To Members and Friends of Jubilee Farm, here is the update for January 21, 2008
Hi Everyone,
- Off-Season events and activities
- Bio-dynamic transition: plans for this year
- Summer Session 2008
- Winter Session starts February 6th
- Agricultural changes in our Valley
- Extending our production season
- A new twist on an old skill: how to build a better compost pile
- Photo of our latest born calf, "Myluka"
1. Off-Season events and activities
The "off season" for Wendy and me isn't over yet, but what's gone has just flown by! Our biggest news is that we've become grandparents! Wendy's daughter Alina gave birth to a precious baby girl (Layla) on December 7th. The birth came a full month before expected (baby Layla was under five pounds), and happened while we were in Kentucky at the Acres Eco-Ag Conference. Wendy was able to make the short trip from there to North Carolina where Alina lives, and spend some time with her and little Layla.
My time and energy has been in large part devoted to completing the work on the King County Task Force that was called to look at agricultural issues in the Snoqualmie Valley. It's been time consuming work, but I think the time has been well spent. Under a separate heading I will share some of the specifics about the conclusions of the Task Force for those of you who are interested.
This year our Fall CSA required more from us than ever before. That is a good thing, but it also cut into our "off-season." It required more from us for two reasons. First, it was the largest off-season Session we've ever had. But more than this, we made a greater effort this year than ever to provide Fall Session members with local food. This year we got off pretty easy with regard to flooding; we didn't have a flood at all until the very end of the Session. We had planted a lot of food for potential fall harvest, and this year that potential was fully realized this season. It was good to harvest so much food for the Fall Session from our own farm this year, and to get the rest from within a 100 mile radius. But it did keep us busy. It's a lot easier to harvest produce on a beautiful, sunny, warm morning in the summer than when it's cold, windy and the snow is flying around!
This is the first year in a long time that the off-season has come, and will go, without us getting away for a little time to some warm place. The impingement on our time to escape to a tropical clime that made such a trip impossible this year is that I decided to teach during winter quarter. Not teaching is definitely better for the farm. But I enjoy so much the intellectual stimulation and the interaction with students (and faculty) that I just can't give up the ready-made opportunity that exists for me at BCC. This quarter I'm doing two sections of "Contemporary Moral Problems." This time (for the first time) I am, along with the standard presentation of various ethical theories, focusing on environmental and agricultural issues. I'm not sure why, but for a long time I have not felt the freedom to teach about some of the issues about which I feel the greatest passion. But this quarter I'm focusing precisely on those issues, using the work of Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollen and Bill McKibben (among others) to "legitimize" perspectives that have arisen from my now-many years of farming and reflection.
Along with these "off season" activities (and distractions!), but always on the back of our minds (and often in the forefront of our thoughts and conversations) is the perennial concern of how to become both better stewards of the land that we have been entrusted with, and how to better serve the community that has committed to supporting this farm. We have read carefully the surveys that so many of you completed at the end of our last Summer Session. Consideration of your input and of our own sense of how we can both meet the needs and desires of our members and be faithful to our responsibility to care for the health and vitality of this farm are things we never have an "off season" from; they constitute the "calling" we feel privileged to fulfill, as best we can.
2. Bio-dynamic transition: plans for this year
This will be our third season of adopting Bio-dynamic farming techniques on our farm, and the second season of doing so in an intensive, committed way. Of the many features of BD that have led us to its practices, the emphasis on achieving real sustainability is what attracted us the most, and is, not surprisingly, what we find ourselves putting a great deal of energy into. To achieve sustainability of the soil we must "grow our own" fertility, and that's what we are working on.
The means by which we are growing our fertility is what Steiner calls "God's gift to agriculture:" the cow. For four and a half months of the year, during our flood season, we keep our cows in the loafing shed. Two years ago we had five cows to "winter" and collect manure from for composing. Last year we had twelve cows to over-winter; this year we have twenty-two. The way we accomplish this, in case you don't know, is that rather than try to collect and hold all the manure throughout the winter, we simply cover the cows "loafing" area with fresh straw once a week. Over the week the straw absorbs the manure and urine deposited by the cows, and then gets covered by a new layer of straw. Throughout the winter the manured straw becomes like a mat that gets thicker and thicker. By the end of winter, it will be about three feet high! The nitrogen and other nutrients that might be in danger of volatilizing form stable, chemical bonds with the carbon in straw, and become completely odorless. It's hard to believe! You could have a picnic on top of it (if you didn't mind being joined by 21 cows and a bull!).
Getting enough straw on the manure is crucial. Last year we had a situation where we had some leachate oozing out from under the mat. This isn't good, because leachate that hasn't been purified by composting is an environmental risk, and also a waste of potentially excellent fertility. But this year we have made some changes, and even though we have almost twice as many animals, we have not lost a single drop of leachate!
When it warms up and dries up enough to let the herd back on pasture, we then will use the (approximately) eighty tons of matted manure and straw as the main ingredient in our compost pile (see description of our new-this-year composting method below). Each year, as the herd grows, we get more compost material, and hence more compost, which is what we need not only to grow "nutrient dense" crops, but to maintain and improve the quality of our soil.
In addition to growing our own fertility, we are taking steps to improve the effectiveness of our efforts at applying the BD preparations. We are fortunate that our State's BD coordinator, Barry Lia, has agreed to spend time each week during this season working with us on our farm. Last year we spread the BD preps by hand, which is not only effective, but also immensely satisfying, both aesthetically and existentially. But it's not the only way to do it, and farms our size usually employ some kind of mechanical aids. This year Barry is going to be working with us to set up a spraying program for the micro-biological inoculants and other preps that will enable us to make applications more often and more efficiently. (In the next update I hope to discuss some of the implications that mechanized spraying have on the important BD value of "intentionality.")
3. Summer Session 2008
When I consider the excitement we feel about each new growing season I find myself feeling sorry for "conventional" farmers (i.e. the 95% of US farmers that still depend on synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides). Each year as our composting capacity increases and as we improve the means whereby we apply our various BD farm-based preparations to the soil, we can expectantly look to the production of higher quality, nutrient dense, fruits, vegetables and livestock products. Conventional farmers each year can expect their soil to be even more depleted than the year before, in need of more off-farm, petroleum-based inputs each year, and will face the dismal prospect of growing produce with nutrient levels that diminish year after year.
Summer Session is, of course, the focus of our year. We appreciate the four, six-week Sessions we have during our "off season." But the twenty-week Summer Session, which includes almost all of our growing season, is what our farm is really all about. This year's Summer Session will begin on the week of Tuesday, June 17th. The pick-up days and times that we used last year seemed to work well, so we will stick with them: Tuesday from noon to six; Wednesday from noon to four; Friday from noon to six; and Saturday from ten to two.
We are concerned that at some point we need to put some limits on the size of our CSA. Last year we were just short of 400 members, with an additional 50 work share members. Our feeling is that the time to set a limit is here, and after last season we think that limit should be at a level of fewer members rather than more. So we have set for this season a limit of 350 shares, plus with whatever work share members we get.
Many of you have already signed up for this season's Summer Session; there are many others that have not. The easiest way to sign up is on-line at www.jubileefarm.org. If you sign up on-line, you can make payment either using PayPal or by mailing us a check, as many of you prefer to do.
4. Winter Session starts February 6th
Winter Session is almost upon us! We've had many inquiries of late asking about what to expect in the way of produce this Winter Session. Will we be sticking to produce from our own farm and/or within a 100-mile radius as we did for the Fall Session? We need to be careful about what we commit to. Certainly we have committed to 100% of our Summer Session produce coming from our farm. Fall Session we are prepared to commit to "our farm or within 100 miles." And we think that the two Spring Sessions can also become "our farm or within 100 miles." But Winter Session is the greatest challenge for us.
What we've decided to do for this year is this. We are going to try as hard as we can to use only items from our farm or within 100 miles for the Winter Session. If we can't do that, we will go to the California supply-line. What we won't do is go outside the US. The reason for our decision to try to do now what we haven't even set as a goal for our previous Winter Sessions is that we believe global climate change and other environmental concerns demand us to practice a level of discipline that we have not sensed previously to be needful. So, we will try to stay within 100 miles. But no matter what, we won't go outside the US. The reason for staying in the US is that we have become convinced that agricultural free trade contributes to climate change and is injurious to both local and foreign communities and to the health and sustainability of those communities' agriculture endeavors.
I guess it is safe to say that the concern we've had for a long time has increased to the place where we feel we must act on what the best available data indicates to be true. I would grant that the data is not univocal. But it is powerfully persuasive. If we are wrong about this, then I would rather err on the side of precaution than on the side of presumption—presuming that is, that we are wrong about the strong case to be made for the detrimental impact of global agricultural trade on the environment and on the lives of human beings.
Wendy and I welcome any feed-back on this from any of you and especially from those of you who participate in our off-season shares. We certainly don't want to alienate any of our members. Nor do we wish to dogmatically claim "we know" how things stand. We just believe that the time has come that we must act on what we believe to be the case. We'd love to hear your ideas on this via email at jubileefarm@hotmail.com.
The deadline to get in on the start of our Winter Session is noon Friday, February 1st. We are very hopeful that many of you will be willing to support us in this decision and to support our farm during this, the "darkest Session" of the year. The off-season Sessions are what allow us the cash flow to keep the farm operating at an "appropriately efficient" level. They also encourage us to stretch the borders of what we can grow locally (see item below on "off-season farming").
5. Agricultural changes in our Valley
You may remember it was just fifteen months ago that I first talked (in an update like this) about concerns I had regarding agriculture in our APD (that is, the Agricultural Production District in the Snoqualmie Valley). A lot has happened since then, and a lot of people have become involved. In addition to myself and Wendy, there have been a lot of other farmers, our representative Kathy Lambert and her staff, her fellow members of the King Council, our County Agricultural representatives, and finally a cross-section of County officials working on a Task Force specifically dealing with these issues. The final result isn't everything I would have wished for, but it is a significant step in the right direction.
What is that result? At this point we have unanimous recommendations from the Task Force to the King County Council regarding the following. First, farmers should be allowed to construct "farm pads" and to construct buildings for storage on top of farm pads for flood protection. Second, farmers should be allowed to construct agricultural buildings in the APD. Third, farmers should be allowed to make "substantial repairs" to existing buildings.
These recommendations are just that, and they still need to be considered and then acted upon by Council. Each of these recommendations (and there are others as well) will help existing farmers. But I still think that if we are going to realize anything near to the agricultural potential of our APD there is one thing more that is wanting; and that is the ability for new farmers to build homes on land without pre-existing homes so they can live on their farms in the APD. We all say we want family farms. How can we have family farms if families can't live on their farms?
We've come a long way, but we have further to go. The State legislature is in Session now. Unfortunately, it will be next year before we can hope to have a proposal to amend State Law to allow new farm houses to be built in our APD. But that is the direction I believe we need to go, and establishing the parameters within which that can be done responsibly, along with garnering the legislative support to accomplish that, will become this year's agenda for us.
6. Extending our production season
For many years we have taken the position that because we live in an area that floods we can't produce crops in the "off season." To be honest, I suppose I've been a bit cavalier about that, perhaps thinking of my own need to have some time away from farming.
As we now begin to see the impact of importing food on the global environment (added fossil fuel usage) and on local economies, we are beginning to think harder about what may be our responsibility to produce year-around crops. It probably can be done, and if so, it could be done most easily by those of us who have the equipment and knowledge to do it. Many crops for fall (often right up until winter solstice) can be grown here in the floodway. We saw that this year. But when we get to flood season, which usually starts around Thanksgiving, that potential, quite literally, goes under.
But there are other options that we haven't seriously looked at before. Even our own farm holds the potential for off-season production on land we own to the west of where we farm now (on the hill behind our home) that is not in the floodway. We don't have a lot of land up there, but enough to give it a serious try. This year we plan on doing that. It will require planting in such a way that winter and early spring crops could be covered with a "floating row cover" like we use all the time during the summer to protect susceptible crops from pests. We would then, when it starts getting really cold, cover the already covered crops with low cloches. The plants would then end up being "double insulated."
So our plan this year is to plow the upland areas (one or two acres) this spring, plant a cover crop of buckwheat in early June, work that into the soil in mid July, and plant winter crops in August and September. We'll do it on a trial basis this year, but if it works, it could lead to the possibility of year-around production.
7. A new twist on an old skill: how to build a better compost pile
As the herd increases in size, and the need for compost is ever before us, we are thinking of ways to increase the efficiency of our compost making. Because our farm is in the floodway, we are limited in the available time to make compost. The major component of our compost isn't available until mid-March when we get the cows back out on pasture. We can make the piles then, but the compost must be ready to spread by the last week of August. That's when we need to get it spread, worked into the soil, and planted with a cover crop in time to avoid the threat of erosion from flooding. So we have at the very most, assuming we get right on it and get the piles made by the 1st of April, about five months for the piles to be transformed from a mixture of straw, manure, rotted vegetables and fresh-chopped grass into "black gold."
The basic principle of composting is simple. Heaped up organic matter becomes the food supply for a population explosion of microbes that are always present in the soil, in manure, and in rotting vegetables and decaying grass. With large amounts of this food for the microbe colonies that digest all this stuff, the growth potential is exponential and unbelievably fast. The evidence of this is that within a day of building a compost pile, the heat generated by burgeoning populations of microbial life is manifest by steam billowing out of the top of the pile.
For us the "limiting factor" in the longevity of the composting process is air. Microbes, like us, need food, air, and water. The food we have tons of! The water we don't have much problem with. But air is the big issue for us. What happens is that as the microbes consume and digest the composting material, the pile begins to collapse on itself. What is happening is that the air that fills the pile as it is made begins to get used up by the microbes. As the air diminishes, the microbes can no longer thrive and multiply. Instead, they spore-off. The pile gets cold (no more steam), and the composting process slows down and eventually just stops.
At this point, the pile needs to be turned. Turning a pile that weighs hundreds of tons is a huge undertaking, and one that requires a great deal of time and energy (i.e. fossil fuel). So this year we are trying something new to us. We are going to build a "static" pile with a forced air line at the bottom through the entire length of the pile. The idea is to re-supply the pile with a source of air to replace the oxygen that is removed by the microbes, thus allowing it to continue "working" until the composting process is complete—and this without ever turning the pile.
To achieve this we'll put a perforated pipe on the ground with a small fan on one end, and the other end blocked off. We'll then cover the perforated pipe with a couple of feet of very course bark chippings (like "beauty bark," but much coarser). We then will build the piles on top of this. I'm sure you've all seen our piles before. In the past we've made them across the street. We make them in rows about one hundred feet long, twelve to fifteen feet wide and about six feet tall. This year we'll do that too, except that buried underneath will be the perforated pipe that will pump air under the pile. The air will then work its way through the bark chippings (which will force it to spread out through the pile) and then be forced up into and through the pile, providing air to the microbe colonies. The fan that supplies the air is on a rheostat, and the volume of air it pumps into the pile can be adjusted. By taking the temperature of the pile with a compost temperature probe, we can tell if the microbes are getting enough air. If the pile starts to cool off, indicating a lowering of microbial activity, we increase the air; if the pile is getting too hot, indicating too much microbial activity, we turn down the fan.
So, there's the plan. The down side is that we need to use electricity. The up side is that we don't need much of it and we could (if the system works) run the fan off a solar panel (since the days will be long during the compost making time). The up side is huge: we don't have to turn the pile, which will save us days of time, and lots of fossil fuel. Because of this, we are very excited to initiate this system, and very thankful to our friend in the Skagit Valley, Wayne Schue, who is helping us to engineer the system.
8. Photo of our latest born calf, "Myluka"
