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From the Fields March 3rd 2007
No longer such a surprise to us here in Central Florida, the last few weeks have hosted all extremes of temperature - from cold frosty nights to hot humid days. But with frost warnings behind us and longer, warmer days ahead (we think) we are officially mid-season. It is a busy time in the fields as we are seeding, transplanting, fertilizing, amending soil, and (as always) weeding. Increasing sunlight hours and warmer nights will grant plants the opportunity for more expansive growth over the next few months. We should see the bounty increase as the days lengthen. Our biggest concern in the spring will be the (expected) lack of rain – after our winter weather fronts have passed and before hurricane season begins, March through May typically remains Florida’s driest season. Yet despite the dryness, it is generally our most prolific time of year.
Sunrise and Sunset: 6:46am/ 6:23pm (actual)
Moonrise and Moonset: 5:26pm/ 6:06am
Day length is increasing well over a minute everyday, how great for the plants! On Saturday March 3rd we will have 11hours and 36 minutes of daylight.
Vegetable Spotlight – Green Lance
Green lance - with its small light green, oval-shaped leaves and defining white flowers - can be found this week in the kale mix. Known as a Chinese budding-type kale (also called Gai Lohn and Pak Kah Nah) it is great in stir fries or cooked like kale or broccoli.
FieldNotes
Flora
We sat on the edges of our seats in anticipation of a huge storm said to be about to swallow central Brevard – it reached to the north and avoided sending even a spittle worth of rain to the farm. Needless to say, Tuesday’s forecast and weather de facto saw the same outcome. It has been over two weeks since we’ve had any rain at the farm. As with the early arrival of everything else this year – from snowbirds to tree buds – the dry season seems to have begun earlier than expected. Dryness aside, spring is apparent in the fields as once underground seeds emerge into flowers and herbs throughout the fields. The citrus trees are still going strong – grapefruit has lightened up considerably, but the temple oranges are in abundance (juice away!).
Fauna
We had hoped to be sharing mulberries with shareholders (and eating some ourselves) these past two weeks, but the cedar waxwings continue to eat them all up. Each morning and early evening a cacophony of soft high-pitched peeps is heard, their matte hued yellow-brown tones visible in the tree tops. They pay no mind to our requests for a share in the berries, nor our antics to chase them away.
The red-tailed hawk and many ospreys can still be seen high overhead, though less this week than before. The red-breasted robins have returned en masse, they are often seen hopping along nearby the tomatoes – apparently munching on those pesky tomato fruitworms.
Out of the treetops and on the ground we have not seen any more signs of the young hares, but we have noticed the nibbled tops of some of the young broccoli plants.
Among the insects and reptiles we have noticed many newly emerged black swallowtail butterflies feeding on the Mexican sunflowers (the larvae of these critters enjoyed the ferny stalks of the dill, carrot, and fennel. Richly black and brightly red tiny grasshoppers can be found again in the north plots. We never had much trouble with them last season and hope it will be the same again this year.
The black racer snakes have been out sunning themselves this week, they always surprise us as they so slyly meander through the crops. A previously unknown inhabitant was discovered (rather uncovered) Friday morning. While looking below the nasturtium plants for hidden oregano, I came across a medium sized box turtle. Apparently s/he has been out there for quite some time. Maybe that is who is eating those young broccoli plants. Hhmmm…
Around Brevard and Central Florida
There will be a total Lunar Eclipse (during which time the moon is said to appear very red) on Saturday March 3rd with 6:21pm the mid-process time and a partial Solar Eclipse March 19th. Check out the NASA Eclipse Home Page: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/lunar.html
The scheduled Atlantis Shuttle launch for Friday 16th may be delayed due to hail damage from earlier storms this week. It is being rolled back into the vehicle assembly building (VAB – the big white box we can see from the causeways). The original time was a 6am window. Ensuring that we keep our eyes to the sky, there is an Atlas rocket launch still scheduled for March 8th with a 9:37-11:42 pm window.
Recommended Readings and Pertinent Websites
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has unveiled its intent for the new and improved 2007 Farm Bill (to be officially released later this year). The bill’s new emphasis focuses on such concerns as biological conservation and small-scale farming incentives. Check it out at www.usda.gov/wps/portal.
Bitter Harvest: A Chef’s perspective on the hidden dangers in the foods we eat and what you can do about it by Ann Cooper (2000). This book was recommended by a shareholder a few weeks ago (I still have the library copy out). I have found it to be very informative and eye-opening as it presents a timeline of what has shaped the food system of the United States today. It clearly examines the history of food production and agricultural politics over the past few centuries, including a concise timeline of supermarket creation, expansion, and the rapid push towards industrial agriculture in the 20th century. Furthermore, the book covers a wide array of pertinent modern agriculture-related issues (from crop production to various takes on the food pyramid to seasonal eating to views on the future of food systems in the United States). Chock full of information throughout, Bitter Harvest continues educating until the end with its extensive appendix of resources in the last few pages.
The following is an excerpt from Bitter Harvest that clearly reveals its intent:
The history of food, as the shelves of any bookstore will testify, is not as straightforward as it may seem. Food is not just food: it is ritual, tradition, and memory. There is a spiritual connection between humanity and the bounty that springs forth from the Earth’s fields, farms, streams, rivers, and oceans…Until recently, one did not require the aid of a culinary history to comprehend that bond. Unfortunately, we now find ourselves in a place where our connection to the land has become so illusory that the only way to discover where we are today is to look back at our beginnings. It is through this exploration of the past that we will understand how we came to find ourselves standing at a crossroad where the road ahead could lead us, and our children, over a precipice (p 4).
Eco-Agri-Food Definition of the Week – The Green Revolution
In encyclopedias, dictionaries, and many online sources, the green evolution can be found simply defined as “the increase in the world production of such cereals as wheat and rice during the 1960s and 1970s because of better seed and new agricultural technology” (Dictionary of Cultural Literacy 1988: pp 491). Still found in the large–scale industrial agriculture system of today, the roots of the green revolution were established in the years just after World War II when products once designed for the military entered into the world’s fields and food system. Agricultural practices began to include such war-derived products as neurotoxins (e.g., mustard gas) that could be used to kill insects and rodents (pesticides/rodenticides) and petroleum-based products for crop fertilization.
The green revolution asserted confidence and trust in the capabilities of new technological innovations to grow the world’s food. As explained in Ann Cooper’s book Bitter Harvest:
breeding crops to produce high yields and developing intensive cultivation methods to be used in concert with “miracle” chemicals. These new techniques saved farmers both time and money, and it was believed that the green revolution would help create the technology that would make feeding the world’s ever-increasing population possible. The science of genetics really began to have an impact on plants and animals during this era as well. Hybrid seeds became an important source of crop enhancement, and by mid-century 75% of all corn was hybrid, as was virtually all commercially grown wheat. The trend towards hybridization [which renders the second generation of seed infertile] and high-yield agricultural practices, including mono-cropping, would eventually lead to the end of plant diversity in agriculture. In Seeds of Change, Kenny Ausubel states that “of the cornucopia of reliable, cultivated food plants available to our grandparents in 1900, today 97% are gone (pp 26).
In addition to the loss of plant diversity in the fields and on dinner plates, many have disputed the social ills that germinated during the green revolution. In the book Farm Aid: A Song for America these concerns are made evident:
The “Green Revolution”, which purported to eliminate hunger by increasing food production with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and mechanization, sold the myth of ever-expansive yields without consequences. The “revolution” went hand in hand with America’s industrial capitalism – maximize production and profits at all cost. By and large, American farmers bought the myth of the green Revolution. [F]armers took on more debt to buy new inputs and farm machinery. Without access to credit, however, small farmers could not compete; many went under and sold out to their larger brethren. Farms grew larger and fewer and more became locked into the industrial treadmill of more and more inputs to keep yields high. Greater production created surpluses of basic commodities, driving prices down. For many farmers, the sole way to keep up was to plant more, which only exacerbated the problem. Ironically, even as large-scale mono-crop agriculture – highly dependent on chemical inputs – produced recorded yields, hunger around the world, and social instability at home, grew” (pp 101). Indeed, our large–scale industrial agriculture system has done little to solve the underlying problem of food insecurity and hunger for millions of Americans. To the contrary, factory farming has pushed countless family farmers off their land (pp 222).
The reality of a modern day food system which does no harm to the planet or its inhabitants may be idealistic, but the reality of finding a reasonable balance between food production and its destructive impacts on life must be examined and acted upon. Today it remains in this state of dangerous limbo, where feeding ourselves equates with destroying ourselves in the end.
In agriculture high yields and thrifty use of labor go hand in hand. That is the most thoroughly rural countries, those in which as many 80% of the people work the land, are paradoxically the hungriest and why countries in which a small proportion of the population devotes itself to growing food are paradoxically the best fed” (People, Land, and Community Hildegarde Hannum 1997: pp 115).
Compost Drop-Off Reminder
Bring compost to your weekly share pick-up! As many of you are aware, our sand-based soil needs constant amending in order to create the nutrient base for growing healthy plants. We encourage shareholders to return any unused or spoiled organic vegetable scraps to the farm for composting (but please continue using them for your own compost piles if you are already doing so). We recommend having a bucket or covered container that you can bring with you when picking up your weekly share. Below the shareholder table on Saturday mornings, we’ll have a container available for you to dump your scraps into. Please do not include any non-organic scraps; meat, dairy, or egg products; or any processed foods.
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