A day in the life of two 21st Century Agarians
Monday, June 8th, 2009
Monday morning, the first thing I did was spray the few transplants in the greenhouse with pyganic We get these small moths about this time every year that reek havoc on transplants, mostly brassicas. I failed to mention this to Jenifer and she came behind me and watered the greenhouse washing off stuff I had just applied. Totally my fault, I just grunt most days until noon except on Saturdays when I have to talk.
Then we went to spot spray the the potatoes with Spinosad another biological insecticide that has a very low toxicity to beneficial insects and does an awesome job. Jenifer and I each had a 1/2 gallon hand-held sprayer and covered 3/4 of an acre of potatoes... We are going to have a lot of potatoes in 2-3 weeks.
It was already 10:30 am and Jenifer headed off to harvest for the CSA and I went to my dad's shop to try and get our Howard Rotavator back together.
Our tiller is 19 years old and flew apart last fall. We welded it for the short-term in April, then it flew apart again. I thought I was going to have to buy some very expensive West German machined parts but my dad looked at it, knew a guy close by with a machine shop set up in an old chicken house and for $150, I am back in business.
I got educated getting that machine back together... I am no mechanic. I was covered in hydraulic oil, gear oil, lock-tite, and gasket making material. Heck of a headache from sniffing those fumes. Took me all day and around 5:30, I was able to run a pass through a section of the garden with the tiller and apparently, I got it back together in the correct order..
We have been without the tiller for over a month and that has hurt us. I had hoped that I could just till all the areas of the garden that needed working, but after that one pass with the tiller, I decided it all needed bush-hogging first. So I bush-hogged till dark. Jenifer was doing ball practice with Ellie and Levi. She made home made cornbread with onions and opened a can of beans. Good enough for me.
After supper, I sat down at the kitchen table with our "new' used laptop. A good friend of ours who is in the equipment leasing business brought it by the Matthews Farmer's market last Saturday and handed it to Jenifer. I am not positive, but I think we traded a pastured Thanksgiving turkey for the laptop. It is an IBM thinkpad. It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to turn it on.
I felt kind of silly sitting at the supper table at 10:30 pm in grease covered pants trying to figure out the workings of a laptop. I probably should just hand it over to Ellie or Levi and let one of them show me how it works.
Contest! 50 lbs of worm poop?, castings? vermicompost?
My brother Rick and I attended the 9th annual NC State worm conference last week and it was great. There were folks there from 16 states and 3 countries.
I have to admit that there were a lot of odd folks there. Apparently, I was the only normal guy there amongst all the worm geeks and nerds... Go figure.
We were issued a challenge by Tom Herlihy of Worm Power, the biggest worm guy in the US. He processes 30, 000 lbs of dairy manure solids a day with worms. His challenge to us, which is now your challenge in the Laughing Owl Worm Poop Name Change Contest, is to come up with a better consumer-friendly term to describe worm poop. Current terms are worm castings, worm manure, vermicompost, None of these make any sense unless one is already involved with worms and hip to the lingo. You mention these phrases to most people and they look at you like you are some kind of weirdo worm nerd.
Being hip to worm lingo does not make me a geeky nerd, I swear...
Info on vermicomposting.
The goal of the this contest is to come up with a descriptive and consumer-friendly name for earthworm poop used as a soil amendment and organic fertilizer. Give it your best shot. Not looking for cutesy. Winner, if there is one, gets 50 lbs of Laughing Owl worm fill in the blank
I will admit to drinking the kool-aid concerning worm crap. We potted up 600 tomato, 300 eggplant, and 200 peppers in 4.5" peat pots and the potting soil mix was 20% worm compost. We bought a 1500 lb. box of the stuff. Some of the best transplants we have ever raised. When we transplanted them out, we added two cups of worm compost to each hole and the results are impressive.
What is Local Food?
Best definition I have run across is from Local Harvest
"For a while now, many of us have used the word 'local' as shorthand for food that meets a certain, somewhat ineffable quality standard. In this context, 'local' means something like this: This food is grown near here, on a human scale, by people who care deeply about the land and make thoughtful, conscientious choices for its stewardship. It is nutritionally intact and fantastic tasting. It thrives here, unpropped by excessive resources or technology. Its history is knowable and unsullied."
"local" has been corrupted just like the term "organic". A chef friend of ours asked his wholesale distributor what they meant by local and was told it was anywhere they could get a truck to in 24 hours. Not round trip, one way. That makes CA, Mexico, and Canada local...
Dean Mullis
Laughing Owl Farm
http://www.laughingowlfarm.com
Monday morning, the first thing I did was spray the few transplants in the greenhouse with pyganic We get these small moths about this time every year that reek havoc on transplants, mostly brassicas. I failed to mention this to Jenifer and she came behind me and watered the greenhouse washing off stuff I had just applied. Totally my fault, I just grunt most days until noon except on Saturdays when I have to talk.
Then we went to spot spray the the potatoes with Spinosad another biological insecticide that has a very low toxicity to beneficial insects and does an awesome job. Jenifer and I each had a 1/2 gallon hand-held sprayer and covered 3/4 of an acre of potatoes... We are going to have a lot of potatoes in 2-3 weeks.
It was already 10:30 am and Jenifer headed off to harvest for the CSA and I went to my dad's shop to try and get our Howard Rotavator back together.
Our tiller is 19 years old and flew apart last fall. We welded it for the short-term in April, then it flew apart again. I thought I was going to have to buy some very expensive West German machined parts but my dad looked at it, knew a guy close by with a machine shop set up in an old chicken house and for $150, I am back in business.
I got educated getting that machine back together... I am no mechanic. I was covered in hydraulic oil, gear oil, lock-tite, and gasket making material. Heck of a headache from sniffing those fumes. Took me all day and around 5:30, I was able to run a pass through a section of the garden with the tiller and apparently, I got it back together in the correct order..
We have been without the tiller for over a month and that has hurt us. I had hoped that I could just till all the areas of the garden that needed working, but after that one pass with the tiller, I decided it all needed bush-hogging first. So I bush-hogged till dark. Jenifer was doing ball practice with Ellie and Levi. She made home made cornbread with onions and opened a can of beans. Good enough for me.
After supper, I sat down at the kitchen table with our "new' used laptop. A good friend of ours who is in the equipment leasing business brought it by the Matthews Farmer's market last Saturday and handed it to Jenifer. I am not positive, but I think we traded a pastured Thanksgiving turkey for the laptop. It is an IBM thinkpad. It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to turn it on.
I felt kind of silly sitting at the supper table at 10:30 pm in grease covered pants trying to figure out the workings of a laptop. I probably should just hand it over to Ellie or Levi and let one of them show me how it works.
Contest! 50 lbs of worm poop?, castings? vermicompost?
My brother Rick and I attended the 9th annual NC State worm conference last week and it was great. There were folks there from 16 states and 3 countries.
I have to admit that there were a lot of odd folks there. Apparently, I was the only normal guy there amongst all the worm geeks and nerds... Go figure.
We were issued a challenge by Tom Herlihy of Worm Power, the biggest worm guy in the US. He processes 30, 000 lbs of dairy manure solids a day with worms. His challenge to us, which is now your challenge in the Laughing Owl Worm Poop Name Change Contest, is to come up with a better consumer-friendly term to describe worm poop. Current terms are worm castings, worm manure, vermicompost, None of these make any sense unless one is already involved with worms and hip to the lingo. You mention these phrases to most people and they look at you like you are some kind of weirdo worm nerd.
Being hip to worm lingo does not make me a geeky nerd, I swear...
Info on vermicomposting.
The goal of the this contest is to come up with a descriptive and consumer-friendly name for earthworm poop used as a soil amendment and organic fertilizer. Give it your best shot. Not looking for cutesy. Winner, if there is one, gets 50 lbs of Laughing Owl worm fill in the blank
I will admit to drinking the kool-aid concerning worm crap. We potted up 600 tomato, 300 eggplant, and 200 peppers in 4.5" peat pots and the potting soil mix was 20% worm compost. We bought a 1500 lb. box of the stuff. Some of the best transplants we have ever raised. When we transplanted them out, we added two cups of worm compost to each hole and the results are impressive.
What is Local Food?
Best definition I have run across is from Local Harvest
"For a while now, many of us have used the word 'local' as shorthand for food that meets a certain, somewhat ineffable quality standard. In this context, 'local' means something like this: This food is grown near here, on a human scale, by people who care deeply about the land and make thoughtful, conscientious choices for its stewardship. It is nutritionally intact and fantastic tasting. It thrives here, unpropped by excessive resources or technology. Its history is knowable and unsullied."
"local" has been corrupted just like the term "organic". A chef friend of ours asked his wholesale distributor what they meant by local and was told it was anywhere they could get a truck to in 24 hours. Not round trip, one way. That makes CA, Mexico, and Canada local...
Dean Mullis
Laughing Owl Farm
http://www.laughingowlfarm.com
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