No GMO's for These Floyd County Farmers

I just had an interesting conversation with Todd Howard, my friend and mentor. He said he understands why farmers would be drawn to planting GMO’s. Let me put his comment in context.

Gary and Todd at the Farmer's Market

Todd and his business partner, Gary Hicks, farm on two plots of land which consist of about six acres total. For the last two weeks they have been clearing, tilling and putting in manure and cover crop all to replenish the soil. This week alone they have added four tons of manure to their soil. That’s a lot of manure. (I’m just saying what you all are thinking) and Todd said it sure didn't go very far.

The process went like this. Drive your truck to the stable. Get out and start shoveling cuz there is no backhoe or farm hand to load your truck, which by the way is your farm truck not a dump truck so when you get back to the garden you have to do the whole thing again in reverse. Todd and Gary decided to fix the manure spreader to make the spreading a bit easier. Five hours later it was fixed and loaded and hooked up to the tractor and ten minutes later it was broke again. So then it was unload the spreader and spread it all by hand. Then you till it in which is easy cuz you have a tiller on your tractor except the yolk on the tiller breaks so you spend another three hours fixing that and start tilling again and then fixing it again and finally you can spread your cover crop. And you are doing all this to feed the soil. Of course, it would be easier to use chemicals than go through all this labor intensive nurturing of the earth.

Real Food!!

So why do Todd & Gary and the Grow Appalachia family do all this hard work? So that when they sink their teeth into the sweetest corn they every tasted or make a pot of hot soup this winter from vegetables they canned themselves they know they are eating real food. No chemical additives, no genetic alterations, no hormones. Just food and for Todd, Gary and lots of folks reading this blog post, that’s worth the effort.

So here's to the hard working farmer. Thanks!! Sr. KC

A Great Season at the Floyd County Farmer's Market

This past Saturday was the last day of the Floyd County Farmer’s Market 2012 season. It was cold and rainy as we put out the road side signs directing people to the market. In different surveys we took over the summer, we often heard that people remembered it was Farmer’s Market day because they saw the signs which were donated by Ruggles Sign Company in Lexington so putting them out was a labor of love, a five mile-keep myself in shape labor of love.

In addition to the roadside signs, the City of Prestonsburg in collaboration with Fairway Sign Company erected two billboards publicizing the Floyd County Farmer’s Market and the need for producers and Q95, a local radio station, gave the market on-air advertising at cost. Other groups or organizations who contributed to the success of the Farmer’s Market this year included Floyd County's Extension Office, Ag Council, Soil Conservation District and Farm Bureau; Haywood Art; Appalachian Community Cancer Network; Appalachian Roots-Friends of the Market group; Community Farm Alliance; the Mt Tabor Benedictines; Darrell Patton Insurance; St Vincent Mission and of course Grow Appalachia.

 I am writing this blog post to show the many different entities who will come together to make something good happen in our communities. And to encourage all of you who are trying to get something similar started in your area. This is the third year Todd Howard and his friends have run the Floyd County Market. This year the producers more than doubled the combined total sales of the last two years in only 13 weeks. And they are enthusiastic about next year. And I am looking forward to sleeping in on Saturdays-after Festival season that is. Peace. Sr. KC

PRESERVING IT AT THE DAVID SCHOOL

Canning supplies bought locally from
The Hardware Inc., Hueysville

The St Vincent Mission program had their Food Preservation class recently at the David School right down the road from the Mission. The David School focuses on teens who for one reason or another may not graduate high school. They have small classes and are able to work with the students one on one to better meet their needs. They also have a big kitchen so it was a great place for our class.

Stringing, snapping and
storytelling 

We started out the day with cleaning, stringing and snapping a half bushel of white half runner beans donated by Todd Howard. Emily Shepherd, one of our participants, led the class and it was a great time of visiting and sharing-just like in the olden days. One story Emily told was about how when she and her husband Roger moved back to the homeplace they would do all their canning in a wash tub outside over a fire. I can’t even imagine tending a fire all day in mid-August putting up canned goods.

After we got the beans ready, I did a short presentation on dehydrating and freezing and we had lunch-chicken tenders from Sharon’s, the local and only restaurant in David, KY along with veggies from the Mission’s community garden. (What part of the chicken is a tender anyway?) The David School teachers joined us for lunch where I passed around samples of fermented tomatoes. Todd had put up five gallons of them a few days earlier and I asked him if we could try them out at the class. The best part was watching people’s expressions when they tasted the tomatoes. The first thing you saw was the reaction to the aroma, which is stronger than expected, then the facial expressions. I did warn them that Todd and Gary thought they had enough tomatoes for a 10 gallon crock but ended up with 5 gallons of tomatoes instead. Lesson learned: measure the tomatoes before putting in the salt.

Bobby, Marilyn, Carol and Mike
listen to Emily 

After lunch it was time to pressure can our beans. Emily took us to the kitchen and showed us all the safety measures built into the pressure canner before filling it up and setting it on the stove to do its thing. Only it didn’t. After an hour and twenty minutes of trying to build up pressure we decided to throw in the towel and call it a day. I took the canner home with me and following Emily’s steps successfully canned my first batch of beans. We aren’t sure but the general consensus is that the draft hood over the stove created too much draft for the canner. The instructions did say, “Keep canner out of drafts”.

"I just don't understand why it won't
build up pressure."

All in all it was a fun time with friends which is what usually happens at most of our Grow Appalachia classes and gatherings. Next up, Healthy Cooking.

The Botany Lab

Sr. KC here at St Vincent Mission where we are always looking for ways to expand our outreach. The Grow Appalachia Program has been a wonderful vehicle for that expansion. We not only work with families in helping them grow and preserve more of their own food but we are helping to establish a Friends of the Market support group for the Floyd County Farmer's Market and we are working in all levels of the education system here in Floyd County. This post is about one of those education partners--The Big Sandy Community and Technical College.

In February, Sr. Kathleen and I met with Thomas Vierheller, Science Department chair about the possibility of starting a community garden at the college. The idea was met with great enthusiasm and while the paperwork took an awful long time we finally broke ground on the garden in April with five 20' x 4' raised beds. As noted in earlier posts, the beds have been tended by college and community folks and the food raised has all been donated to local food pantries.

At one of our first meetings, Tom had mentioned that he would love to use a bed for his botany class but unfortunately they only met in the fall "after planting season". I quickly pointed out that one of the goals of the Grow Appalachia program is to show how to extend planting seasons. "There are several crops that do quite well in the cooler fall weather", I told him. "And there are ways to extend the growing season well into the fall".

Two weeks ago the botany class did their first lab in the outdoor classroom of the community garden. They planted a four foot section of lettuce at one end of the bed, a four foot section of snow peas at the other end and twenty-four broccoli plants in the middle. The lettuce and broccoli will be covered with row cover while the peas will be left open for pollination purposes. And the best part is since this is a college class, there will be tons of documentation--paperwork that I don't have to do!! I will keep you informed on the progress of the beds, the class and the project. Until then, stay green and growing.

E. KENTUCKY LOCAL FOOD SYSTEMS

Hi All. Just wanted to take this opportunity to remind you about the East Kentucky Local Foods Collaborative meeting in Hindman tomorrow from 10:00 to 4:00. This will be an excellent opportunity to network with others who are as passionate about healthy local foods as we of the Grow Appalachia family are and a great place to learn what others are doing and how. The collaborative is in its second year and we are ready to do some feet on the ground work so this won't be "another all day meeting full of information I will never use" kind of event.

The meeting is at the Knott County Extension office and I've been told if you Google map "Nelson Frasier Funeral Home, Hindman, KY" you will get good directions. Look forward to seeing you there. Sr. KC

Mother Nature vs Vegetable Farmer

Todd and Gary at the Market

Sr. KC here. I just got off the phone with my friend and local farmer, Todd Howard. He has been a wonderful gift to us here at St Vincent’s Grow Appalachia program both in the Greenhouse Mentoring program and as a partner in the sustainable agriculture movement in Floyd County. He called to see if any of my families had some extra beans they wanted to sell at the Farmer’s Market this weekend. Another of Todd’s many jobs is market manager for the Floyd County Farmer’s Market. The market had its best week last week and he really wants to keep the momentum going. He has been selling produce he and his partner Gary grow in two bottoms here. That was until yesterday about 10:30 in the morning when the rain came.

He noticed the rain was coming down pretty hard and walked out on to his porch just as his partner drove up. They decided to go check on the garden at Open Fork which sets in a bottom. When they got there they saw the creek was full and moving fast but not too bad. Then they noticed water coming over into the garden and within fifteen minutes there was four foot of water in their main market garden. Here is a YouTube video of the water.Todd's Market garden

When I saw Crystal this morning she told me that Brushy, the hollow where she and several of my Grow Appalachia families live, got hit hard and most of the gardens were gone. I’ve made some calls but haven’t gotten through. They are probably out cleaning up. Crystal lost everything but maybe three rows of beans. Her sister-in-law lost three bottoms and the hay bottoms on Route 7 were all flooded.

Farming in the mountains is a tricky business. Most of the land is hillside and rocky except for the “bottoms” where the creeks run. There is soil there and most of it is fairly fertile. And most of the time, if you don’t get flooded in the spring rains, you do OK. The weather has been bizarre this year with August being wet instead of dry. And then when you add man-made obstacles like holding ponds on strip mines that fail…well you get flood.

Todd is a market farmer so after he gave himself an hour to feel sorry for himself, he and Gary are out salvaging what they can to put up and then planting some more fall crops. As far as my Brushy families, they have lived on this land for generations. That’s why we put up so much”, one woman told me, “in case we have a year where we can’t, we wont’ go hungry”.

East KY Local Foods

Aug. 2nd.

Gardens in Floyd and South Magoffin counties are doing well although it is interesting how the wet weather has been beneficial to some of us and a bother to others. Some of our families are getting a pretty good crop of beans but most have beautiful vines and very few beans. Corn is another crop that some families are doing well with but most, not so much. The good news is that the Floyd County Farmer’s Market has opened up and the farmer’s who have had good corn crops are bringing it in. The FCFM has a local only policy which for them means Floyd and neighboring counties only. No Tennessee corn at the FCFM. Todd Howard, the market manager, said that the producer members of the Market decided they wanted to grow the local economy with a local only policy.

St. Vincent Mission’s Grow Appalachia program is a big supporter of “Buy Local” and has been working with other individuals and organizations on developing the East Kentucky Local Food Systems Collaborative. The mission of the East Kentucky Local Food Systems Collaborative is be a hub to collaborate, build, strengthen and support the eastern Kentucky food system through: information sharing, promoting, education, advocating for policy change, building markets for eastern Kentucky products.

In my opinion, EKLFSC is a great way to help the Grow Appalachia families and farmers begin moving into John Paul’s “phase two”. In fact, I know that several of the current Grow Appalachia programs have already plugged in to this resource. The movement of the collaborative has stalled in recent months but another gathering has been scheduled to reestablish and revitalize the movement. The gathering will be August 23^rd at the Knott County Extension Office in Hindman. If you can come, please RSVP to Alexa Arnold of CFA at alexa@cfaky.org so she can tell the caterer. You can also check out the website at www.appalfoods.org for some history of the group and other resources. And you can copy the flyer on this post and pass it along to anyone in your area-farmers, teachers, restaurant owners, and hospital administrators-anyone who might be interested in building a healthy food system in eastern Kentucky. 

Here’s the flyer. Hope to see you there. Sr. KC.

Buying Local in Floyd County

One of my passions is supporting the local economy. A fun way to do that is by helping The Floyd County Farmer’s Market which has just started up for the season. Another way is by spending the money John Paul has entrusted to me through the Grow Appalachia grant in stores and businesses that are locally owned, like The Hardware Inc. a small eclectic hardware store/gift shop in Hueysville, Kentucky.

The Hardware Inc. is located on KY Route 7 just outside of Hueysville in a two story building which was part of the TVA projects of the 30’s and has been a hardware store since the 70’s. The steps are steep and the front porch wood and at first glance you don’t think much of the place. That is until you walk inside. Your eyes see shelves of tools, gloves and hardware type stuff but your nose says, “apple pie!!” and that’s because the Hardware Inc is a hardware store and gift shop. Wander around the store and you will see water heater elements next to cast iron skillets next to country décor wall hangings next to “A miner and his family lives here” yard signs next to Candleberry Candles-the source of the apple pie aroma. The Hardware has a bit of everything.

When I asked owner Martha Davis how she decides what to stock in the store she told me, “we just listen to what people need and we get it.” And Martha listens good. As we were talking a man came in and walked around back and after a few minutes Martha asked him if he was finding what he needed. “I.ve just about got my pockets full” was his reply. They went back and forth for about 15 minutes. When he had what he needed, Martha rang him up. Total sale--58¢ and that’s the beauty of buying local.  It is people not profit driven. Martha had lots to say about the big box stores and how hard it is to get distributors to send out sales reps. “We’re rural and we’re small and they just don’t want to fool with us.” But she doesn’t let that stop her and she is keen on buying local herself. The candles, candy and knives that she carries are all made in Kentucky and she buys vegetable starts and flowers from Todd Howard of the Greenhouse Mentoring Program.

In fact, I met Martha on Todd’s advice when I was looking for a local source for spinosad. She carries Bonide products and was willing to order cases of the insecticide and fungicide I needed-at a cut rate price with no shipping. Even Amazon.com couldn’t beat her price. The day of our interview I found 9# wire for our row cover hoops at half the price of Johnny’s Seeds, again with no shipping.

But it’s not really about getting the deal. It’s about people as shown by another story Martha shared with me.  Two years ago on Christmas Eve, Martha got a phone call. A family had the gas go out in their home and the kids were freezing. The gas company said they would come out to replace the regulator if the family could find one. The box stores were closed and so was The Hardware but these were real people so Martha opened up and the family got heat for Christmas. And that, my friends, is why I buy local. The Hardware Inc. is on Facebook. Check it out and like them. I sure do.

The Hardware Inc. on Facebook

Community Gardeners in Floyd County, KY

St Vincent Mission's Grow Appalachia project is working with the Big Sandy Community and Technical College on their community garden. The garden has five 20 foot raised beds tended by several different groups. One of those beds is filled with peppers and zucchini and is lovingly tended by the Community United Methodist Community Gardeners, Sherry Shepherd, Debbie Reid, Cheryl Sexton and Bonnie Hale. It is truly a “community” effort.

(left to right) Sherry, Debbie, Cheryl and Bonnie

Cheryl donated the pepper plants which she had grown from seed. Sherry and Bonnie prepared the soil, planted the peppers and zucchini seeds and mulched around the plants to conserve moisture. Sherry devised a water systems using lightweight cart with 5 gallon jugs of water. Debbie joined the effort to help keep the plants watered during the “heat wave”. The women joined the project to grow fresh produce to donate to God’s Food Pantry and have already harvested 1/2 bushel of zucchini.

In fact, all the food grown in the five raised beds of the BSCTC community garden goes to feed the hungry at local food pantries. We have big plans for our community gardens and people like Sherry, Debbie, Cheryl and Bonnie are why we can dream big.

Sr. Kathy Curtis

July 18th

Rain Dancing at St. Vincent Mission

RAIN, RAIN COME TODAY

All is well with the Grow Appalachia program at St Vincent Mission but I am ready to start doing rain dances if we don’t get some rain soon. Many of our participants have large gardens and using “city water” is just not cost effective for those who are on fixed incomes. Some have creeks near their gardens and one has a pond in the middle of his acre garden plus six kids to haul the water to the plants. I could have used some of those extra hands this morning.

 I just watered the raised beds and the raspberry patch here at the Mission and it took almost two hours and the whole fifty gallon rain barrel. The rain barrel is a real blessing. When I know that rain is coming, I fill milk jugs I have saved with water from the barrel to make room for more of the free stuff. I am thinking about putting another one on the back of the warehouse to collect even more of this precious liquid. Until that happens I would appreciate your prayers for some gentle, warm showers here in eastern Kentucky…and maybe some dancing lessons. Stay green and growing. Sr. KC.

Rain barrel on front and milk jugs in back

Rain barrel on corner of warehouse

I put some extra pictures of the Mission garden. It is small but mighty and everyone stops to talk veggies with me when I am out working in it. It's a great relationship building tool.

peppers and tomatoes doing the weave in shredded paper mulch. the neighbors aren't too sure about this.

this cabbage is destined for kraut...yum

this banana pepper plant has big expectations

some of these onions are ready for braiding

beautiful raspberries

HOME VISITS IN MAGOFFIN COUNTY

I think that my favorite part of the Grow Appalachia Program at St. Vincent Mission is home visiting. When asked by people what I like about living in Kentucky, I always say, “the people, they are so friendly”. When you drive down the holler roads people on the side of the road wave to you…and make sure they know where you are going so they can tell their neighbor later. I mean friendly is good but so is watching out for your neighbors. Sorry, I got off track.

Seward and his tomatoes

 Anyway, I did some home visiting the other day and as usual the experience was delightful. First I stopped at Wanda and Seward Allen’s house to drop off some spinosad and a sprayer. Of course, I had to come in and set a spell. Wanda has some leg problems so she doesn’t get out in the garden much anymore but she can see it from her chair and she keeps an eye out for Seward, her husband while he works in the morning. She had told Seward that morning that I was coming over and shouldn’t he change his clothes. His response—these are my working clothes and I been working. And there you have it.

Seward showing me the difference between the goose beans
and the half-runners

We took a walk in the garden to see his potatoes and check out some cabbages that he thinks might be cauliflower instead. He said he doesn’t have bugs in his garden because every morning he “takes a little bit of water in a pan and puts some fertilize in it and just shakes the vine a little and them bugs just fall right off”. When I told him I had heard dishwashing liquid would do the same thing he said, “you don’t say.” But I don’t think he will change his way of doing it.

Buddy the dog at the end of the cabbages

Like most of the gardeners in our program, he has his ways but is somewhat open to suggestions and new ways of doing things. He showed me how he stakes his tomatoes and when I suggested using old nylons instead of twine he was all for it, especially when I told him I had a bunch at the Mission I could give him. He and Wanda are also going to get mulch around their tomatoes this weekend and they are very pleased with the spinosad for the flea beetles (they don’t fall off as easy as the others).

Wanda's sister Bonnie's whimsical garden decorations

I left the Allen’s house with a bag full of lettuce, a goodbye nip from Buddy the dog and a “love you” from Wanda. Can you see why I love home visits? 

Garden Update from St Vincent Mission

As you all know, it is very busy this time of year but here’s a quick update from St Vincent Mission.

Teresa and Irene at the north end of their garden

I visited a couple of families yesterday and was very pleased with their gardens. The Compton’s have planted a bunch this year with the plan of both selling at the Farmer’s Market and canning. In fact, Teresa and her mother Irene Castle are going to be presenters at our canning class in July. Teresa and Irene had an interesting conversation while I was there yesterday about sweet potatoes. We are getting our slips from Crystal and her sister-in-law Paula so I am taking orders. Teresa said she wanted at least a hundred but Irene remarked that they didn’t need any. When I asked her why, she said, “for what little we use ‘em, it’s just cheaper and easier to buy ‘em from the store.” I ran in to that mindset a lot when I was recruiting families and now that I have a bit of gardening for food under my belt (both literally and figuratively) I can see why a lot of people choose to not garden. It is hard work!!

Bradie in his garden with the walnut tree in the background

Another family I visited was Bradie and Mary Nolan. Bradie was our Gardener of the Year last season and he is putting a lot of effort into his gardens again this year. He has doubled his plot from last year, added another for sweet potatoes, has two onion-lettuce-mustard green beds and put a small plot out for his granddaughter. An interesting side note to Bradie’s gardens: the south side of his big plot is bordered by a walnut tree and he has been told by both the Soil Conservation District agent, Tony Grubb, and me (through my classes at the Extension Office) that he is going to have problems growing anything there but I saw peas, beans, corn, tomatoes and peppers all growing at that end of the garden so we will see. Also, in the picture I took of Bradie in his garden you will notice he is smoking a cigarette. I told him I understood that it was possible to pass on tobacco mosaic virus from cigarettes to tomato and pepper plants. He had never heard of that before so we are going to check in to it some more.

Well that’s all for now. I have to check my cabbage and broccoli for those nasty cabbage worms and then go check some other gardens before working in my own this evening. Do you think God invented winter so gardeners would get a break? 

The Big Sandy CTC Garden is growing!!

It is official. The Big Sandy Community and Technical College has a community garden and that garden has beans! It has taken a lot longer than I expected to get things growing on the BSCTC campus but Tom Vierheller, a science professor at the college and the unofficial head of the community garden group, stuck to it and we finally got all of the paperwork out of the way.

The garden group grew after the Vision Planning for Sustainable Agriculture at the end of March so there are now five 20’x4’ raised beds in the middle of the Nature Preserve section of the Big Sandy campus. The college group, consisting of teachers, staff and Care Club students, has agreed to tend two of the beds during the summer and the community group is tending the other three. All of the food grown in the garden will go to the food pantry at St. James Episcopal Church. Tom Vierheller will be using one of the beds in his fall botany class and we will be using season extension techniques to grow for the food pantry into the late fall, early winter.

With the legal stuff was out of the way, the next hurdle was finding enough top soil to fill the beds. I had my friend and all-things-gardening advisor, Todd Howard, keeping an eye out for soil when he spotted a huge pile of it right down the road from the Mission. A couple of quick phone calls connected me with the “Man with the Dirt”. It seems that Prestonsburg High School is putting in Astroturf on their football field and Matt had the contract to haul the topsoil away. When I contacted him, there were two truck loads left at the high school and since the college and the high school are only blocks apart, I got a superb discount on enough dirt to fill the five beds plus.

Once the dirt was delivered the rest just fell in to place. Thanks to the college group, the bed frames were assembled on the site and two of them were filled with soil and prepped and half runner beans were planted. They are plating sweet potatoes in their second bed which will be going in next week as soon as the starts are ready to go in the ground. The starts are being grown by my friend and co-worker Crystal and her family to keep it all in the Grow Appalachia family.

As I was putting this blog post together I got an email from Tom that the beans have sprouted and the birds are looking hungry so I have to go get some netting to keep the crows and the rabbits at bay until the baby bean sprouts get their feet firmly planted. I look forward to passing on updates from this garden group which has opened another door here in Floyd County, Kentucky to living a healthier, quality lifestyle. I am so excited about all the different ways Grow Appalachia is growing here and at the other partner sites. Thanks again for the opportunity John Paul.

Mentoring Program Update-St Vincent Mission

 A lot of time has passed since my last update, which means a lot has happened! Ill do my best to recount the events & workings.

At this point, the vast majority of all transplanting has been completed with the exception of a few cucumbers & melons.  All in all the students have transplanted nearly 3500 tomato plants, 1250 pepper plants, 550 flowers, 250 various herbs, 200 Okra & 100 Eggplant.  They also started nearly 3000 seeds of various types! 

With all of the transplanting, the students have and are learning the importance of watering.  When you factor in the amount plants transplanted and roughly 115 Hanging Baskets, they are spending a lot of time watering.  We use the bottom soak method, in which we fill up totes with water/fertilizer (Fish Emulsion) and submerge the flat/basket and when the top of the potting mix becomes wet, we remove.  Our method is very cumbersome but it allows for the plants to adequately soak up the nutrients, plus watering overhead at the time of day the students are present, would severely damage the plants. 

During this period, we were able to successfully install our shade cloth, which has created a much more manageable environment.  Chris & Jason were present during the installation and learned how to tie a Farmer's Knot or Box Knot (Although im not sure if they would remember), in order to extend a piece of rope.  We also were able to do a little physical labor in which the students had to shovel out some dirt in anticipation of mulch to be applied to the perimeter of the greenhouse.

As Mother's Day quickly approaches the students have been heavily involved with the pruning & maintenance of our Hanging Baskets.  Some of our weaker baskets have been pulled off the racks and we trimmed all the blooms & some of the shoots in order to allow the plant to fill out.  This is in hopes of having a few baskets to linger around till Memorial Day.

With the weeks going by, I have seen a great maturation in the students.  They are learning valuable life lessons that will take them far.  Accountability & Responsibility are the 2 areas with the greatest level achievement.  They are picking up the phone and calling me in advance, where as earlier, the phone would not ring and I would be left wondering.

Starting this week, we will be moving out into the field to start planting field crops.  The students will learn & be directly involved in the establishment of a gravity fed watering system with staged storage tanks, fencing, planting of vegetable plants & seeds, staking of plants, mulching and Chickens!  Im excited to be moving the students into the field and should create alot of great stories for the students.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to work with the students and have a great week,

Todd Howard 

Farmer's Market and Cabbages at St Vincent Mission

It has been a very busy few weeks here in David, KY with lots of things starting up due in part to the Vision Planning on Sustainable Agriculture hosted by St Vincent Mission the end of March. I attended a great meeting of people interested in the Floyd County Farmer’s Market at the Extension Office. The market manager is Todd Howard, the mentor for our Green House Mentoring Program with the David School students. Todd called the meeting to get some input from producers and consumers so that the Farmer’s Market members can make decisions as to date, time and place for the third year of the market. While only one new producer came to the meeting, there were several consumers who were willing to start a “Friends of the Market” group and one person who came as a consumer and decided that she might be able to grow enough on her property to sell.

Speaking of growing enough to sell, I did a home visit the other day with a participant interested in the Farmer’s Market, that was wonderful. When I met James at the gate to his property, he asked me how long I had been in Kentucky. I said seven years and he replied, “You ain’t never been to a place like my place” and off we went to his property in the middle of a reclaimed strip mine. When we got to the acre he planned on using for his garden, we got to talking about his soil and what he had been doing to add organic matter and such. He has put in over 200 pickup truck size loads of manure and he and his six kids have pulled out several tons of rocks. “They grow in there” he remarked about the rocks and I have heard that from several of my gardeners. 

Raised beds are probably not deep
enough to store these cabbages.

What I hadn’t heard before is how his daddy stores cabbages. James told me that he had plowed the garden spot real deep this time for his cabbages. When I asked him why he said, “to store them”. It seems that when the cabbages are ready to harvest, his father pulls them out, root and all, digs a hole where the cabbage was, puts it back in the hole head first, covers it with plastic, then covers them with dirt leaving the root exposed. James says they stay good all year and that burying them makes them sweeter. This is one harvesting method I am going to have to follow up on.

The Greenhouse Mentoring Program Update--St Vincent Mission

Last week I posted about the Greenhouse Mentoring Project that the Grow Appalachia Program at St Vincent Mission had started in collaboration with The David School and Todd Howard of HF Farm and Garden. Todd gave his first update report to me this morning and I had to share it with you. What a great way to start a Monday. Have a great, green week. Sr. KC.

What a week!  The kids are doing a great job and starting to get a good grasp on the tasks I expect them to keep up with.  We are all starting to get the hang of this.

Seeds Started - 2300 - Mostly Tomatoes with some Okra, Eggplant & Herbs

Transplants - 1500 - All tomatoes

Both of these numbers will dwindle in the following weeks.

They also performed several other tasks, such as watering hanging baskets (100 +), picking off the lower leaves of older plants, setting up display tables in front of the greenhouse, cleaning debris & garbage inside & outside the greenhouse & removing weeds inside the greenhouse.  We also discussed "Germination Rate", how to calculate and the importance of the information.

Today I asked Chris, Cody & Matt to help a neighbor out.  He is an old, retired underground miner who is a great neighbor and always willing to help me.  He did not ask for help, as he never will, so I took the boys out and we all helped him spread 8 Cubic Yards of Horse Manure.  I hope I didnt overstep my bounds but I saw this as opportunity to show the boys what being neighborly is all about.  Sometimes you dont wait for someone to ask for help, you just go and do whats right.  My neighbor was delighted for the help and enjoyed the company.  We worked approximately 1 1/2 hour. 

On the agenda for next week, I will be heading to Asheville NC tomorrow for a conference on Marketing in Appalachian and will not return until Wednesday afternoon, so my dad will have the students on Tuesday.  They will be transplanting Peppers and starting some new tomato seeds as well as flower seeds.  On Thursday, we will be transplanting & starting more seeds.  Saturday will consists of even more transplanting, seed starting, hanging basket care and cleaning. 

Once again, thanks for the opportunity.

Todd

The Greenhouse Mentoring Program at St Vincent Mission

Todd Howard with students Chasity, Cody, Jason, Chris and Matt

 Today was a great day in David, KY. Today was the first day of the Greenhouse Mentoring Project-a collaboration between St. Vincent Mission’s Grow Appalachia Program, The David School and Todd Howard of HF Farm & Garden.

It all started when Diantha Daniels, The David School’s principal, and I were brainstorming one evening about ways we could encourage her students to become gardeners. I mentioned that I had a line item in my Grow Appalachia grant called “Youth Assistants” that was earmarked for students who could help out in the gardens of some of our participants who do not have the physical strength that some gardening tasks need but are a treasure trove of gardening wisdom and knowledge.

A few days later, Todd came in to my office to visit and asked if I knew anyone who could use a part time job helping him out at the greenhouse. He has to maintain a ‘real job” until his farming venture solidifies and had been working until two in the morning in the greenhouse and didn’t think he could keep it up too much longer. Todd is one of the people here in Floyd County that mourns the loss of agricultural programs in our public schools so when I suggested mentoring the David students, he was game.

Diantha, Todd and I had a few meetings to settle things like release and permission forms, duties and responsibilities of the students as well as the adults and what each of our roles would be in this venture. We decided that the initial program would go until May 31^st, the end of the greenhouse season for Todd. Diantha announced the project to the entire student body at the David School and culled the applicants to five student she believed would be consistent in attendance and be willing to work. She had each of them write a letter to Todd stating why they wanted to be a part of the program and I was pleased to note that while the money was a motivator, it was not the primary reason the kids wanted to be on the team. They were looking at the bigger picture of the experience they would gain because of their involvement-both in work experience and as an opportunity to hone their job searching skills.

Cody and Chris take lunch

Yesterday, after school, the students and parents met with us to finalize the deal. They were told what we expected of them and what they could expect of us. The parents were very supportive of their kids being a part of this project and we all left excited. This morning at a little before nine o’clock all five kids were dressed appropriately and ready to work. It was great. I am really excited about these kids and this opportunity and am deeply grateful to John Paul DeJorio’s vision for Appalachia through the Grow Appalachia program that gives me the opportunity to support projects like this one.

Chris putting out cabbages

Here are some more pictures of the team: Cody Carroll, Jason Rife, Matthew Dingus, Christopher Dingus and Chasity Mullins along with Todd Howard.

Cody learns how to wated seed trays

Chasity putting away peppers starts

Jason uses tweezers to place seeds because
"we aren't good enough to use the vibrating
thing yet"



Matt works on tomato transplants

Grow Appalachia Site Coordinators Meeting 2012

         For all of you Grow Appalachia coordinators this blog post will be old news but we thought it would be nice for all our participants and other blog readers if we recapped the site coordinators meeting that we had in Berea this week. David Cooke was gracious enough to heed all our requests to have a get together of all the site coordinators, and this past Tuesday and Wednesday we did just that. It was really great to put faces with names and get to meet all the coordinators and hear what each site has in mind for the upcoming season. This year there will be 15 sites representing 4 states; Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee, participating in Grow Appalachia. These include Red Bird Mission, Henderson Settlement, Pine Mountain Settlement School, Laurel County African American Heritage Center, Lincoln Memorial University, St. Vincent Mission, High Rocks for Girls, Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest, Appalachian Sustainable Development, Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program, Cowan Creek Community Center, Mujeres Unidas (KY River Foothills Development Council), Project Worth, Step by Step, and Scott Christian Care Center. Representatives from each of these sites were present at the meeting and we were all able to get to know one another and learn about what Grow Appalachia at each site looks like.

            We had the opportunity to learn all about high tunnels, what they can be used for, how they can be constructed on a budget, and some growing techniques that are necessary when growing in high tunnels. This Information may be very useful in the future for many of the Grow Appalachia sites, as we look at ways to grow more and to start our own plants for our participants. We also had the wonderful opportunity to hear from Janet Meyer, Berea College’s greenhouse and farm manager. Berea has a certified organic farm that produces much of the food that is used on campus and Janet was able to provide us with wonderful information about organic growing practices and practical tips for our gardening programs.

            Several additional topics that we discussed were budgeting, tool choices, ordering seed, various marketing and distribution plans, and the possibility of new directions for the program. We also discussed the goals of grow Appalachia which are based on the following mission statement:

o    Grow Appalachia is dedicated to helping mountain families plant a healthy future for themselves and their communities by:

·         Providing them with skills and resources to grow sustainable, nutritious food.

·         Teaching them how to prepare and preserve food in a healthy way.

·         Empowering them to share their knowledge in the community.

·         Creating programs to provide food to elderly and disabled residents in need.

Through these smaller steps, we as Grow Appalachia Coordinators hope to inspire long term independence such that gardeners and small farmers in Appalachia are able to provide food for themselves and their families and even support their families through the marketing of their produce.

  I feel that this year’s group of coordinators is highly knowledgeable and quite inspiring; I’m looking forward to a great year collaborating with all of you and figuring out just how this program is going to make an impact and hopefully change food systems and lives in Appalachia.

Planting Peas on Valentines Day by Sr. KC, St Vincent Mission

I am totally enthralled with the whole growing in the signs and by the moon mythology. Like so many myths, there has to be some truth in them but mostly just like folklore, they are fun to hear and to pass around.

I wrote on an earlier blog about how here in Floyd County the old timers plant peas on Valentines Day and how that was confusing to me since planting by the moon puts Valentines Day in the “blow ground veggie” category. I asked some of my farmer/gardener friends here in Floyd County about the discrepancy and my favorite reply came from Bev May whose family has been on Wilson Creek in Floyd County for generations (she is organically gardening on her grandmother’s garden plot). She said that her grandfather, Zigfrog May, used to say that he didn’t live on the moon, he lived on the earth so he didn’t care what the moon was doing. Bev said his best advice with peas is plant early and plant often. Sound pretty solid to me although I wonder if it wasn’t a bit too early. Here is a picture of my pea patch at the monastery this past Monday.

I am excited to be working in the soil after so many months of planning and meetings. I spent three days of the last seven in all day meetings and I am about meetinged out. They were all very information filled opportunities and I even won a door prize at the Letcher County Extension Service’s Fruit and Vegetable Seminar—a beautiful jacket.

I attended the Fruit and Vegetable Seminar with one of our Grow Appalachia growers, Crystal Shepherd and met one of our partner greenhouse owners, Todd Howard, there. We were all very pleased with the presentations and wide range of information covered by the UK Ag agents. Crystal, Todd and I all felt like it was a great use of our time.

Speaking of time, I need to get this posted and head out to the David School, a local alternative high school and Grow Appalachia participant where we are building a compost bin today as part of their school gardening program. And then I think I’ll go plant some more peas in honor of Zigfrog. Happy planting.

Making Dirt at St Vincent Mission by Sr. KC

As you all know by now, the Grow Appalachia program is designed to help families grow more of their own food; the goal being healthier food and the ability to stretch the family’s food budget. To that end at St Vincent Mission we are teaching not only how to grow the produce but how to save money doing it.

It seems to me that we spend an awful lot of money in our country buying new things when we have plenty of perfectly good used stuff laying around. Like dirt. Each spring we run to the big box store and plop down our hard earned cash for plastic bags of dirt, also know as potting soil. Now I know that just any old dirt isn’t the best thing for sprouting seeds and nurturing baby plants but really, do we have to go buy special dirt to do those things? I think not. And by the looks of the many hits I got online when I searched for “making your own potting soil” neither do a lot of other folks.

My favorite lesson was an article in Mother Earth News by Barbara Pleasant because it not only taught me the process but also told me why I should do it. “Potting soil self-sufficiency is good for your pocketbook, your plants and the planet…” It ends up that the components of “most commercial potting soils are based on some combination of peat moss, perlite and vermiculite—all of which contribute to land degradation and pollution as they are mined, processed, packaged and shipped.”

The good news is that there are sustainable, local alternatives to all three of these products. Peat moss, which comes from bogs in Canada and Michigan, can be replaced by leaf mold, composted sawdust or a mixture of both. Leaf mold, rotted sawdust or lots of garden waste compost can replace vermiculite, a mined mineral which has been found to contain asbestos in the deposits in Montana and Virginia. And perlite ore, a mineral mined from mountain plateaus from New Mexico to Oregon, can be replaced by clean sand.

Armed with this knowledge, a bucket of garden soil, a bucket of compost, a meat thermometer and other odds and ends from the kitchen I proceeded to make dirt. The process is fairly simple. You screen your soil and compost, moisten it and put it into an oven proof pan covered with aluminum foil. Stick the thermometer in the middle of the tin foil and put the whole thing in an oven that has been preheated to 200 degrees. Watch the thermometer and when it hits 160 degrees turn the oven off but leave the pan in the oven. The temperature of your dirt should rise to 170 degrees which is the magic number for killing off the fungi, the boogy-man for seedlings.  Don’t let it go over 180 though because then you could be creating compounds that will inhibit plant growth. When the dirt cools you have potting soil. Ours was still very clay-like so I had to add some perlite because I had no sand and my sawdust is still fresh but the $4 I spent on one bag of perlite went into six pounds of homemade potting soil so I think it was a good deal even if it wasn’t 100% homemade.

Last week, several of the Grow Appalachia participants came to the mission to learn how to make dirt. It was a fun time of sharing and met the need most of us were feeling to get our hands in the dirt. Teresa, one of the women who came, pointed out that “gas is gonna get to $4 a gallon again this summer so we need to know how to save money any way we can”. Making potting soil, reusing household containers instead of buying “seed starting kits” and saving seeds from one year to the next are ways that our Grow Appalachia families are using to make their lives healthier and more stress free. Not to mention protecting our planet, one batch of potting soil at a time.

The Dirt Making class in action.