the year of pulses

Riv      farmer /   he/him & they/them  /  Vermont

[halfmoonhead-deactivated2018081]

Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence.

Malcolm X, November 10, 1963 (via halfmoonhead)

[biodiverseed]

Natural fermentation of plums in beeswax

By Nordic Food Lab

Is it possible that waxing fruits, a symbol of our large-scale food distribution system that values appearance and practicality over taste, could be used instead for deliciousness?

In fact, many fruits when ripe produce a natural wax coating on their surface to reduce the water permeability of the skin. Pick an apple from a tree, rub it on your shirt and it shines; the natural waxes on the apple’s surface are polished. In addition to the wax, the surface of these fruits often host different wild yeasts and other small ‘debris’. Large- scale producers, in order to get rid of these yeasts and other microorganisms which can decrease a fruit’s shelf life, wash their fruits then recoat them with approximately the same amount of edible wax.

But here at the Lab we love wild yeast and bacteria.

At the end of September the plum season was nearing an end in Denmark. We received a box of pristine plums one day from our plum lady in Sweden. The fruits were perfectly ripe – golden, blushed with red, and, we assumed, covered with natural wax and yeast.

Read more

[librarienne]

It is very important to me that everyone experience Leon Bridges dancing.

[farmfolk-blog]

The way he says sugar, im done

[everydayisearthday-blog]

Listening to a playlist made by a human I love // A deep, easy breathing kind of sleepy

[farmfolk-blog]

This is not farming. This is B. Look how beaut human.

[goodsensefarm]

Going Fungal - Fun events in February!

Our dancecard is so full this month. Hope you’ll tango w/ us at #blacklovedc #rootingdc #capitolcannashow #wildfoodcsa 

Here’s a rundown of where you can find us in February. 

All Month: Know your farmer, know your food 

This Friday, we’re starting a blog series called “Ask a Farmer” where we pick our own brain about the answers to frequently asked questions on food, ecology and social justice. Expect serious reflection on identity, quirky witticisms and our classic amateur expertise. It will be fun! Join us here or on social media at #GSFAAF. Send questions to [email protected] and have your answer featured on our blog. 

There’s still time to signup for the Wild Food CSA. February 18th will be the first pickup and we’ll be aiming for a mix of blizzard-proof wild greens, mushrooms, and warming spices. It goes all year but why not start now? Click here for information and signup.

Double Header Weekend: Capitol Canna Show and The Black Love Experience, February 20th

On Saturday, February 20th, we will be performing an act of quantum afro-futurism. 

We will be serving fungal funk in parallel universes. First up is the Capitol Canna Show where we will have new and improved Shiitake Mushroom Kits and our new product, Mycomulch. Previous kit purchasers get a 5% discount on any purchase over $20.  There may also be some day-of surprises. 

We’re really excited about the opportunity to help growers of all types grow better. We will be joined by our partners at Mycosymbiotics, Medicate Better DC, and Hood Hippies blogging and dishing out helpful tips on the symbiotic partnership between fungi and plants. Get your tickets and follow us on the #Mycomulch hashtag. 

THEN, that same evening, we’ll be at the Black Love Experience offering some of our classic warmth to thaw the winter chill. Use the discount link #BLKLVGOODSENSE to register and come by our table for handmade local lotions, salves and balms. The Experience overall will be cocktail party meets craft fair meets concert. Definitely unmissable. 

Much like you, we know that neither blackness nor love are monoliths so we’re really excited to be helping create a space that welcomes all vintages and varieties of black love. Get ready!

Rooting DC - Annual Gardeners Forum February 27th

Rooting DC is something of a yearly tradition around these parts. This year, we’re taking our relationship to the next level and will be presenting 2 workshops called “Building Your Fungal Fortune.”

Building Your Fungal Fortune: Beginner & Intermediate Mushroom Cultivation 

Zachari Curtis, Good Sense Farm & William Padilla-Brown, Mycosymbiotics 

Rm 317 

Take the plunge into the world of mushroom cultivation with Zachari Curtis of Good Sense Farm & William Padilla-Brown of Mycosymbiotcs. Learn basic fungal biology, type of mushrooms you can grow yourself and how, and discover the potential of mushrooms for helping you grow more food, and improve the health of your garden or farm. This is a 1-hour intro to a weekend-long intensive Zachari & William are teaching this spring. This workshop is hands-on. Participants will try several cultivation techniques and leave with a fungi starter kit.

Register for Rooting DC here and find us in the workshop space or at our table!

[motherearthnewsmag]

Permaculture Design: How to Perform a Site Analysis of Your City Lot

The first step to successful permaculture design is understanding your land. Performing a site analysis and assessment of your city lot will clue you in on sun and shade patterns, water trends, and soil quality.

By Eric Toensmeier

Photo Courtesy Chelsea Green

[onceuponawildflower]

Droves of people have turned to local food as a way to retreat from our broken industrial food system. From rural outposts to city streets, they are sowing, growing, selling, and eating food produced close to home—and they are crying out for agricultural reform. All this has made “local food” into everything from a movement buzzword to the newest darling of food trendsters.

But now it’s time to take the conversation to the next level. That’s exactly what Philip Ackerman-Leist does in Rebuilding the Foodshed, in which he refocuses the local-food lens on the broad issue of rebuilding regional food systems that can replace the destructive aspects of industrial agriculture, meet food demands affordably and sustainably, and be resilient enough to endure potentially rough times ahead.

Changing our foodscapes raises a host of questions. How far away is local? How do you decide the size and geography of a regional foodshed? How do you tackle tough issues that plague food systems large and small—issues like inefficient transportation, high energy demands, and rampant food waste? How do you grow what you need with minimum environmental impact? And how do you create a foodshed that’s resilient enough if fuel grows scarce, weather gets more severe, and traditional supply chains are hampered?

  Showcasing some of the most promising, replicable models for growing, processing, and distributing sustainably grown food, this book points the reader toward the next stages of the food revolution. It also covers the full landscape of the burgeoning local-food movement, from rural to suburban to urban, and from backyard gardens to large-scale food enterprises.

Read the Foreword by Deborah Madison

Read excerpts from the book

[farmfolk-blog]

The year of soil comes full circle with the publication of the Status of the World's Soil Resources on the FAO website. These pages and pages of up to date and regionally inclusive data finally put vital emphasis on public education of soil. Here's to soil receiving the care it needs, and as what I can see the future of strict regional soil treatment laws implemented by local governments.

[farmfolk-blog]

[whatthekidsareinto-deactivated2]

O Mother by Son Little

We heard Son Little perform his most recent single at SXSW 2015. Particularly relevant to the current social climate, this is a ballad for all the young people dying in our streets today. He captures the frustration of being a young person of color in this day and age when he sings, “How can I love the world and hate how it makes me feel / Because I don’t want to kneel / Is there anyone who’s got my back for real?” In this song he captures the collective pain we feel over Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and countless others who we’ll never know.

[seventhbrother]

the way that i’ve made it easy to remember whether veins/arteries carry blood away from/toward the heart is this: vein is a simple word. it’s short, easy to say, easy to remember. simple. so i know that veins carry blood toward the heart, because moving towards somebody’s heart is simple. artery is a more difficult word. it’s longer, harder to say. so i know that arteries carry blood away from the heart, because moving away from somebody’s heart is a difficult thing to do.

[amourfou-blog]

Visit Original Link

Hurray For the Riff Raff - Junebug Waltz 

[farmfolk-blog]

[farmfolk-blog]

The last of the farm season concluded with garlic planting

[farmfolk-blog]

[farmfolk-blog]

At Pete’s Greens learning about Pete’s haying techniques with organics. This farm visit in particular struck my senses when it comes to scale. Magic Molly and I exchanged words while on the walk-in-cooler tour, which is itself a mini warehouse. We talked on responsibility of scale, when does organic lose it’s meaning?  I suppose then it flipped back to what we ourselves define organic to be. Organic is intimacy. Organic is human contact with soil, plants, and other people. All in all fuck the USDA and feel it for yourself.

[farmfolk-blog]

When you get the cutest love letters in the mail.

Chicken tractor building, brooding, and rotational grazing all went as planned this season. In the end we ended up with a 4 pounds of grain to 1 pound of meat ratio. Coming into the farm as vegan and having my diet and mindset evolve around these relationships has been never ending. There’s always more to learn, innovate, and appreciate from the systems of domestication. Constantly revisiting my mind and heart about these practices with a lot of factors to consider in the New England food hub region

This animal - human - nature trifecta is undoubtedly forecasted in everyone's day to day life to telling how sense the world. How is feeling nature fundamental to developing human traits? How does the body process meat/death without being apart of killing? What is the tipping point of indulgence to moderation / self change? And ultimately the question that keeps boomeranging back, how do you influence care? How do you get people to care? With questions being reborn and reformed with more experience with farming, here's where my head was two months with all the new farms and farmers in Vermont. I focused on animal raising and my own identity shift within that. Here's my reflection piece:

 The first two months of the farmer training program have been drastically shifting my awareness, appreciation, and overall choices towards food. A year ago while on an AmeriCorps budget and cooking schedule I committed to being vegan. Canceling out industrial animal agriculture products from my own diet made me feel less connected to the toxic waste of this power structure industry. The idea that killing animals was a bad thing infiltrated my choices, if I couldn't do it myself why would I encourage another human to kill something for profit?

            My first rotation on Bread and Butter Farm was absolute magic. In the early morning by the shade of the barn our group listened to Corrie talk about how  her management of intensive rotational grazing brought change to the land. She pointed out to a field to show where the land was once so decimated by careless over grazing everything stopped growing there. Therefore causing erosion problems and inevitability causing watershed problems. In the same spot we we're looking, after some years of mindful animal on land practice, there was now a regenerated diversity of green cover thriving, speckled with morning dew in so many textures. In that moment I understood the role animals play as land stewards accordingly with people being responsible animal managers. The landscape health is fostered by the way humans are responsive and responsible to the needs of the land, subsequently enhancing quality of life for the animals in the domestic realm and also the wildlife realm. This practice undoubtedly exhibited that small scale, organic, intentional farmers are vital to the land's lineage, true wholesome food sources, and teaching the prioritization of life quality.

           A quote from the Food Summit has been circulating into the lens of supporting local organic meat to me as well. Raj Patel answered a panel question on the topic of vegetarianism like this ," Most vegetarians / vegans care more about brown eyed animals than brown eyed people." This statement changed what I fundamentally define food as, what is the most important aspect of my imported nutrients.  Raj also talked about how as a farmer you're constantly choosing what lives and what dies everyday, you're orchestrating an ecosystem- an entire ever changing organism. Realizing this role of playing god in it's own sense brings to surface the idea of death and the act of killing on the farm. This sentiment of position to power poses many questions in particular to meat production. Can killing be consensual? Is death a compromise? What does sacrifice in a largely materialistic culture mean? How does education broadcast to consumers about the disjointed, socially injustice aspects in our food system? What is the actual worth of different foods?

           There are some things that still ring true to me in the world of meat production. Firstly that the moderation of meat consumption isn't honored towards sustainability in the US. Secondly the quality of meat and where it's coming from to get to said consumer is essential to supporting responsible land stewardship. Thirdly the respect of meat- the respect we have for the quality of life is so often misunderstood, mistreated. When I used to think about the death of animals I would think about the act of killing and not the role of life quality. Now acknowledging animals as prime connectors of the land, there is truth to killing as a compromise. To engage all of these gears: land integrity, socioeconomics, and the chain of supply and demand we must all play a role of accountability towards death and it's sacrifice for all other life.

          As my own diet evolves from veganism I feel a new sense of compassion growing deeper to respect the life quality of the people who are involved in the food system, the animals being cycled through it, and being apart of the cycle myself as well. Viewing slaughtering as sacrifice shinned a new light towards restoration, recycling mass is to bring optimal health for a resilient future. To input harmony towards human health, land health, and animal health is most precious act a farmer can convey. To become an opened minded agro ecologist, social activist , and perhaps a nutty organic farmer is where I want to move with life. This program has opened many doors for me and who I'm becoming. I really couldn't fit into a more comfortable state of complete gratefulness.

Thank you all for making this farm a home. - Taylor