Share Life Farms

I looked at the calendar this week and realized that I had to get my seed ordered. That really is not one of my favorite jobs as you look through several catalogs searching first of all if the seed you want is available in organic seed and then comparing prices to try to get the best deal possible. This year I set the catalogs in front of me and started at the front and as I came to a species I would get my carry-over seeds out and try to decide how much to order for this year. This always leads to some sticker shock as you see one packet of peppers seeds costing 60 dollars. Then I always try to test a few new varieties of something. A few of the new things I am trying this year are Poc Choi and Diacon radishes. I also hope to use a little more help this year so I can concentrate on getting things planted on time which is always a challenge.

My daughter gave me good remarks for last week’s newsletter but then she may be a little biased. She liked my remarks concerning the MOA conference. It is because I know if you will make the commitment to go you will be so glad you did. It is doubtful you will ever have the chance to hear so many powerful speakers and attend so many educational workshops at one time for one price again. To get to hear all of the speakers we have this year you probably would have to attend several conferences spread over several states which would cost you much more in conference fees, lodging, and travel expense. I wish I could require all of my CSA members to attend this conference as part of their CSA because I think it would be that beneficial to them. If you read this and are someone who likes to expand your horizons you cannot afford to miss this conference. OK that is the conference ad for this week. Do you get the idea I’d like to see you there?

Thomas Jefferson once said that he was an old man but a young gardener and the longer I am in vegetable farming the more I understand what he meant. It seems like for most of our time we have been learning more what not to do than what to do. However last year I finally felt like some things finally came together that made a real difference and I am anxious to see if I can repeat and improve on them this year. Of course the excellent start we had to last season was a big contributor to our success last year also. OurMissouriclimate plays such a huge part in how successful we are each year but my goal is to get to a place where we can start each year with a sense of some consistency for each season.

So far both of the high tunnels are in tact and I have the drop down sides working on both of them so I hope to get them both planted on time. We have the peppers planted to the summer house and we have most of the spring house planted already with lettuce, spinach, radishes, and turnips. I still need to put in some beets and I am waiting for the diacon radishes to get here. I also hope to have all six kinds of kale in the field this year. We will be trying some trap cropping this year that we hope will help to hold down the cucumber beetle numbers.

One of the sessions I hope to be able to attend at the MOA is a farm fromTennesseethat has 800 CSA members to see if I can learn some things that will help me give better service to my CSA members. Right now that sounds like an impossible task to me, to supply food for 800 families each week withMidwestweather, so I want to know how they do it. For right now I am hoping for an even better year than last year with a rain each week and lots of sunshine in between. Well it never hurts to dream does it?

Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity.

Boy it sure has been a mild winter so far. It makes you think spring is just around the corner and surly the groundhog will not see his shadow. However I have noticed that whether the groundhog sees his shadow or not spring comes about the same time each year. However it is time for us to get started for spring and we will be planting a lot of seeds next week I hope so we will be ready when spring does arrive. My goal is to get the summer high tunnel in a little earlier this year so we will have tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers a little earlier this year. But to do that I have to get those seeds started

Also this time of year means it is time for the Missouri Organic Association conference that will be held inSt. Louis this year. If you have not viewed the conference agenda this year you need to. You can Google Missouri Organic Association for the official website or go to missouriorganics.org for registration. Even if you are not organic but maybe have some questions about what all the fuss is over the GMO controversy or want to learn more about health and nutrition, or how to grow a back yard garden then you won’t want to miss this conference. It would be a wonderful weekend getaway before the spring rush really hits. Also it is unlikely you will ever have the opportunity to hear so many nationally known speakers in one place at one time.

If you are really concerned about organic products and want to see them continue and thrive then we really need for you to show your support by being at our conference. I believe that some of the genetic changes that Ag. is promoting actually has the potential to destroy our ability to continue to produce organically. If you do not want to see this happen then you need to unite with us in St. Louis Feb.2-4, 2012 to make your voice heard. You also need to join the MOA and get involved to help us get the truth out to the American people. We don’t have the resources of those of the other opinion so we must depend on the grassroots of those who consume our product. Also in these tough economic times many of the organic programs are being cut because they are small programs and the bureaucrats figure they will here less screams from the voters when they cut them. By your support you can send them a message that organic is important to you. I hope you will make every effort to attend and if that is simply impossible then please join the MOA and support us that way. I promise you that if you ever attend one of our conferences you will be hooked and will want to attend every year. Just being able to mingle with hundreds of other people that feel like you do is worth it and as a producer you will want to attend the chef’s demonstration and see how some of the best chefs inSt. Louisprepare local organic food. There will be a farm there fromTennesseethat has an 800 member CSA business. You just have to check out the lineup. Hope to see you there!

Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity

Well we have only a week before Christmas and I hope each of you will get to spend it with family and or friends as no one should have to spend Christmas alone. As I was growing up most rural families seemed to stay close to home so we had a family reunion every holiday. It was always our tradition to spend some time with both grandparents on Christmas Day so it turned in to be a hectic day but we did not mind as the anticipation of gifts was great. As we got older our anticipation shifted to good food and visiting with all our family members. We always had a good time with our close relatives. I hope you have some of those same fond memories.

Unfortunately today we don’t have that same pleasure as our two children are on opposite ends of the country. My wife saves a little each week during the peak season in hopes we will have enough to visit them during the holidays. She says she believes as hard as she works all summer that she is worth at least that much and I agree. She has a little problem as I don’t like to travel and it is hard for us to get away. Last year our children were able to come here for Thanksgiving so we were all able to be together but neither is going to be able to make it this year. We were able to drive to our daughter’s for Thanksgiving and we will be flying to see our son at Christmas. Our grandsons are four and two and this will be the first time we actually will spend Christmas with them.

At this Christmas season with the down economy all you have heard about is how much money people are spending at Christmas. As a society many have forgotten what Christmas is all about. I tell people that all physical life comes directly or indirectly from the soil but at this time of year we celebrate the birth of the only one that can bring us eternal life and that is our Saviour Jesus Christ. There are forces in our country that want to remove all things Christian from our society but that is just a much a part of our heritage as our republic form of government. So I hope during this season that you will proudly keep Christ in Christmas for he is the reason for the season! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity

It’s been a busy week here at the farm as I concentrated on getting the drop down sides put up on my winter high tunnel. I know that one of these days old man winter is going to show up for real and that lettuce, spinach, carrots, and kale are going to appreciate me being able to stop that winter wind from blowing across them. Because this high tunnel did not have 5 foot sidewalls I had moved my hip board up on the bows to allow the summer time heat to get out. Because of this my curtain had to pull up at an angle which it really wasn’t designed to do. However it seems like it is going to work really well. If someone reads this newsletter that is considering a high tunnel and is considering roll up or drop down sides I would definitely recommend the drop down sides. This will be our first winter we have gone into with the high tunnel complete and the crops up where they should be so I am anxious to see how the winter goes as far as harvest goes.

This week is Thanksgiving and I hope everyone has a wonderful one. I am afraid we as a society have generally become very unthankful and that is unfortunate because we truly are blessed. As many of you know we have battled a rare illness most of our married life and I have been guilty sometimes of wondering what I have to be thankful for. Always however when I took an honest look at our life we had so much to be thankful for. We had a Saviour who loves us and blessed us with wonderful families. The fact that we are citizens of this wonderful nation and the great state ofMissouri. The freedom that each of us have to pursue our dreams and worship as we please. The fact that even the poorest of us are still better off than most of the world. And even though we are entering into an election year which most of us are not thankful for, we can at least be thankful that we have the freedom to change governments by the process of free and mostly fair elections instead of revolution and war as is the case in many areas of the world. So even if you are going through a trial that you are having trouble being thankful for I hope you will be able to at least be thankful that you get to go through it in what I think is the greatest nation on earth.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and I’m thankful that some of you will be serving the food I was able to grow for you on this Thanksgiving. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity

Well yesterday was the day we look forward to each year with mixed emotions, the end of our CSA season. By now we are wore out and are looking for being able to slow down just a little bit. On the other hand we will not be providing for our friends until next year. In past years it has also meant a tremendous drop in our income until next spring. However theColumbiamarket first started staying open until the last of November a few years ago which helped. Then last year they had a winter market which gave us income for the full year which was a big help for we were scraping bottom after 3 wet years and lower income. The winter market is both a blessing and a cursing because while it is nice to have an outlet for winter high tunnel production it also ties up your weekends all year long. We have our winter high tunnel production up and going so I’m looking forward to how we fare this year. Last year we didn’t get the plastic on until late so our crops were not as far along as they should have been going into winter.

Last week I told you the verdict was still out on are attempt to save our green beans. Well the verdict came in this week and it wasn’t what we had hoped. When had put the water on them twice with good success and I thought we had it made. The weather started calling for a freeze again Friday night so I got up about2:30amand my thermometer had about 33 so I went out and turned the water on again. The only problem is that we were leaving for market at5:30amon Saturday for our last market. I didn’t want to leave the water on till we got back so we turned it off as we left but the temperature said it was right at 32 so I thought we had it made. We had a meeting after market on Saturday and when we got home it was to some very droopy green beans. My dilemma now is that I’m not sure if I didn’t start the water soon enough and the cold had already damaged the beans or if they didn’t freeze enough ice on them to protect them after I shut the water off. They say that football is a game of inches and sometimes farming is a game of degrees. This week I think I got the third degree.

Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity

There is not much to talk about today except this wonderful weather! This could definitely spoil a person but that is one of the nice things about Missouri. I think when you live in a state that can give you such oppressive weather as we had this summer it makes you really thankful when you then get such a pleasant fall. If we could just have got a nice soaker a couple of weeks ago my stuff would really be jumping now.

I had a real blessing this week as the rodeo team fromMissouriValleyCollegecame out to help me finish digging my potatoes. We dug over 20 rows of potatoes in about one hour. I couldn’t keep ahead of them with the potato digger and it was quite a site as we had young people lined up the full length of the row. If I could dedicate all my time to that project it would have taken me over a week to accomplish that task. The problem is that I can’t give all my time to that, so realistically it would probably have taken me almost a month to do that. Now I can devote my attention to other pressing matters. If I can work something out with them each year maybe I can keep growing as many of those wonderful potatoes my customers love so much. It was getting to the place where I was considering downsizing my potato acres because most of my help was back in school when I really needed them for potato digging. I really don’t mind digging potatoes but it does get a little lonely out there all by yourself. Also I just can’t get them out in a timely manner by myself.

Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity

​Because our neighbor pushed out some trees and burnt some of them it contaminated the outside so Rose was not able to get outside this week and when she is stuck inside she likes to catch the doctor shows on TV. Because of this she was able to catch the Dr. OZ show where he made the statements about the apple juice tainted with arsenic mainly from China that has him in some hot water with USDA. He said that the public would probably be better off buying organic apple juice-duh. The truth is that our officials often don’t want us to be fully informed, usually using the excuse that they don’t want the American people to be unduly alarmed. Well not only should we be alarmed, our officials should be placing an immediate ban on all imported apple juice until it could be tested. I have heard that less than 2% of our imported food is tested anyway which in itself is scary. If that claim were made about a small American apple grower, commercial or organic, I bet they would have seen a hoard of USDA officials at their farm gate the next day. But we don’t want to upset China they might not loan us any more money. This is supposed to be a land where the rules are applied to all men and countries equally. What we want is simply the truth.
​The official statement will probably be that the levels are below the level that the FDA has determined is safe. In laymen’s terms, “don’t worry a little bit of arsenic won’t kill you!” This pat statement by USDA whenever a concern is raised about chemicals showing up in our food supply always gets my goat. I wonder how they come up with these guidelines? Have they been secretly feeding a bunch of people different levels of poison for years seeing who dies and who doesn’t? If this type of logic also concerns you then let them know by buying organic. Maybe an e-mail also to USDA letting them know that your acceptable level would be zero if at all possible.
​I say all this knowing full well that organic is not without its possible contaminations and that is true anytime you are dealing with food. But at least we are not systematically applying poison to the crops and simply assuming that it could not possibly hurt anyone.
​We are getting a little rain this weekend but I don’t consider three tenths the soaking that the weatherman said they were getting in KC this morning and that was heading our way. We are still thankful for what we are getting as every little bit helps. I am anxious for that lettuce and spinach and greens to get going so I can start to offer my CSAs more variety again. I am thankful and surprised that I have such a good stand of fall crops after such a hot dry spell. That hasn’t been the case in past years.
​If you are concerned about the influx of GMO altered crops in our food supply don’t miss the opportunity to hear Jeffery Smith speak in person at the Missouri Organic Association conference in St. Louis the first weekend of February 2012. There will be two days of a variety of subjects of interest to both farmers and consumers. I think if you ever attend once you will want to make it an annual affair.Gotta go, I hear lettuce growing!
​Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity

Well it has been an exciting week down on the farm. My sister signed the farm up for the 10,000 garden challenge sponsored by the Missouri Department of Agriculture and Tractor supply and her name was picked out. Not only that but she was the 5,000 garden registered so the Dept. wanted to make a big deal out of it. So Thursday we hosted the Missouri Director of Agriculture and his wife, Charley Hopper, his boss Steve and a young lady(sorry her name and Steve’s last name forsook me) who was a videoographer(hope you know what I’m trying to spell because this dumb computer has no clue) at our farm to present my sister with her award and to take some video of the farm to post on their Agri-Missouri web site. So google Mo. Dept. of Ag or Agri-Missouri to see a video of the activities of the day. I sure wish they had done all this in June as things looked a lot better back then. This year more than most it seems like I can’t even get to the things I have to do much less the things I want to do. This year I feel like the bumper sticker that says, “God placed me on earth to accomplish a certain amount of things and right now I am so far behind I will never die!”

Just to make the day really unforgettable our lawn mower that I had just brought from the dealer after getting worked on decided to catch fire and burn to a crisp. We now have a gently used lawn mower for sale if you are interested. Better call quick as it was a real hot object for a while anyway.

Top it off with the fact that the extreme heat of early August has finally caught up with us so we had very little to offer at the Markets on Saturday. Thank goodness people were looking for potatoes and some other vendors had green beans that made them want potatoes. We had less to offer our CSA members than we have had for several years but that is the way it goes with vegetable farming inMissouri. We went from having more than we have raised for several years to less in just three weeks. Ah, the joys of farming!

Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity

​One of the major challenges of raising vegetables in Missouri is our climate. I have wanted to get my fall planting done for the last month but it has been too hot and dry. Now it is too wet as we have had 4.5 inches of rain last week. Seems us farmers are never quite satisfied. I was happy to miss some of the heavy rain this spring that those around me were getting but then in July when I needed the rain it was still going around me and I told some I was paying the piper for my good fortune this spring. Now I am hoping to miss a rain or two this next week. But it is like Will Rogers once said, “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” Even though it is a little wet right now I am still thankful for the rain and the break in the heat. It has been a long time since I can remember this much heat coupled with such high humidity. We are still a lot better off than those south of us.
​It has been a worm year here on the farm. We have fought worms in the cabbage, worms in the kale and worms in the tomatoes. We have had a couple of other oddities this year also. We had some of the prettiest Brussels sprouts we have ever had and they failed to put on a single floret. We also had some of the best Swiss chard we have ever had outside of our new high tunnel and one night some kind of creature came in and completely devoured it. What ever it was didn’t leave much but a stalk and many of the plants died because there weren’t any green leaves left. The really strange part of it all is that I have Swiss chard in the new high tunnel about 50 ft. from the other and they never bothered it at all, so far anyway. They also attacked some weeds in the chicken pen about the same time. I would have been glad to give them all the weeds they wanted. That might be a GMO I might consider, a weed eating bug that ate only weeds [just teasing]. We don’t need the mad scientists at Monsanto creating another Pandora’s Box for us.
​Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity

​Just in case you thought I got run over by that big rock chasing me downhill all season I did not. My internet access (my sister-in-law) decided to take a two week Alaskan cruise with her brother and his wife and his wife’s brother. During that time we kept Rose’s mom at out house so we didn’t make it to the computer during that time. Actually the first Sunday out I was here but couldn’t get on line. Imagine that knowing me and my expertise with computers. The next week I was sick in bed and the next week we kept Mom so the sister could get settled back in after her excursion. Then last week our daughter came in with her in-laws to spend a week with us and that was more important than writing a newsletter.
​My daughter’s in-laws wanted to spend a week getting to see what it was like on an organic vegetable farm. They wanted me to make a list of some projects they could help with while they were here. The first thing they asked when they got here was what I had planned for the week. I kind of laughed and said it seemed like most days the day planned me instead of me planning the day but we did have some things we wanted to get done. They wanted to help me dig all of my potatoes while they were here and we were going to start on them first thing Monday morning. Then Sunday night the storm came through with 70 mph winds and 1.8 inches of rain so instead of digging potatoes we cleaned up downed tree limbs all Monday morning and then I had to take Rose for blood work on Monday afternoon. While we were doing that we did manage to check on a new storm door I wanted my son-in-law to install while he was here.
​Tuesday I dug a couple of rows of potatoes with the lister and decided it was dry enough to dig so I went 30 miles to get the potato digger and we dug potatoes all Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning. While we were eating dinner at noon on Wednesday the dad asked if we were about done with potatoes and when I told him we probably had 25 rows left his mouth dropped open. Had to take the digger back Wednesday afternoon as Jim needed it to dig potatoes for his markets. Thursday we had planned a day at the fair which we did manage to keep. Last year we had attended their Farm Show in Pennsylvania which is all inside and I had invited them to come to ours. I said we had a lot more elbow room at our fair. Friday my daughter had such a migraine that our son-in-law took her to a doctor in town to get a shot to help relieve it. We were planning on putting sides on the high tunnel that morning but the migraine changed those plans. While they were gone we worked on getting CSA shares ready and picking for market. I called my store and restaurants and my store placed a large tomato order. Dad was afraid we didn’t have enough tomatoes picked so we started picking tomatoes.
​My guests were leaving Saturday morning and stopping by the Columbia market on their way back. About 5pm Friday I told the dad that I thought if we hit it hard Monday morning I thought we could get all the things done I had to get done and then Tuesday we could start on that list they wanted me to make. I told them the best way to explain their experience was that it had been real and it had been fun but it hadn’t been real fun. The last time my son-in-law was here he had scratched picking green beans off his list of jobs he would like to have. This time he told our daughter he was going to scratch organic vegetable farmer off his list and he was going to use permanent ink! I think they all found out why I always seem to be behind. I just hope they enjoyed the experience because I sure enjoyed the help. It sure is going to be lonely picking up potatoes all by my lonesome this week.
​Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity