We had a nice spring break with 2 inches of rain. DH furrowed (we use a human-powered Hoss wheeled hoe) and laid irrigation for the corn field. I will plant it early this week.
In another field I planted out 75 various broccoli, kale, chard, cabbage, mustard, cauliflower plants I had started...
I grew up in Mountain View, but I have fond memories of doing things all around the Bay Area. I still have an aunt and cousins in Sacramento and Merced, friends in Oakland and San Martin. Although I was just a kid, my uncle took me to some of the Summer of Love concerts and to the Haight-Ashbury...
I plant intensively on a hexagon in my raised beds. But now that I have larger fields across the creek I plant in rows because it's easier and faster to use the Hoss wheeled hoe to plow and cultivator for weeding. Because I am in the desert and must lay drip irrigation, the rows also work better...
I've found if I 'pulse' my organic grains through the freezer a couple of times over a two week period I don't get pantry moths.
To be clear, I'm just saying why I believe organics are more costly (because I produce them). Eating them is a personal choice. I can only tell you what works for me...
Bob, no doubt there are poor practices on both sides of the fence, I'm sure my vets see it, too. I hope that a new generation of farmers, younger than myself, will take up the banner of land stewardship and good husbandry practices like Wendell Berry writes about. I just think it would be good...
Just for the record, I am not certified organic, I just raise them that way and the people who buy from me trust me and visit the birds frequently enough to see how they are treated and kept. I feel the certification process, which cost about $500 the last I checked a decade ago, was concocted...
Yes, eating organic can be more expensive--especially if you aren't able to grow your own food like we do--but the way I see it, I am subsidizing my health, as are the people who choose to buy these foods.
Those people who choose to eat the sugar, artificial sweeteners, dye, artificial...
As a small egg farm, I can tell you I lose money selling eggs at $4.50/dozen. I would ask more, but the market here won't bear it and I'd lose money taking them to the city. I do it to offset my own cost of eggs and because all my 50+ chickens are pets. I use their manure as a source of nitrogen...
Welcome to the forum!
I live in high desert, although not as high as you. My first stone fruits came from a nursery an hour south, and 1,000 feet lower in elevation. They did not require as many chill hours, and when the first warm spells hit they would be faked out and bloom before the next...
Red, in my opinion everyone should hope for cross pollination. Plants that have little genetic diversity are more subject to disease, and can be wiped out by a single pathogen, like the Irish potato famine. I'm among a growing number of landrace farmers that purposely plant a high diversity of...