Here is the aerogarden in action-- my cherry tomato seedlings have sprouted and are doing well! In another week or two I'll choose the most robust-looking plant and transfer it from the aerogarden and into the five-gallon bucket system. For now I'm happy to have the little ones growing happily in their intensively managed habitat.
Permaculture is a topic I've been interested in for the last year or two and that received a lot of airtime at the conference. Basically permaculture philosophy teaches that the best model for humans who want to grow food is the way that food grows in nature. In other words, a farm should strive to be a self-contained self-sustaining ecosystem. That means more perennials than annuals, plants that can thrive in your region, polyculture (i.e. intermingled species, as opposed to monoculture where only one crop grows on many acres), the use of natural landforms to their best advantage in terms of water catchment and wind breaks... and a host of other details.
I have spent a lot of time over the past few years thinking about animals and what role they should play in our society and it has been eye-opening to learn that most closed-loop farming set-ups require animals in order to be most successful. Because if you're not bringing in outside pesticides to kill your bugs and you're not using petroleum products as fertilizer you look to nature for your model and you see birds eating bugs and insects pollinating and everything pooping and dying and decaying back into humus. I am not totally sold on the idea that it's impossible to get good results using plant-matter compost and complimentary planting techniques (where planting, say, broccoli mixed with mustard protects the broccoli from a certain pest). But the farmers I've asked have universally felt that manure and compost that includes some fish and other animal components are better. Now, most operations raising animals for meat or dairy are not thinking about the animals or their land in such a wholistic way, and, furthermore, I don't see any reason that one would have to kill and eat the animals included in a permaculture design. But at the very least it raises some questions about what it means to be vegetarian and adds yet another philosophical quandary to be sorted out before any future farm of mine gets under way.
Animal questions aside, permaculture design leads directly to the use of food plants that are not current grocery store staples (because most grocery store staples are resource-intensive imported annuals). In our sessions I heard the names of fruits, veggies, and nuts that are well-suited to the climate of the northeast U.S. -some of which I have never even seen before. A few farmers are now starting to forage and cultivate these heretofore little known foods. Some examples are the hardy kiwi , the seaberry , the jujube . I think the process of developing a market for these unfamiliar products is going to be a really exciting challenge!
Which leads me to the very best thing that I took away from Young Farmers Conference, which is the sense of a future farm (still feels too distant to say "my future farm" but that's what I mean). It's a small farm- just a few acres- full of perennials and alternative food crops--a place and an endeavor that engages its community in a dialogue about the best ways to broaden our cultural palate in order to localize our food production.
After months of discussion, my dear friend Shiv of Pithy and Cleaver brought her sister over to my place for some post-Thanksgiving canning! It's a little late in the year for canning, I know, but we managed to find some of the last of the year's cauliflower at the farmers' market as well as some locally grown okra and quince at the food coop.
I first learned to can from a friend's mom when I was living in Kazakhstan. Olga and I made jam and pickles in the old Russian tradition, which, as it turns out, involves all the methods that the experts at Putting Food By warn against. Thankfully no one was injured and the pickles, as I recall, were pretty darn tasty. This time around, with more knowledge and a much bigger kitchen, I think the results will be even better! We made pickled okra, tomatillo salsa, Indian-spiced sweet cauliflower pickles, and quince jelly. It was my first jelly-making experience and I am quite pleased with the results! I haven't broken into any of the jars yet, but I sure do like looking at them, peeking over the top of my kitchen cabinets!
Finally I have a moment to breathe and reflect on my experiences at the second annual Stone Barns Young Farmers Conference. First of all, if you live in the northeast and care about food and haven't been to Stone Barns I highly recommend that you drop everything and go there immediately. It's a beautiful, idyllic piece of property and they are doing lots of work to promote farmed foods, farmers, and community involvement in small farms.
The conference was two very full days of workshops geared towards young farmers or future farmers who are dedicated to creating small-scale diversified fertility-producing agricultural solutions to our current monolithic monocropping petroleum-dependent agriculture industry. It was really motivating to realize that most of the session leaders were young farmers themselves- many of them had been farming for no more than five or six years. It makes a small farm seem like a truly attainable goal!
Another positive aspect of the conference was community. Two hundred people attended this year's conference because each of us cares deeply about food politics, environmental sustainability, access to land, economic equality, animal rights, human rights, cultural renewal/ preservation and a host of other issues that are directly connected to the way that food is grown, harvested, sold and used. It felt so good to be in the midst of all that positive hopeful energy and I'm so grateful that I took the time to add my energy to that mix!
Please check back (or subscribe) to read upcoming posts where I will more deeply investigate the ideas and information that came across in the workshops. For now: Tired, inspired, and actively looking for chances to get my hands in the dirt!
