Meanwhile a few pictures of how the garden is growing.
the 3 acre irrigated market garden
10 acre dryland farm field is growing
the alchemical work-or compost into cabbages
Saturday, June 28, 2008
latest photos
The heavy smoke in Garberville has us hunkered down indoors and hoping for a breeze.
Meanwhile a few pictures of how the garden is growing.
the 3 acre irrigated market garden
10 acre dryland farm field is growing
the alchemical work-or compost into cabbages
Meanwhile a few pictures of how the garden is growing.
the 3 acre irrigated market garden
10 acre dryland farm field is growing
the alchemical work-or compost into cabbages
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Planting
A need for tractor repairs and the spring full moon frost put planting our crops on hold for a few weeks, but we are now back in action on the farm.
John, Lisa and Sam Epperson-Jansen working the planters- April 28
Farmer's Market begins this Friday! We will be there with certified organic starts for your vegetable, flower, and medicinal herbs garden. See you there!
John, Lisa and Sam Epperson-Jansen working the planters- April 28
Farmer's Market begins this Friday! We will be there with certified organic starts for your vegetable, flower, and medicinal herbs garden. See you there!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
volunteer
One way to be involved with the farm is to drop in on Saturday mornings, from 9:30 'til 12.
Help out for a few hours, practice gardening techniques, share your own tips and observations. All volunteers are welcome to take home a bag of veggies from the spring garden.
Flats of lettuce in the greenhouse. march 30
In late March we are still in the midst of transplanting and are just beginning to set plants out in the field.
Help out for a few hours, practice gardening techniques, share your own tips and observations. All volunteers are welcome to take home a bag of veggies from the spring garden.
Flats of lettuce in the greenhouse. march 30
In late March we are still in the midst of transplanting and are just beginning to set plants out in the field.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
CSA Brochure 2008
WHAT IS COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE? (CSA)
CSA is an agreement between the farmer and the members of the CSA to maintain a relationship for mutual benefit and support. The members agree to provide direct, up front support for the local growers who will produce their food. The growers agree to do their best to provide a sufficient quantity and quality of food to meet the needs and expectations of the members. CSA’s help keep small farms thriving and the up front cash flow provides the working capital that the farmer needs.
WHAT IS COMMUNITY FARM?
Each shareholder, as a member of the community farm, buys a share of the harvest. In return, the farm supplies a weekly share of organic produce. By participating you are able to connect with your local food source at a community level. Members are encouraged to help in the vision and maintenance of the farm during the community workdays.
HOW TO BECOME A MEMBER?
The Garberville Community Farm CSA produce share runs for 20 weeks starting in late May or early June and running into October. Shares come in whole and half sizes for single member households. We also offer a limited number of Work Exchange shares and Gift Share memberships.
WHAT DOES IT COST?
Whole shares cost $420 and half shares $225. Our Gift Share program enables you to purchase a share for a friend or family member or to help a community member in need. Payment plans available so please call.
HOW DO I GET MY SHARE?
Members can pick up their produce at the farm on Thursday afternoon or at the Garberville Farmers Market on Friday
THE GARBERVILLE FARM
The farm is located along side the beautiful Eel River within the Southern Humboldt Community Park. Comprised of a small ever-changing group of local farmers dedicated to the wholesome stewardship of the land and providing a local organic food system for our schools and community.
EATING WITH THE SEASONS
Here is a sample of the variety of fresh, seasonal organic produce to expect in your weekly share.
Arugula Onions Beets Potatoes Lettuce Peppers Carrots Melons
Bunch onions Squash Kale Sweet Corn Chard Beans Garlic Herbs
Broccoli Radishes Cabbage Tomatoes Flowers Cucumbers
Questions?
Call: 707-223-4996
CSA is an agreement between the farmer and the members of the CSA to maintain a relationship for mutual benefit and support. The members agree to provide direct, up front support for the local growers who will produce their food. The growers agree to do their best to provide a sufficient quantity and quality of food to meet the needs and expectations of the members. CSA’s help keep small farms thriving and the up front cash flow provides the working capital that the farmer needs.
WHAT IS COMMUNITY FARM?
Each shareholder, as a member of the community farm, buys a share of the harvest. In return, the farm supplies a weekly share of organic produce. By participating you are able to connect with your local food source at a community level. Members are encouraged to help in the vision and maintenance of the farm during the community workdays.
HOW TO BECOME A MEMBER?
The Garberville Community Farm CSA produce share runs for 20 weeks starting in late May or early June and running into October. Shares come in whole and half sizes for single member households. We also offer a limited number of Work Exchange shares and Gift Share memberships.
WHAT DOES IT COST?
Whole shares cost $420 and half shares $225. Our Gift Share program enables you to purchase a share for a friend or family member or to help a community member in need. Payment plans available so please call.
HOW DO I GET MY SHARE?
Members can pick up their produce at the farm on Thursday afternoon or at the Garberville Farmers Market on Friday
THE GARBERVILLE FARM
The farm is located along side the beautiful Eel River within the Southern Humboldt Community Park. Comprised of a small ever-changing group of local farmers dedicated to the wholesome stewardship of the land and providing a local organic food system for our schools and community.
EATING WITH THE SEASONS
Here is a sample of the variety of fresh, seasonal organic produce to expect in your weekly share.
Arugula Onions Beets Potatoes Lettuce Peppers Carrots Melons
Bunch onions Squash Kale Sweet Corn Chard Beans Garlic Herbs
Broccoli Radishes Cabbage Tomatoes Flowers Cucumbers
Questions?
Call: 707-223-4996
A Farm or a Garden?
Sharon Astyk runs a small CSA farm in the Northeast. She writes thoughtfully, fluently and often with great humor about issues of food security, with a passion that I share.
Here at the farm we have often had the discussion about what makes gardening different from farming? Is it the use of hand tools rather than tractors? Is it a matter of scale or of what kinds of plants one grows?
Ms. Astyk contends that it furthers our cause in pursuit of economic localization to expand our definition of what makes one a farmer. I enjoy this blog for her breadth of knowledge and vision, as well as for practical information.
Sharon Astyk
"Now I know this talk is supposed to be about “large scale gardening” but I keep speaking of farming. That’s because there’s an untenanted space between the word “gardener” and the word “farmer” that needs to be addressed. A gardener is usually someone who grows things for their pleasure, from the sheer joy of it. When we talk about farmers, we usually mean someone with a profession is growing food on a large scale. But somewhere in between them is the idea we need to grasp with language - that there could be someone who grows a lot of food to eat, but still takes pleasure in the act, who may sell food, but whose work cannot be traded on the commodities market.
Or perhaps we don’t need a new word, because we have one. In nearly every nation in the world small scale or subsistence agricultural producers are called “farmers“. In English, the word derives from the word for “earth,” as in “firmament” or “terra firma,” but it also shares its origin with the word “form” to mean “to shapes or creators.” . It occurs to me that right now, we need to become a nation of people who see themselves as creators rather than conquerors or consumers, people who see our central work as the maintenance and sustenance of the earth and human cultures. So I’d like to propose to you that for the purposes of this talk, we think of all our exercises in food production as a kind of farming. In fact, I’d be thrilled if you’d go on thinking of yourself as a farmer after we’re done here, because I think that habit of thought could be a powerful one for most of us.
Because it isn’t such an outrageous leap to imagine yourself as a farmer. It turns out that only in our highly commodified culture, which values only large scale agriculture at all, and even that not much, is a farmer defined as a big man with a big tractor who grows a thousand acres of corn and votes republican. In fact, he’s not a he at all - the average farmer, worldwide is a woman, and not a white woman at that. Even in the US, the only really fast growing segment of agriculture is that of independent women farmers. The average farmer in the world is a woman, farming 4 ½ acres, growing 15 different crops on them. They own no tractor and do most of their labor by hand, and their household has at least one outside source of income (that last part is the only thing that is true of most professional farmers as well - 70% of them must either hold a second job or have a spouse work outside the home to support themselves). And the average farmer world wide doesn’t look all that different from what American farmers used to look like. Because the average first settlers in the US farmed only 7 acres, and by the time that Thomas Jefferson was rhapsodizing about the democratic possibilities of a nation of farmers, the average farmer only had 10 acres.
What we are talking about, then, is a return to human norms, in which many people are involved in a subsistence economy, producing most of what they need, with enough to create a small outside income for the things they cannot grow or barter for. We have been conditioned by growth capitalism to see such work as endless drudgery, grinding poverty and misery. But in fact, as Veronika Bennholt-Thomsen and Marie Mies describe in their book _The Subsistence Perspective_ (a book I highly recommend, btw), most small polyculture producers value what they have, their independence and their strong cultural ties. We should think carefully before we assume that a subsistence lifestyle is a step down - because for many independent small farmers in the world, our dependence on the money economy, military and economic expansionism and outside things like fossil fuels look like a kind of vulnerability and dependence that would be intolerable."
Here at the farm we have often had the discussion about what makes gardening different from farming? Is it the use of hand tools rather than tractors? Is it a matter of scale or of what kinds of plants one grows?
Ms. Astyk contends that it furthers our cause in pursuit of economic localization to expand our definition of what makes one a farmer. I enjoy this blog for her breadth of knowledge and vision, as well as for practical information.
Sharon Astyk
"Now I know this talk is supposed to be about “large scale gardening” but I keep speaking of farming. That’s because there’s an untenanted space between the word “gardener” and the word “farmer” that needs to be addressed. A gardener is usually someone who grows things for their pleasure, from the sheer joy of it. When we talk about farmers, we usually mean someone with a profession is growing food on a large scale. But somewhere in between them is the idea we need to grasp with language - that there could be someone who grows a lot of food to eat, but still takes pleasure in the act, who may sell food, but whose work cannot be traded on the commodities market.
Or perhaps we don’t need a new word, because we have one. In nearly every nation in the world small scale or subsistence agricultural producers are called “farmers“. In English, the word derives from the word for “earth,” as in “firmament” or “terra firma,” but it also shares its origin with the word “form” to mean “to shapes or creators.” . It occurs to me that right now, we need to become a nation of people who see themselves as creators rather than conquerors or consumers, people who see our central work as the maintenance and sustenance of the earth and human cultures. So I’d like to propose to you that for the purposes of this talk, we think of all our exercises in food production as a kind of farming. In fact, I’d be thrilled if you’d go on thinking of yourself as a farmer after we’re done here, because I think that habit of thought could be a powerful one for most of us.
Because it isn’t such an outrageous leap to imagine yourself as a farmer. It turns out that only in our highly commodified culture, which values only large scale agriculture at all, and even that not much, is a farmer defined as a big man with a big tractor who grows a thousand acres of corn and votes republican. In fact, he’s not a he at all - the average farmer, worldwide is a woman, and not a white woman at that. Even in the US, the only really fast growing segment of agriculture is that of independent women farmers. The average farmer in the world is a woman, farming 4 ½ acres, growing 15 different crops on them. They own no tractor and do most of their labor by hand, and their household has at least one outside source of income (that last part is the only thing that is true of most professional farmers as well - 70% of them must either hold a second job or have a spouse work outside the home to support themselves). And the average farmer world wide doesn’t look all that different from what American farmers used to look like. Because the average first settlers in the US farmed only 7 acres, and by the time that Thomas Jefferson was rhapsodizing about the democratic possibilities of a nation of farmers, the average farmer only had 10 acres.
What we are talking about, then, is a return to human norms, in which many people are involved in a subsistence economy, producing most of what they need, with enough to create a small outside income for the things they cannot grow or barter for. We have been conditioned by growth capitalism to see such work as endless drudgery, grinding poverty and misery. But in fact, as Veronika Bennholt-Thomsen and Marie Mies describe in their book _The Subsistence Perspective_ (a book I highly recommend, btw), most small polyculture producers value what they have, their independence and their strong cultural ties. We should think carefully before we assume that a subsistence lifestyle is a step down - because for many independent small farmers in the world, our dependence on the money economy, military and economic expansionism and outside things like fossil fuels look like a kind of vulnerability and dependence that would be intolerable."
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
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