of Biological Farming Conference in Richmond.

Lanette and me, conference buddies

Glorious.  Three days with beekeepers, growers, farmers, ranchers, teachers, authors, and foodies.  As another friend at the conference put it, "I am among my people."

Day One was a full-day intensive with Gunther Hauk of Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary in Floyd, Virginia.  He is a gentle soul, filled with knowledge and a great respect for the earth and for the bees.  There was so much to learn as he taught about biodynamic gardening and beekeeping!

Gunther Hauk showing the cow horn for a soil preparation

Workshop:  Biodynamic Gardening and Beekeeping presented by Gunther Hauk

biodynamic agriculture:

 a method of organic farming originally developed by Rudolf Steiner 

that employs what proponents describe as 

"a holistic understanding of agricultural processes".  

One of the first sustainable agriculture movements, 

it treats soil fertility, plant growth, and livestock care 

as ecologically interrelated tasks, 

emphasizing spiritual and mystical perspectives. 

Proponents of biodynamic agriculture, including Steiner, 

have characterized it as "spiritual science" 

as part of the larger anthroposophy movement.

-Wikipedia

A slide depicting a natural queen cell

Takeaway Tidbits:  

 - Sustainable is the very base... we would like to go beyond that and THRIVE!

 - Enliven the soil, don't just feed it.  Get lots of microbial and fungal action into it.

 - When we work with nature, we create culture.

 - The breeding of the true future is working with the cosmos, not with the microscope.

 - Nurture the bees, don't only keep them.

 - Animal wisdom is called instinct.  When we go against instinct, we go against health.

 - Swarming is a bee instinct.  Gunther Hauk catches or traps his swarms rather than splitting to prevent swarms, which he sees as interference.  Why do bees swarm?  Overcrowding?  To reproduce the colony?  No.  Because The Great Bee said so!

 - Use a chicken or goose feather rather than a bee brush to gently move bees.

 - If necessary, Gunther does treat his hives with formic acid for mites.

Slide depicting the heart-shaped top bar comb

Brains filled with new and strange ideas, we decided to chat about the day over a quiet dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant.  Alas, it was not to be so.  Don't ask about the Mariachi band singing and playing Michael Jackson's "Beat It" with gusto.

Days Two and Three were filled with workshops, keynote speakers, an amazing Organic Food Festival Potluck lunch, lovely dinner, book signings, vendor tables, seed swap, and...

...more about all that in my next blog post!

girls just wanna have lunch...

I love a girls' lunch... yummy food, girl talk, and oh, the laughter!!!  But what about taking it one step further by planning a HEALTHY potluck lunch with girlfriends?

It's been such a treat to be invited to just that kind of lunch at the home of my friend, Lanette.  (Check out her blog, Homesteading on the Homefront!)  She invites a handful of friends to come at 11:00 in the morning.  Each one brings a HEALTHY dish to share, along with copies of the recipe.  As the ladies arrive, we add our dishes to the kitchen island.  Each new dish creates a stir of 'oooh's and 'aaaah's and eagerness to try it, as well as questions about how it was made and what ingredients it contains. 

This time, we enjoyed the following menu.  Links to similar recipes are included:

Acorn Squash and Pear Soup

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus with veggies and pita triangles

Cauliflower Crust Tomato Mini Pizzas

Shaved Broccoli Salad

Apple Wedges with Goat Cheese and Pistachios

Plates and bowls were filled and brought to the table.  A blessing was offered and we began to sample each tasty item until our plates were empty.  

Each one of us follows a different eating plan or style.  Each one is in a different stage of our healthy lifestyle journeys.  But on this day we came together to share delicious, healthy, whole food items, created with love.  We shared, but also listened and supported one another right where we are.  We affirmed each other as gorgeous and vibrant women created by a loving God.  We laughed and laughed.

And we parted with our bodies full of good, healthy fuel for the remainder of the day, with recipes for the delicious, nutritious dishes we'd tried, and with a feeling of shared community with girl pals doing our best to take care of ourselves.

Plan a HEALTHY potluck with your friends and encourage one another!

Dreaming of the Spring Garden...

“In the bleak mid-winter...”

We sing that hymn in church every year around this time. And it can be pretty bleak.  Colder temperatures. Blustery days. Too many layers. Less daylight. But there are these beautiful gifts that arrive like an extension of Christmas in my mailbox, first one, then another, then another. Seed catalogs! Pages and pages of color where memories of fragrance and taste are revived...

I'm blogging as Farm Wife in Suburbia for Capper's Farmer magazine today.  Click HERE to read the rest of this story about my garden plan.

bee blankets... or something like that...

On June 3, 2013, we became beekeepers.  We received a swarm call, suited up, and with the help of a couple of experts, we slowly removed the most beautiful swarm of honey bees hanging precariously from a tree branch in a sweet homeowner's back yard.  Safely sealed in a swarm bucket, we brought the bees home and shook them into a lovely English Garden hive.  They made themselves right at home!

Our first hive, one week after capturing the swarm

The months since then have been filled with questions, worries, and the steepest of learning curves.  Thankfully, we had beekeeping mentors and friends in the Beekeepers Guild of Southeast Virginia and in the Virginia Urban Homesteaders League.  These patient folks let us trample through and observe their bee yards, answered every question with kindness, and calmed each fear that arose.  We've successfully tackled hive building and painting, bringing a swarm home, finding and (very sloppily) marking a Queen, splitting a hive, installing a nuc, hive beetles, sugar syrup feedings, stings, honey robbing, and so much more.  It's been hard work and anxiety-filled for this first-time-bee-mama.  Yet we are filled with joy daily as we look out onto the bee yard.

But it was always out there.  In the distance.  But closer with each passing day.

Winter and its dangers were coming.  Harsh winter storms are now bearing down on the states above us and the next couple of days hold bitterly (for us) cold temperatures and strong winds.  Honey bees remain active throughout winter, despite the cold.  We confirmed that our bees had plenty of stored honey for food.  Now we had to do what we could to protect them from this drastic weather change.

Again, we are beginners.  And again, I am a first-time-bee-mama.  Please don't judge.

We gathered some leftover roofing paper and styrofoam sheets from the shed and set to work.  Each hive body was wrapped in the heavy paper and squares of insulating styrofoam, which were tied with simple garden string.  The entrances were left open and entrance reducers were in place in their smallest configuration. 

The bees work hard to keep the temperature inside the hives warm and even, optimally just above 90 degrees.  Too cold and bees won't survive.  But another danger is moisture from condensation forming inside the hives.  We have screened bottom boards or screened vents in each of our hives to allow moisture to escape.  As soon as the temperatures rise again (which in our area means a day or two from now!) we will remove these “bee blankets” from the exterior of the hives.  Hopefully our efforts will give the bees a little better chance at surviving the winter.

But then comes Spring which means swarming, new Queens, mating flights, more hive beetles, hive splits, honey harvesting...

the cranberry conundrum (with vinaigrette recipe!)

It finally happened.  I truly didn't think it was possible.  But it came to pass this holiday season...

Too much cranberry sauce.

I know!  How?  How could it be?  Double and triple batches were always gobbled up with ease.  I even hoarded some of the homemade, ruby-red goodness and canned it for the larder.  But I found myself with half a bowl full after Christmas.

Truth be told, there were lots of leftovers and all I really wanted was a crisp, fresh salad.  Something green and living and vibrant after all that turkey and stuffing and potato and pumpkin and gravy.  I went out to the garden and grabbed some baby kale, some brilliant beet greens, some golden Swiss chard, and I added it all to a bowl of crisp Romaine.  Some sliced mushrooms and bite-sized chunks of cauliflower and I was ready to dive in... almost.

It need a little dressing.  Something sweet and tart and bright.  I opened the fridge.  Any vinaigrette from the pre-holiday salads was long gone.  But there was that half-bowl of cranberry sauce staring me in the face.

YES!  Cranberry Vinaigrette!  Of course!  I just tweaked my basic vinaigrette recipe and added my homemade (from fresh berries) cranberry sauce.  My cranberry sauce is a a half-crushed, half-whole berry mix of cranberries, fresh-squeezed orange juice, orange zest, and raw sugar (sometimes I add a bit of fresh-grated nutmeg or fresh-grated ginger).  Once the ingredients were added to a small container and whazzed with the immersion blender, the vinaigrette became this luscious, creamy, rosy-hued topping that was perfect on my "cure-for-too-many-feastings" salad.

Give it a try... or better yet, try swapping the cranberry sauce for a favorite jam or jelly sitting forlornly on your larder shelf.  You'll create something fresh and delicious, I'm sure!

Too Much Cranberry Sauce Vinaigrette

1/4 cup cranberry sauce 
2 Tablespoons sherry or white balsamic vinegar
1 - 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
Juice of 1 clementine
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/4 teaspoon minced ginger
1/3 cup light olive oil (don't use strongly flavored oil)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Add all the ingredients to a small bowl or container.  Whazz it up with an immersion blender, or whisk, whisk, whisk until smooth.  Store in the fridge and enjoy!

 

a quiet Season...

It's here!  The time of all bustling and wrapping and baking and visiting!  I love the fun of the Christmas season.  But this year things have gone a bit quiet... a small bump in the road has left me cozily resting on our little plot of suburbia. 

Let me just share a few images from around Flannel Jammies Farm at Christmas time, and take this opportunity to wish you all a blessed and beautiful season as we celebrate the coming of the Christ child!

A peek inside the stable built by my uncle

the Christmas tree

the top of our jam and jelly cabinet

a blue Christmas vignette

the tea set my daughter and I made so many years ago

adding ornaments to light for each day's reading

our Christmas meditation

a wreath created from old hymnal pages

stockings are hung on the saw with care

and this little guy

...but the angel reassured them.  

“Don’t be afraid!” he said. 

“I bring you good news 

that will bring great joy to all people.  

 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—

has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!

Luke 2:10-11