The mid-October garden report finds the farm in pretty good shape. We survived festival season and got a lot of much needed clean up done. Tomatoes and peppers are dwindling, but the fall beans are banging. Besides six rows of blue lake, we have many rows of October beans whose time has come. These were…
To inquire about having Jeff Poppen out to your small garden or large farm, please click here. About six months ago David approached me with a job he thought I might be interested in. He manages Second Harvest Food Bank and has been getting donations from our farm for many years. David has a goal…
The 6th annual Tennessee Local Food Summit is at TSU’s downtown Avon Williams campus on December 2-4 this year. Local food means many more jobs, food security, better health and revitalizing family farms. According to Joel Salatin, “Local integrity food will enjoy a huge boost from the Tennessee Local Food Summit in December. For enthusiasm,…
Let me take you down ’cause I’m going to strawberry fields. The harvest is real. Gallons upon gallons are picked every few days, and we are not selling them. Instead, we are trying to set a new Long Hungry record for desserts. Besides simply eating too many strawberries, the kitchen crew has produced pies, tarts,…
Planning plantings to provide people who’ve previously pledged payments with plenty of produce places particularly peculiar and perplexing parameters around the potential possibility of periodic over productions. It is way too easy to grow way too much. Our first plantings pose no problems. We can never grow too many onions or potatoes. These storage crops…
Educational opportunities abound on a farm and in a garden. Two groups of school kids spent extended stays here last month, and I spearheaded garden projects at two different Nashville schools. I am learning a lot. Last fall I got a message from Brad, a teacher at High Mowing School in New Hampshire. He had…
I have good news and bad news. First the bad news. There is more carbon in the atmosphere than is healthy for our planet, and it takes 25 years for the carbon we’ve been emitting to get up there. So there will be much more in the next few years. What happens when too much…
March is the compost month. The cows have cleaned up the hay and are eagerly awaiting the greening of the pastures. By harrowing where they’ve been, old hay and cow pies get spread around and mixed with a little soil. This is called sheet composting, where the decaying and rebuilding of humus happens directly on…
We sat in the field, letting the sun kiss our skin while we watched the butterflies and fairies play, and the wildflowers and grass dance. Our fingers worked to pull up the weeds that were choking the garlic and stealing their food, and in return they thanked us, one by one, with a deep sigh…