The rain just keeps coming, but one of the things I can do in a rainy period like we’re having is to take a few minutes to catch up with the blog.
The ground is still wet with the recent round of rains we’ve been having. The last two dry cycles offered some drying out for new plots waiting to be prepared, even if just for a day or two before the rain is back again. It’s all about being ready to work the windows of good weather when they arrive. This new garden was within hours of being ready to plant when the day ran out before the two farmers present could finish it all. By later that evening the rain was back and it will be another week before this one can be worked on again.
It’s often just this kind of close timing that makes the difference in farming. Had we been able to start earlier that day, had we had just one other helper, well, you get the idea. The difference might have allowed us to get this one planted out with the salad greens we plan there. And that’s a huge difference. Everything that is planted at this point is doing fantastic! While it seems unusually rainy to me, a check with the National Weather Service confirms that so far it’s a fairly normal year precipitation wise here in Cascadia, and by August we’ll actually be a bit short on rain. If you like geeky weather stuff their Climate Prediction website shows you just such things.
By the way, these pictures are from a stylish new cell phone given to me by a farm supporter when he learned about the “farmers without phones” dilemma posted about recently by Farmer K. Thank you! I have been waiting to take some pics of what’s going on in the gardens and now I can.
Rainy weather usually means more work in the greenhouse, and last Sunday the moon cycle, the right day, the materials, and my quest to have my favorite hot peppers to cook with for years to come, finally came together. I spent that beautiful spring day starting seeds for several of my faves, and also got to eat lunch with the bees there. I enjoyed starting Peacework Sweet Peppers beside two heirloom tomatoes, Burbank slicing and San Marzano paste, with seeds from Seeds of Change. That would be pre-Mars, Inc.-Seeds of Change as these seeds were bought last year but never got planted. These are two of my favorite heirloom tomatoes, and when I bought the seeds last year expressly for growing out and saving the seed from them I didn’t realize it would be that much more important as another “organic” company sells out to agribusiness interests.
Last year Seeds of Change was quietly sold to Mars Inc. of candy bar fame. This is the same Mars candy company who will now be using GMO sugar beets for the sugar needed in their products. Mars is claiming innocence about their part in non-GMO sugar beets becoming essentially unavailable, but I will no longer patronize them, nor will I trust them to preserve the heirloom varieties that are important to me.
This mission statement can be found on the Seeds of Change homepage: “In 1989, Seeds of Change began with a simple mission: to preserve biodiversity and promote sustainable, organic agriculture. By cultivating and disseminating an extensive range of organically grown vegetable, flower, herb and cover crop seeds, we have honored that mission for 20 years.” Maybe so, but I have strong doubts about that intention going forward. So these two tomato seed packets will be my last seeds from Seeds of Change, now that Seeds of Change has changed. Another company that started out trying to do the right thing suddenly becomes part of what they fought against. If this were a rare thing you could just say it’s an anomaly. But do you know how many small organic producers end up being owned by an agribusiness company? Lots. Check out this chart on Organic Industry Structure.
How does this happen? I don’t think they all sell out for the money. But when companies like Dagoba Chocolate and MaraNatha Peanut Butter end up being owned by Hershey and Heinz it makes you wonder how this happens. Perhaps it’s an issue of scale. Do these companies just get too big for the comfort of the big food companies? Does the popularity of the products grow the companies too large to hang on to their ideals? Maybe it’s when a regional company goes national that is the dividing line. In the case of Ben & Jerry’s, now owned by Unilever, it apparently started when Ben & Jerry’s collective ownership of the company fell to less than a majority share and they could no longer insist that their vision be embraced. I think it will be important in the future that we hang on to our regional producers lest we lose the ability to make that product on a local basis in enough quantity to matter.
In other news I’m happy to tell you a newly built bike trailer for me is just days away from being completed. I borrowed a similar trailer from the trailer builder last week and did the first compost pick-ups from the coffee shops last week on the bike. It was so great to just zip up and park next to the front door on the bike and change out the buckets. Sweet!
I’ve been picking up coffee grounds from 3-4 coffee shops on Mondays and Thursdays for a couple of months now and have been using the grounds to amend beds and start new compost piles. It does take time away from other farming activities but it’s something I’m committed to. Coffee grounds are concentrated tropical nutrients, high in nitrogen, available for free. If you’ve got a garden, go talk to your nearest coffee shop and ask for their grounds. The key is coming back regularly to pick them up. Most coffee places have experience with people picking up the grounds for a while and then fizzling out. If you’re someone who would enjoy an hour or so zipping around to a few places on a bike twice a week to pick up compost, let me know. I can hook you up with a trailer and there’s often a free cup ‘o Joe in it for you.
I’ve also started picking up the veggie scraps from the awesome people at Soup Cycle. I ran into one of their soup delivery people delivering soup to the residents of one of the gardens, and we got to talking. It seems we’re all kindred spirits in cooking great food, using good organic ingredients, and bike delivery! Hopefully some of the compost from them will help grow veggies that will make their way back into a future batch of soup. I’ll keep you posted!
If you want to contact me about helping out, my new phone number is: (203) 962-2741. Just give a call on a day you want to come out to one of the gardens and find out what we’re doing that day. There is much to do and plant in the next 6-8 weeks, including a huge new plot in Ladd's Addition that was once a community garden! It's in a fantastic, very visible spot across from one of the rose gardens, and I would like to infuse some community growing there again. Besides planting corn which has been a tradition there in the past, I think it would be awesome to grow some things like Giant Kohlrabi which people don't see growing very often in a city. Much thanks to J & J who made the land-lender aware of Calliope's Table and what's going on with urban farming!
Come out and join us as we turn these spaces into food production sites. With so much to be done, we can accommodate all ages and skill levels and help you find something to do that lets you find your happy space while in a garden. See you soon!
Peace and peas,
Calliope
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