Feds Fight Against, Raw Milk?

 How far should government go in ensuring our food is safe?  Well the Washington Times shows how far the Feds would go.

A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.

There comes a point where food regulation does more harm than good. Everyone in our country should be able to choose where there food comes from, and how it's produced.  This is the third such story I've read in the past 2 years.  I'd guess there are more such cases that are unaccounted for.  But what do you think?

“I look at this as the FDA is in cahoots with the large milk producers,” said Karin Edgett, a D.C. resident who buys directly from Rainbow Acres. “I don’t want the FDA and my tax dollars to go to shut down a farm that hasn’t had any complaints against it. They’re producing good food, and the consumers are extremely happy with it.”

The way I see it, whether you are for raw milk or not, the real question here is do we want our taxpayer dollars funding this kind of control?  Read the rest of the article here.

Support Local Food: Take This Short Survey

Being interested in helping develop a market for local food, i've created a quick Food Survey that everyone should fill out.  I'm interested to see the results, and I hope to post them here in the next few days.

Forward: An Interview with Joel Salatin

There's a lot to be said about our food industry, and those picturesque landscapes printed on shrink-wrapped packages of meat don't even begin to tell the whole story.  However, questions are beginning to fly, ones that need answers.  The voice of the people is growing ever louder, demanding the truth, as we drive full speed further away from the link to our food.  Many have found the answers, although perhaps to their distaste.  Yet one man may possibly understand the problems we face with our food more than any other, Joel Salatin. if you haven't heard of him before, he has been running his family farm Polyface Farms, providing real food from happy animals to local only customers.  Guardian.co.uk did an interview with Joel that's worth a read.

Salatin explains. "What happens is all these things we're seeing – campylobacter, E coli, mad cow, listeria, salmonella, that weren't even in the lexicon 30 years ago – that is the industrial paradigm exceeding its efficiency. So these Latin squiggly words that we're learning to say – bovine spongiform encephalopathy – are nature's language screaming to us: ENOUGH! And the question then is: what will it take for us to listen? And my contention is that Wall Street is still wearing conquistador mentality and uniforms, and nobody is listening to the pleadings of nature saying: 'Enough.'"

The interview is a really good summary of what is an amazing success story.  However, to get a more in-depth story I strongly recommend the book: The Omnivore's Dilemma.  Joel has written a ton of books explaining his operation.  he is also featured, in a sense, in the movie Food Inc. which you can watch at your pleasure here.

Damping Off - AKA Seedling Death

I've learned something new today, and just in time too. This morning when I checked on my week old sprouts I notices a few, particularly the broccoli and chard, were not looking too hot.  Fortunately this was covered the exact same day in my gardening class, Damping-off was the phrase.  I was too reluctant to ask what this term meant, but I had a good idea and the internet helped me confirm my suspicions in anonymity.


"Damping-off is a general term applied to the rotting of seeds, germinants, and succulent seedlings. There are two stages: pre-emergence damping-off kills seeds and germinants before they emerge, post-emergence damping-off affects young seedlings after emergence." - http://forestry-dev.org/diseases/nursery/pests/damping_e.html

Symptoms
Post-emergence symptoms include: fallen sprouts, indented lesions around base of stem, slimy stem, sprout discoloration and wilting.  Pre-emergence is harder to diagnose, usually the only sign is that the seed did not sprout.  You can dig up the seed and inspect it for decay to confirm the problem.  The main cause is fungal.  The problems are brought about by over watering (most common), and infected seeds, soil, water or tools.

Treatment
The best way to control the problem is to prevent the various fungi from developing in your growing medium.  For starters, your plants need good airflow. You want to keep the top of your growing medium dry while maintaining good moisture (not soaked) below.  You can also try some anti-fungal treatments, sprinkling cinnamon on the surface of your freshly planted seeds will destroy fungus on the surface. You can also try spraying your plants with a little chamomile tea, which is also anti-fungal.  There are of course commercial products available too.

For more information I found a great article about damping-off over at Tom Clothier's Garden Walk & Talk, check it out when you get a chance.

Until next time growers.

Growing Garlic

I've been anxiously watching, and the garlic is finally poking up.  Planting garlic is best done in the fall.  These plants actually do much better when they experience the harsh winter months, tucked deep under the soil's surface (about 3 inches).  Now like onions, which are also of the Allium genus, it's easier to plant a pre-developed bulb or clove.  Of course you can plant from seed but the bulb plantings come up much sooner and grow much more vigorously (although I've heard transplanted onions grow larger).

This medicinal and culinary herb has been cultivated
for thousands of years.  

It is thought to have originated from central and
southwestern Asia, and has since traveled the world
with the help of humans.

I'll not get into all the health benefits of garlic, but I did find this snippet over at tonicfoodclub.com:  

"Garlic is one of the most powerful foods.  The list of benefits and uses is impressive.  Here are just a few:

• lowers cholesterol
• prevent blood clots
• reduce blood pressure
• prevents cancer in 3 ways:
• helps the immune system fight cancer cells, inhibits tumor cell metabolism and reproduction of cancer cells
• protects against bacterial and fungal infections."

So when fall is approaching and you're thinking of putting the garden to rest for the year, go ahead and buy a bulb of good seed garlic and find a few nice spots to grow this amazing plant.

Mealworm Update

The mealworms are in full production mode.  I now have hundreds of adult Darkling beetles, ready to lay eggs.  The chickens are anticipating the crunch of their favorite high protein snack.  Unfortunately they aren't quite ready, as these things take time.  Speaking of time frame, a complete time table can be found over at www.sialis.org.  Bet, over at sialis.org also has some great information regarding raising your own mealworms, and I highly recommend this easy project for your chickens and other birds along with your reptiles if you have them.

Just in case you didn't see the colony before, here are a few pictures of the bugs transitioning to the pupa stage.  All of this took place about 2 weeks ago.

Seeds Per Ounce

When it comes to seeds the package can be a bit confusing, 500mg, 100mg, 100 seeds, 1 ounce.. I want to shed some light on this.

Seeds are calculated by weight ranging from milligrams to pounds.  To clarify 100mg is 1/10th of 1 gram, and there are 28.35 grams per ounce, and finally 16 ounces per pound.  So one ounce of seed is much much more than 100mg even though the price may not reflect that.  In reality however, the type of seed has a lot more to do with the quantity in the package. I found this info over at Weekendgardener to help you choose the  packet that best suits your needs.

Vegetables

Beets:1,600
Broccoli:9,000
Brussels Sprouts:9,000
Cabbage:9,000
Carrots:23,000
Corn:120-180
Cucumbers:1,100
Eggplant:6,500
Lettuce:25,000
Onions:8,500
Peas:90-175
Peppers:4,500
Pumpkins:100-300
Radishes:2,500
Snap Beans:100-125
Spinach:2,800
Squash:120-400
Tomaotes:11,500


Flowers


Blanket Flower:15,000
Calendula:3,500
Candytuft:9,500
Coneflower:40,000
Cornflower:6,000
Cosmos:4,000 – 5,000
Larkspur:8,000
Marigold:9,000
Morning glory:800
Nasturtium:175
Poppy:260,000
Stock:18,500
Strawflower:45,000
Sunflower:500-700
Zinnia:2,500 – 4,000


Buy in confidence, and don't let the marketing gimmicks get you.