Your Local Farm Club, Your Local Food!

by | Feb 25, 2015 | Farm Club Brambles

The Benefits of going Local and becoming your own Farmer! There are as many reasons for becoming and supporting a “Local Grown Farm Club” as there are farmers, but here are the most important ones: A Friendly and Fresh Connection Becoming your own Farmer is supporting “local grown” farm production that puts a “face and hands” behind the foods you and your local community consumes and keeps everyone connected to the seasons, as well as the unique flavor and diversity of local foods. Local Means Green Becoming your own Farmer and your own local grower/producer reduces the environmental impact and costs of transporting product that happens when buying food from wherever. Preserving Character Becoming your own Farmer on a Small local farm adds a valuable component of a community’s character, helping maintain agricultural heritage, preserve land use diversity, and moderate development. Crop Diversity and Quality Becoming your own Farmer means producing for a local home area and choosing to diversify, growing a variety of foods instead of just one. This is a boom for biodiversity and everyone’s palate, since local foods are harvested at their peak of freshness and flavor and under your control and care. Local Means Green — Again Minimizing handling and transportation costs gives you, the Farmer maximum return on their labors. And most of the money spent on local production stays in the community, “greening up” the local economy here at HOME. So becoming your own Farmer Supports LOCAL Grown Farm Foods! Becoming your own Farmer is supporting a local Community Food System that also means creating a partnership of mutual commitment between a farm...

the Living Soil

by | Feb 11, 2015 | Farm Club Brambles

I mentioned before that I believe our future sustainability is much more dependent upon the things we can not see then it is on the things we can. None more so then the very hidden threads of life that we find under our feet and that has been called by many as the Living Soil. This, a very complex community of very diverse groups of organisms, ranging from one-celled algae, fungi, protozoa and bacteria, to nematodes and arthropods, to earthworms, insects, small vertebrates and plants. All of which come together to work into some natural balance of making healthy Living Soil. It is healthy living soil that then produces healthy food. It then becomes up to us to know what is healthy living soil and how to help to maintain it when we disturb it by raising our food. In other words… Feed the Soil and the Soil will Feed You.  These diverse organisms bring the soil alive, grow, eat and move through the soil. They make it possible to have clean water, clean air, healthy plants and moderate water flow.  These soil organisms decompose organic compounds. They sequester nitrogen and other nutrients and fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, making it available to plants. Many of these organisms increase soil aggregation and porosity, thus increasing infiltration and reducing runoff. Some prey on crop pest and are food for above ground animals. This delicate dance of life is known in Soil Biology as the SOIL FOOD WEB. It is said the best way to grow healthy soil is to not disturb it! Well that may be possible except for one exception. The...