Tonight, Local Food Cleveland hosted an event, So You Want To Be A Farmer? The panel featured local agricultural experts and local farmers who shared stories with over 200 attendees. Those in the crowd self-identified as interested in becoming farmers, already farming, or just plain wanting to hug farmers for making fresh produce available locally. I have to admit, I put on the farmer sticker, despite still being at the beginning stages of this dream…..I think we’re close enough and was further encouraged by tonight’s event. Here’s a bit of an overview of what happened.
The Panelists
- Morgan Taggart – OSU Extension
- Jessica Levine – Wonder City Farm & Schmidt Family Farm
- Cindy Bischof-Steinbrick – Basil and Beyond
- Darwin Kelsey – The Countryside Conservancy
- Bruce Cormack – Cormack`s Market Garden
Some of the takeaways from the event include:
What is a farmer? When your motivation is profit and you go beyond just growing for home consumption, you are a farmer.
What are some lessons learned? Understand farming is a business. You need to spend a lot of time marketing your business in order to be successful.
How can one get started?
- Get out and dig in the dirt
- Take a course > Exploring the Small Farm Dream
- Set goals – where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- Understand your motivations
- Participate in the “farmer reality show” by talking/volunteering with other farmers
- Understand what you want to market and to whom
- Make a list of what you know and what you need to learn
The event was really encouraging and the advice from the panelists and others that I met is priceless. So glad to be heading down this path…..
A few years ago we read an article in the magazine Countryside & Small Stock Journal regarding sustainable beekeeping practices using a Warre hive. Since then we’ve read and studied many sources on the Internet regarding sustainable beekeeping, and finally this weekend we were able to construct a Warre hive for ourselves.
I think The Bee Space has done a nice job summarizing what a Warre hive is. There are links to Emile Warré book translated into English, which I would highly recommend reading. I followed their construction guide, but made a few minor modifications, like windows.
One of the great things about our hive is that it’s built with local wood! Other than being totally cheap, which was a huge bonus, our wood was supplied to us by my uncle Gary. He had harvested some wind damaged white pines a few years back and graciously gave the wood to us to use for the hives. Also he planed the wood to 7/8″ thickness cause he’s just totally awesome. The other thing is, when I was a kid, maybe 8 or 9, I played in the stand of trees where this wood came from. The idea that our “food doesn’t come from a grocery store”, occurred to me on another level that “wood doesn’t come from Lowe’s / your big box lumber store”. That this wood came from a real tree, and I don’t get sentimental very often, but I found this idea to be very profound as we was building the hive. I almost got misty.
Here are some pictures of the construction process. We will continue to post regarding our beekeeping progress throughout the season. Also big thanks to my dad for helping out on the construction. I’m blessed with a pretty awesome family.
7/8" white pine boards read for construction
I couldn’t get my dad to work in the metric system so we ripped the boards 8 1/2″, that’s how tall the boxes are.
ripping the boards to width
I really feel I need to know what’s going on inside the hive, so we fashioned a Plexiglas window on one side of the boxes
Plexiglas window installed
We built a total of 5 boxes, 4 with windows and one solid box
3 boxes with windows open
roof construction
floor construction
top bars installed in a box
floor, 3 boxes, and roof
We are not quite finished, left on the list is:
- finish the exterior with linseed oil
- install closing latches for the window covers
- decide if we are going to put a wax starter on the top bars
- mount all the top bars
- build a feeder
- find some bees!!!!!
it’s a sunny day and only 19F, but our compost pile is really working
over 100F!!!! not quite as hot as we would like, but getting there. that reading from our compost thermometer we got for christmas.
we have been steadily added to the compost piles behind our house and looks like it’s composting in there
Bay Branch Farm recently registered to attend the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association’s (OEFFA) annual conference, Growing with Integrity, Eating with Intention. The conference features Joel Salatin as keynote…we’ve read about him (even read some of his books), seen him in several movies about sustainable farming and now we are going to see him live! So exciting.
The other great aspect of this event is that Joel (a different Joel) from Earth Tools is going to be there. As you may recall, Joel sold us our Grillo 107D – now affectionately known as Bertha – last summer. Our latest implement is a rototiller attachment. Specifically, based on Joel’s recommendation, we are getting the 27″ tiller for our Grillo. This will replace the rotary plow attachment and be used for secondary tillage. Since Joel is going to be there and we are going to be there, he’s just going to bring the attachment with him (saving us a trip to KY or shipping costs).
Overall, we are super excited about our first conference and will share our takeaways in a future post. Maybe we’ll see you there!
Just when I thought planning was going well for the season, I start hearing about others who have already started their seeds indoors and already know what they are planting, when and where! Geez….well, we may be a couple weeks behind, but this is lighting a fire under us.
My sister gave us the best book as a Christmas present – The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook by Richard Wiswall. This book is such a valuable tool for beginners and for those who want to understand farming from a business perspective. The message is simple: farm for profit, not production. So, far we have done some of the basic exercises, one of which includes writing down what you really want out of life. Sounds pretty basic, but it’s so critical to starting down any new path. We’ve also established a revenue goal and have worked from that goal to layout our marketing chart and production plan. More to come…
Have you ever had a memory triggered by a smell? Well, that’s what happened to me today when I ate a salad that had strawberries in it. Not sure where they came from, but guessing they are not from around these parts….not this time of year anyway. But, the smell….ah, it brought back memories and made me wish for summer in a way that all the cold, snow and gloom hasn’t yet mustered. In honor of that, I snapped a picture of our snow-covered strawberry patch that is hopefully cozy under its thick layer of straw mulch…..it will be a few months before we taste our own strawberries, but when that day comes it will be such a treat!
Strawberry patch in summer....
....and in winter
Last week we enjoyed a tasty, seasonal meal at Claire’s Restaurant in Hardwick, VT. Given the landscape is covered with snow, it’s hard to believe there is much available locally, but this restaurant stays true to the seasons and to what it can find in the region. This includes chicken, steak, and pork chops, but also some lesser known, albeit equally delicious, root veggies such as parsnips and sun chokes. In addition, squash such as pumpkin and acorn showed up in many meal choices. A quick drive through the town indicates the denizens wouldn’t have it any other way. Claire’s address is right next to the local coop and the fliers on the wall advertise all kinds of local eats and gets in the area.
What we ate:
- Pasta w/sunchokes, roasted squash and greens in cheddar and kale pesto cream sauce w/Italian sausage
- Chicken w/sauerkraut, potatoes and bacon
- Pork chop w/apple, green tomatoes, and berry chutney w/roasted potatoes and brussels sprouts
- Steak w/french fries and roasted root vegetables
We recently met an awesome couple that keeps an outdoor worm bin right in Ohio City! Curious about their process and reeling from a major fruit fly infestation in our indoor bin, we decided to learn more. The couple has a 3 bin system that they rotate about once a month. The worms do all the work and they reap the rewards. They’ve even gotten the neighbors involved in composting, which is so cool! Part of the reason it seems to work is because the bins are pretty well protected, situated between two houses so they are nicely protected from the elements. Although most of what we’ve read indicates worms need to be kept between 55 and 75 degrees in order to survive, the owners say their worms lived through last winter.
Well, we are going to try it….no more fruit flies for us!
Current bin to which food scraps and leaves are added
Fully composted materials and worm castings. Check out their nicely built structure!
The couple responsible for this system! Bags of leaves in last bin were collected from tree lawn (otherwise they would have been sent to landfill!).
Rain barrel system right next to compost pile.
Oatey diverter taps into the downspout and connects to the rain barrels.
Happy Thanksgiving! This year we purchased a turkey from Plum Creek Farm in Columbia Station. We really like these farmers, appreciate their farming practices and were fortunate enough to help harvest birds last year about this time. Due to scheduling, we were not able to help harvest this year, but we did put in an order for a turkey, a duck and 6 chickens. The turkey is huge – 28 pounds! Lots of full tummies and leftovers for everyone to take home….and super tasty!
It barely fit in the oven....or the pan for that matter!
For the past couple of years we have been interested in bees and this winter building a hive is on our to do list (it’s been there in past years and hasn’t been completed, so now that I’m putting it on the blog, maybe that will hold us accountable to actually building it this year). Below is a picture of a Kenyan top bar hive that belongs to Andy Hudak, a bee keeper and Naturalist for the city of Brunswick. We spoke to him over the summer and got hooked on this hive construction. Will post plans and pics when we get this done.
Kenyan top bar bee hive
