More pictures, including new chickens on the field!

Here are some more flooding pictures, along with some other pictures around the farm. One of Adam with the new chickens in their rotating chicken tractor. This adds a vital element to our farm- fertlizer! We are now rotating the chickens through our expired summer crops where we will plant in the spring!

Recent Flooding

Turtle Bend Farm recently suffered some flood damage. We lost some of our baby plants (twice) and here are some pictures from around our field.

Marietta Square Farmers' Market

We will be attending the Marietta Square Farmers' Market beginning this Saturday, Sept. 26th. Our local Dallas Farmers' Market has come to a close and we are still producing lots of vegetables. We hope you can come find us there on Saturday morning between 8am-12. This week we will have green beans, okra, crowder peas, radishes and more! Find out more about the Marietta Square Farmers' Market at their website:

http://www.mariettasquarefarmersmarket.net/

Above picture is a sweet potato flower!

Close Call

We had a close call with the recent flash flooding that occurred in Georgia over the past week. While many others had it worse with 14 inches of rain in one downpour, we were worried about our new fall crops that are in the ground. Our entire field is surrounded on three sides by a creek that is always flowing. We saw it rise higher than ever before. Our entire 7-acre field was under 2-3 inches of water in a matter of minutes. Needless to say, Adam said that he felt nauseous during that experience. Thankfully, our losses were minor because the water was able to drain off in a timely matter. Below are some more farm pictures from before the rain. You can see our trellis for our summer field peas, and that's my niece holding a container of our french green beans. Most of these crops are coming to an end and we are transitioning into our fall crops.

Trust, Integrity and Social Accountability

Sometimes there are opportunities to stand up for something that you believe in. We recently had one such chance at one of our local farmers' markets. We thought that the Powder Springs Farmers' Market would be a good place to bring our vegetables and meet folks in our area including other farmers. Well, it was a good place for some of those things, but we soon realized that the market was not keeping their end of the bargain. The farmers' market is operated by a board and a market coordinator. They set their rules at the beginning of the season and all vendors signed an agreement to follow the rules. Among their rules is a restriction on selling produce that was not grown by the vendor- wholesale produce. It's the same stuff you would find in the grocery store- these vendors go down to the Atlanta Farmers' market where other wholesalers are selling commercially grown produce from around the country and the world for dirt cheap. The re-seller then takes this produce to a local farmers market, gussied up with bushel baskets and a thick southern accent- oh, and don't forget the boiled peanuts, and hocks his wares for cheap and makes a killing off of unsuspecting customers. "Oh yeah, I grew ALL this stuff- best watermelons you've ever tasted- just put them on the truck last night." You can hear the lies echoed through the farmers market parking lot. One customer recently found a "grown in the USA" sticker on this wholesaler's "homegrown" cantaloupe. Well, many farmers markets around Atlanta have wised up to ol' vegetable hockin' Joe and have created rules that prohibit this practice. The Powder Springs Farmers Market has some similar rules on their books- with a few exceptions, or loopholes as you might call them. You see, several board members for this market are from the local Merchants' Association, and they have one goal- to increase the downtown foot-traffic in order to increase patronage in their stores. They want as many vegetables as possible all season long, even when the vegetables are out of season- like tomatoes in May, or watermelons for the 4th of July. Vendors who resell are supposed to post a sign that the items is not grown by them, and the items must also be Georgia grown. But instead of enforcing these rules that would help keep the market fair, the board just looks the other way and allows the rules to be broken. The result? Rampant wholesaling, lying vendors, and the "real" farmers get undercut by the low prices of resold vegetables. Well, we brought our complaint about the lack of enforcement to a member of the farmers market board. He not only refused to enforce the rules, but threatened to call the police if we came to the market and caused a "disturbance." He didn't appreciate our point of view to say the least. Somehow, because he was in a "volunteer" position, he was not responsible for enforcing the rules they had laid out. It is our belief that in these types of situations, a long lost tool called "social accountability" must be resurrected. Somehow it is offensive to hold someone accountable- he even threatened legal action if we went public with this- well here ya go sir- no, I won't print your name, but it's pretty easy to figure out who's on the board that's not a farmer.

What has happened to community values? Why must everything be rationalized along economic lines? Can't we understand that a constant predisposition towards "earning a buck" is not what's best for our society? I hope that anyone who reads this will take seriously their position as community members, as people in society, and live with integrity, honesty and claim some values and stand by them! Contrary to what Mr. Merchant board member or Mr. Lying wholesaler think- it's OK to believe in something and stand up for it. So, we will no longer be selling at this unfair and corrupt market- I hope that customers of this market will get to know their produce vendors- a few bad apples can spoil the bunch in this case. I would tell you, like I have before, to ask the vendor if he or she grew their produce, but in this case, you would have gotten a bold faced lie. If we are going to change our food system then we have to stand up for the values that it must represent- honesty, transparency & sustainability for starters. If farmers' markets begin to sell the same food that is available in the grocery store, then we have not really changed anything- "local" and "natural" become just a marketing scam. If local food networks are to be more meaningful than the conventional food system, then consumers must begin to gain more knowledge about agriculture and food so that they can hold farmers and vendors accountable. Likewise, farmers may need to raise their expectations of consumers. Perhaps there should be more than just a monetary transaction over food? Should consumers be more involved in farming and food so that they form closer relationships with farmers? I don't know the answer, but I know that sometimes you have to look closer to understand the difference between a scam artist and a hardworking farmer.

Busy as Bees

Man this summer has absolutely flown by. I'm not saying it's over- but there are signs that the seasons- both cultural and ecological- are changing. Kids are going back to school, we are ordering our fall seeds like crazy, and some of our summer crops are winding down. The tomatoes will soon give in to the late blight, cucumbers succumbed to the powdery mildew (although we have another succession coming on), but the green beans keep rolling! We are harvesting some of the most beautiful french green beans I have ever seen! Adam has been working really hard to help all of our crops along- weeding, watering and most importantly- harvesting! We are also beginning to see the first of our okra!! We have the traditional clemson spineless variety, a slender burgundy variety, and a fat hill country red variety. Our silverqueen corn is almost ready- begging for rain!! We also have another crop of black-eyed peas maturing. We will have some red ripper peas very soon- they are nice and plump and pinkish in color- if you like peas you will have to try them.

As a part of our efforts to support ecological diversity on our two cultivated acres of vegetables, we have strategically planted buckwheat in rows between winter squash, around the second succession of summer squash, and anywhere in general with open ground. We use the buckwheat as a cover crop and it is useful for several reasons. The first is that it is fast growing, shading out other weeds. Second, it produces a nice head of small white flowers that attract THRONGS of bees and wasps which are beneficial insects- they help polinate plants and some of them will actually eat other bugs, like squash bugs, that like to eat our crops. THere is a serious vibration of bees going on early in the morning in the rows of buckwheat- I will post a picture of this soon. We are going to mow down the buckwheat before it goes to seed and leave it as a mulch for our winter squash to grow on.

We are still gearing up for our fall vegetable subscription. I will be sending out an email to all of the folks who have shown interest or signed our email list at the farmers' markets over the past month. We will start our subscription during the first week in October and it will run for 10 weeks until the first week of December. If you are interested in receiving a weekly box of organic vegetables this fall, please contact us as soon as possible to be considered. We only have room for about 25 shares, so space is limited. We will be serving our surounding area- including Dallas, Powder Springs, Rockmart and anywhere in between. We need to have a cluster of customers for each delivery location so tell your friends!! See the previous post for a list of the vegetables that we will be growing.

We hope that all of you continue to visit the farmers markets as the seasons change. There is no reason that most of the farmers markets should have to end anytime soon- we will continue to produce food for several more months!! Come say hello to us at the Dallas Farmers Market in the historic downtown every Saturday morning between 8am & 11:30. We are also regulars at the Powder Springs farmers market in historic downtown Powder Springs on Thursdays from 4-8. The farmers markets are alot of fun because they offer a variety of products in addition to vegetables, such as baked goods and honey. Both markets also have live music on some days. In Dallas we have enjoyed seeing the Llama's come visit (that's right- live llamas!) and the greyhound dogs! We also really enjoy talking to folks who come by and talking to the other farmers. We love seeing families come and it's a great way for kids to learn more about where food comes from.

Fall Vegetable Subscription

As summer vegetables are in full swing, we are already looking to the fall production. We have decided to offer a 10-week subscription to a weekly box of seasonal fall and late summer vegetables. Some of you may not be very familiar with this new way of connecting with a farm to enjoy their seasonal harvest. The way it works is that a farm finds interested customers who want to enjoy their fresh produce regularly and support the local farm in the process. Farmers need to have an idea of how many people are going to buy their products before they spend all that time and money producing it, so the customers sign up to become members of a seasonal vegetable subscription. Many people now call this model "Community Supported Agriculture" or CSA for short because it is literally through the support of the local community that the farm is able to be successful. As you might have noticed, most of the produce you buy in the store, and even some that you buy at farmers' markets (see previous post), is shipped in from other states, namely Florida and California. Many times the produce is picked unripe and allowed to ripen in transit, compromising the taste, nutrition and overall quality of the food. With our farm, we pick the produce the day before we sell it, if not the same day! And, your money is able to stay in the community, benefiting other local businesses and helping to preserve surrounding farmland. So, that's some of the reasoning behind it, now here are some of the logistics: Our Fall CSA will begin during the week of September 21st and will run for 1o weeks. During that time, we will provide you and your family with a weekly box of fresh, naturally grown vegetables. Each box will contain 5-7 different vegetables. We are selling the boxes for $20 each, but the vegetables are often worth more than that. We ask that each member commit to the entire season through one of our payment methods. Please ask us about those options. Finally, once we know where our customers are located, we will arrange some drop-off sites where we can meet to deliver your vegetable boxes. Ideally, we would like to have several customers for each drop site, so tell your friends! Vegetables will include: broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beets, radishes, lettuce, winter squash, sweet potatoes, collard greens, mustard greens, turnips, swiss chard, garlic and spinach. Some of our late summer crops will also be included, such as green beans, summer squash and anything else that is still producing. Please contact us for more information and to sign up. We will only have 20-25 slots available so space is limited. To learn more about CSA programs, click here. To sign up for ours, email us or call. Our contact information is on our blog and on our listing here.