Gardeners Trade Grass For Fruit And Vegetables

FLORIDA - Karin Fields of Fort Lauderdale is enthusiastic about the potential of her yard. She's not going for a fluffy, lush lawn. At least not in the usual sense. Instead, she's happily swapping out sections of grass for artichokes, broccoli and onions.
With established vegetable gardens already tucked in back of her house, Fields is adding fresh plantings in the front yard -- perfectly visible from the street.
"I'm putting [vegetables] in front for more people to see,'' she said. "When they're walking dogs at night, when they're driving by the house, they won't miss the garden. They'll stop and look and they'll ask questions. And they'll want to do it themselves.''
Fields, an organic gardening coach by profession, supports a movement to use residential yards more efficiently and productively. She's among those who regard ornamental grass lawns -- which need water and gas-powered mowers for beauty -- as environmentally wasteful.
"Instead of wasting [water] on grass, we're going to put it right into the garden to make the vegetables,'' she said.
Like Fields, many South Florida residents are giving edibles more attention within their landscaping.
"I think it's a real trend,'' said Gabriele Marewski, owner of Paradise Farms Organic in south Miami-Dade County, who speaks on the topic of edible landscaping at public events.
While much of her land produces organic fruits and vegetables for commercial use, Marewski said she's trading out an ornamental hedge on her property for a personal kitchen garden, complete with kale and mustard greens.
Various factors account for the emphasis on edibles, gardening experts say. High among them is a desire for fruits and vegetables that have fresh-picked flavor and are produced without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.
"The awareness about organic gardening kind of renewed us to look at our yards and see where we could add something,'' said Diana Guidry of NatureScape Broward, a county program that promotes environmentally friendly landscaping.
Another draw, some suggest, is enjoying the outdoors, away from phones, Facebook and Twitter.
"To me, there's nothing more satisfying than being in nature,'' Marewski said.
Lance Gulseth of Hollywood isn't ripping out existing greenery, but when he replaced trees after Hurricane Katrina, he decided that any additions would be edible.
PICKING FRUIT
"I think it's just a nice feeling to walk in your backyard to pick mangoes or pick papayas or pick kumquats,'' Gulseth said. "It gives me a lot of enjoyment to have the yard producing, rather than [just] something that needs to be mowed every week.''
As a novice gardening enthusiast and former Arizona resident, Gulseth is delighted with the variety of food -- including bananas, basil and collard greens -- that's produced in his yard. Much of it, he said, requires relatively little effort and expense. He figures that this year he chowed down and shared about $120 worth of papayas from two trees started by simply tossing some extra seeds into a pot.
In addition to providing flavorful food, enthusiasts say, the variety of edible trees and plants offers the attributes of ornamental landscaping -- texture, color, shade and habitat for wildlife.
Fields said she's especially inspired by Fritz Haeg, a Los Angeles architect who's been a high-profile proponent for replacing traditional lawns with edible landscaping.
"He does it beautifully,'' she said. ``Instead of just a garden, he's turning it into a piece of art.''
For looks, Marewski's favorites include a cranberry hibiscus hedge. "It's gorgeous,'' she said. She tosses the lemon-flavored leaves in salads.
PRETTY PLANTS
Other aesthetically appealing edibles, Marewski said, include jaboticaba, mango and avocado trees. Rosemary makes a nice shrub. And lemon grass works well as a taller ornamental grass.
Another enthusiastic advocate of using organic edibles as landscaping is Desiree Fields (no relation to Karin), a trained master gardener volunteer with the University of Florida -- Broward County Extension Education Section.
Even the hedgerow, she said, looks similar to that of typical hedges in her urban Broward neighborhood. But hers produces such tasty treats as cherries, kumquats, plums and papayas.
Her method of trimming these fruit trees, she said, is specifically tailored to keeping them short and dense.
NOT MUCH WORK
Fields, a personal chef and organic garden designer, is eager to let fellow South Floridians know that when edible landscaping reaches a certain level of maturity and balance, there's minimal work. Basically, she said, her daily effort involves walking around her yard -- in a dress -- and harvesting.
Some of her favorites include strawberry guava, which produces a red fruit and offers dainty white flowers. The Barbados cherry provides her landscape with hot pink flowers with bright red cherries. Even her basil, Mexican sage and tarragon provide flowers. When food is bountiful, outdoor critters are likely to come and help themselves. That's fine, according to many edible enthusiasts. They're happy to share at least some of the bounty. In return, gardeners are treated to music and a show.
"I watch the birds,'' Marewski said. "It's my TV.''
from The Miami Herald

New York Dog Park Composts Waste

ITHACA, NEW YORK - Several years ago, dog owners in the college town of Ithaca, N.Y., began worrying about all the plastic bags filled with dung that ended up in the landfill.
Leon Kochian, a professor of plant biology at Cornell and, more to the point, the owner of a yellow lab, recalled the thinking at the time: “This is Ithaca. There’s got to be a more environmentally sensible way to do this.”
This year, with Mr. Kochian’s nudging, one of the city’s dog parks — part of the Allan H. Treman Marine State Park — became a dog waste composting park.
Special corn-based bags, made by the Biobag Company, based in Florida, are available at several stations in the park. Dog owners put the bag and its contents into large bins near the park’s entrances, which are removed once a week by a company called Cayuga Compost.
At its composting facility, Cayuga dumps the waste into a pile — mixed with a bit of yard and wood waste — quite separate from the company’s regular food-waste compost.
And there it will sit — until the company figures out what it might be good for.
Late next year, Cayuga plans to run tests to determine the composition of the dog waste (after all, a dog’s diet is arguably more varied than virtually any other animal’s, in accordance with the whims of their owners). If it matures into nutrient-rich compost, it might be applied to potted plants or landscaping, said Mark Whittig, Cayuga’s operations manager. If the compost is of poorer quality, it could be used for blending with topsoil, he said.
The Ithaca group believes that theirs is the first such dog composting park in the nation, though it is not certain. A similar program is in place in the large Pacific Spirit Regional Park in Vancouver, and an experimental program is also under way at a dog park in Montreal, where the compost is processed on-site with the help of sawdust.
The Ithaca program costs roughly $6,000 a year, according to Mr. Kochian, who said that more than enough money for the first year has already been raised in donations. So far, the Ithaca compost organizers are delighted with the enthusiasm their project has generated.
“Imagine if they started doing this in Central Park,” said Bruce Stoff, the communications manager for the Ithaca/Tompkins Convention and Visitors Bureau, in an e-mail message.
from The New York Times

Tesco Welcomes Organic Food Back On The Shelves

UNITED KINGDOM - This week UK major retailer Tesco turns enthusiastically back to organics with a new organic brand manager that will review the range, price, quality and communication for organic food in Tesco stores in all UK.
At Organic Trade Board (OTB) meeting on September 22, Go for Growth, Tesco announced that it has employed an organic brand manager as part of the retailer's promise to get organic produce back on the shelves.
Last year actually Tesco reduced the organic line because of the economic recession and the impact it had on customer spending. "Consumers were trying to reduce their monthly outgoings and they did stop buying organic produce", said Andrea Mulqueen, head of Tesco’s organic fresh produce team.
However, Ms. Mulqueen - talking to OTB delegates last week - admitted that "in hindsight Tesco had made mistakes in removing certain organic fruit and vegetables from the shelves", Freshinfo.com reports. "So in October [2008], Tesco introduced a new buying team for fruit, salads and vegetables for organic. We also talked to the supply base and customers. Now we are nearly all the way back to how it was. We need to support the industry."
Today more than a quarter of the Tesco’s fresh produce customers buy organic, which equates to 3.6 million Clubcard holders.
Tesco's plan to relaunch organic foods will consider the range, price, quality of products: “We now have a top-10 list of organic fruit and vegetables that must be available in any one store, like blueberries, leeks and lemons, that are really important to the organic customer”, she added.
Furthermore, the approach will be specific for each particular store’s demographic and area: “It is about the right range in the right store and getting those customers back,” Ms. Mulqueen explained.
Focus will also be on communication and in-store promotional events.
from Green Planet

Growers Reap Fruits Of Labor At Farmers Markets

ATLANTA, GEORGIA — It was the first time husband-and-wife team Andrew and Christina Norman had brought the vegetables grown on their Covington, Ga., farm to the Peachtree Road Farmers Market, and it did not look promising.
On a rainy Saturday, they were the only vendors there without a tent.
Yet that did not stop a steady stream of customers eager to buy their organic beans, heirloom tomatoes and Brussels sprouts from descending on their tables, cash in hand.
"I was in the wine business, which in the course of the last two years has tanked," Andrew Norman says. "The only other skill I have is farming, and we had to do something to pay our mortgage."
The Normans had sold their produce to Atlanta-area restaurants but never directly to the public.
"It was a lot of fun," Norman says, adding he made about $500 on that rain-soaked day.
Although farmers are struggling during the economic downturn, neighborhood markets are booming. Peachtree Road is one of at least three dozen such markets in the Atlanta metropolitan area, according to localharvest.org, a website that tracks farmers markets.
Nationally, farmers markets are soaring, buoyed by a growing interest in local foods and sustainable farming, says University of Wisconsin-Waukesha anthropology professor Kathleen Bubinas, who studies the markets' economic impact.
At the Peachtree Road market, tents snaked around the parking lot in the shadow of high-rise office buildings as vendors offered organic produce, baked goods, fresh lamb and eggs, as well as handmade crafts and jewelry. Farmers chatted with favorite customers, most of whom brought children or dogs, or both.
The parking lot of the Cathedral of St. Philip Episcopal, which hosts the market, was full by 9 a.m. despite the rain. "We come here frequently," said Hank Boughner of Atlanta, who roamed with daughters Isabelle, 8, and Madeline, 5. "It's fun to talk to farmers and talk about their food. The guy over there has jalapeño pesto that's really good."
Market manager Lauren Carey says about 800 shoppers and about 40 vendors come every week. The market is the brainchild of Atlanta restaurateurs Linton and Gina Hopkins, who founded it in 2007 with help from church members eager to offer fresh produce to the community.
Among the customers was Joel Schellhammer, an Atlanta management consultant, who browsed with his wife, Allie, and their 1-year-old daughter, Catherine. Schellhammer says books such as Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma have made people "more interested in knowing where the food that they are putting in their bodies is coming from." Pollan's 2006 best seller tracks food from four meals from their source to the table.
Schellhammer says some market prices are higher than he might pay at a supermarket but paying a little more makes more sense than "flying fruit halfway around the globe."
Alex Szecsey of A&J Farms in Douglasville, Ga., began a garden in 1979, guided by an organic gardening magazine. He began selling his produce from his 1-acre farm at farmers markets a decade ago and has watched demand grow for his baby eggplants and arugula. The farm is successful enough now to be a full-time occupation for him and his son, Jonathan.
Jonathan Szecsey enthusiastically snapped off a leaf of peppery arugula for a customer to try. It's a best seller, he says. "I usually can spot my arugula customers. It's usually a mother about 35-39," he said. "They will come straight for it. They love it."
from USA Today

Sewerage System Like 'Writhing Plate Of Spaghetti'

NEW ZEALAND - Steve Mace is passionate about his work - inspired by the massive environmental contribution worms will make when used in a sewerage system that will serve the two towns of Wyndham and Edendale.
Mr Mace is the managing director of BioFiltro, which is based in Wyndham, and has become somewhat of a pioneer.
His company recently built the first vermiculture sewerage system of its kind in New Zealand.
There are about 75 worldwide.
The system was completed two months ago and all that remains is for the households to be connected.
He joked he would be putting a picnic table and chairs at the site as it would be odour-free and the system would be a wonder to behold.
Mr Mace and former Fonterra Edendale site manager Max Parkin were directors in the company and they also had an investor, he said.
Mr Mace described the system as being "no-frills" with low overheads and no odour.
"We like things clean, to look clean and people won't smell it," Mr Mace said.
The system had been designed to take up to 528,000 litres of sewage a day, he said.
The sewage would be piped into the site and would go through a self-cleaning filter system, which included a standby alternative programmed to kick in if there was a problem, solids would be scraped out and put into a wheelie bin.
The self-cleaning mechanism meant the potential for odour was eliminated, Mr Mace said.
There are two underground tanks each capable of holding 100,000 litres.
This means the system has a 12-hour storage capability.
The wastewater is then sprayed on a packed bed of plastic, screens, sawdust, rocks and bacteria.
Worms within the sawdust bed provide aeration and consume the bacteria to create humus.
One of the features of the system was the standby equipment, which featured at nearly every step of the operation including when the effluent was sprayed on to the bed, he said.
The effluent is sprayed on to the bed for 15 minutes, then there is a 10-minute rest period between bursts.
The system runs 24 hours a day.
The worms are at the top of the food chain - they consume bacteria and create pathways through the sawdust, which provides oxygenation.
The remaining clear liquid was treated by a UV unit before being discharged into the Mataura River, Mr Mace said.
The system is extremely quiet with the noise barely audible.
Stainless-steel piping is used in the new system because it lasts longer.
Because Mr Mace and Mr Parkin are from the dairy industry, which is used to getting projects up and running in a tight timeframe, the project was managed to come in within budget and within the timeframe set out and without varying the original plan.
The whole site was contained in a fraction of the land that would have been needed if a lagoon system had been installed, Mr Mace said.
It had been estimated the total cost of the project would be $1 million less than installing a traditional sewage treatment method.
The plant had its own worm farm and tiger worms were used in the operation, he said.
The worms will become a self-sustaining population.
The worms have been fed milk powder and water, but had cow manure added to their diet recently just to get them used to the change in diet they will encounter when the system is hooked up.
"After a while it [the bed] will be just like a writhing plate of spaghetti," he said.
It took 45 days for a worm to mature and there were 10 to 15 worms in one egg and each worm had a life-span of 12 to 14 months.
There was a potential that each worm could have 300 offspring, he said.
The system is also compatible with other conventional sewerage systems.
It can be set up alongside existing systems to provide efficiencies.
While the humus was rich in nutrients, there were a lot of regulations around the use of such material in New Zealand and as yet it could not be used by consumers, he said.
However, that is not the case in Chile where gardeners could buy humus in 1kg bags.
Mr Mace believed that once the New Zealand Government had established that the product was stable and free of pathogens and viruses, it would be able to be sold commercially.
from The Otago Daily Times

New Varieties For Urban Gardeners

The vegetable garden looks to be "Sweet ’n’ Neat” next year, thanks to some new varieties of tomatoes by that very name.
More urban dwellers are joining the trend of growing their own produce, and tomatoes are the No. 1 choice of those growing edibles.
Gardeners can choose from several new varieties, such as Sweet ’n’ Neat Scarlet, Sweet ’n’ Neat Cherry, Sweet ’n’ Neat Yellow and an impressive Little Sun Yellow. While determinate varieties fit a smaller garden situation, these new patio varieties open the door even wider, enticing everyone to grow some, even if it is in a container.
In addition to these tomatoes, there are also great selections suitable for growing in baskets, such as Tumbling Tom Red and Tumbling Tom Yellow. The Tumbling Junior Yellow will be introduced next year and, although small, you can expect a bounty of delicious tomatoes.
In Mississippi State University trials, Dr. Bill Evans harvested 4.5 pounds of Tumbling Tom Yellow tomatoes in one picking. At this year’s California trials, I counted right at 40 cherry-size tomatoes ready for harvest on a Sweet ’n’ Neat Scarlet in a 6-inch container.
Tomatoes aren’t the only produce going compact. You’ll have your choice of sweet or hot peppers, zucchini squash, acorn squash, eggplant, okra, pumpkins, basil, strawberries and more.
Whether it is the global economy or food safety scares that have fueled this trend, it cannot be argued that there are some great family benefits to these small urban gardens. Children are growing up in a fast-food world where poor nutrition and sparse outdoor time are common. Children involved in growing vegetables may become future gardeners.
The urban vegetable garden certainly doesn’t have the same look of our grandparents’ gardens, especially since urban gardens are smaller. It is the proverbial "piece of cake” to get the soil rich and fertile. The products needed to accomplish this are available at most garden centers by the bag or even by the scoop if you have a pickup.
Urban gardens normally are constructed on raised beds and enclosed or separated from lawn areas with wood or rocks. This will give you the best in drainage and aeration, and will help keep out encroaching grass. Simply use the string trimmer around the edges.
This style of garden is easy to tend from all sides without compacting soil by constantly making trips to hoe or weed. Harvesting is as simple as reaching in and picking your produce.
Fall vegetable gardens are great because the produce ripens at a cool time of the year, delivering the best flavor. If you miss planting for fall, make sure you jump on the bandwagon come spring.
from News OK

Organic Produce No Healthier

CANADA - According to a recent study conducted by British researchers, the nutritional quality of organically farmed fruits and vegetables is similar to the quality of those produced using traditional farming methods.
According to a survey conducted by the Canadian Cancer Society, 70% of Canadians are concerned about the presence of pesticide residue found on fruits and vegetables.
While this concern is understandable (we all want to live in a pesticide and pollution-free world), you must still keep in mind that the vast majority of these foods contain only miniscule quantities of these chemicals.
In fact, 97% of imported and 99% of Canadian agriculture products don't contain pesticide levels in excess of the safety limits imposed on food by Health Canada.
But despite this information, the demand for organic foods has continued to rise in recent years. However, organic food products are generally more expensive. But does the added cost really translate into food that is better for you?
Many studies have tried to prove that organically grown foods contain larger quantities of nutrients than food produced using traditional methods.
The results, however, have all been very different. Some have shown a higher content of antioxidants in the organic product, while some found no difference whatsoever.
To try and clear things up, researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in England thoroughly examined all of the studies conducted to determine the differences between conventionally and organically grown food in the last 50 years.
After identifying 55 studies that contained the required scientific properties, the researchers compared each type of food's content of nutrients (including vitamins, minerals and phenolic compounds).
This analysis showed unequivocally that the differences between the two types of food production are much smaller than predicted.
For example, the content of nutrients such as vitamin C, phenolic compounds and minerals such as magnesium, calcium, potassium, zinc and copper don't change, regardless of how the food was produced.
Minor differences were discovered when it came to phosphorous (higher in organic foods) and nitrogen (higher in conventionally grown food), but these differences are too small to have an impact on one's health. In other words, organically grown or not, fruits and vegetables have the same nutritional qualities.
These results confirm what we have said several times: vegetables play a major role in the prevention of chronic illnesses and, when it comes to their impact on your health, it doesn't matter whether these veggies were grown organically or not. The important thing is to eat them as often as possible!
But even if organic fruits and vegetables don't offer you superior health benefits, there are nonetheless several good reasons to pick these products if you are able to afford them.
For one, the absence of pesticides and other chemicals allows organic farmers to avoid exposing themselves to high concentrations of the chemicals.
People may also prefer to go organic because the produce looks better, tastes better or comes from small, local sources.
And of course, for people who can't stand the thought of exposing themselves to any chemicals whatsoever, the idea of controlling what goes into their bodies by favouring organic foods will likely be an attractive concept.
from The Toronto Sun

Vietnam To Get New Composting Plant

A $53 million garbage-to-compost plant developed by a Minnesota company with Vietnamese roots will open in several weeks about 35 miles northwest of the former Saigon.
"This has been a very long and hard undertaking,'' said Viet Ngo, chief executive of Minneapolis-based Lemna. He is a South Vietnamese immigrant and University of Minnesota-trained engineer. "An international effort in my native country ... and it will be great for Lemna, Minnesota and Vietnam."
The Lemna project, built on tunnel-infested ground that 40 years ago witnessed horrific fighting between American and Vietnamese troops, spanned nine years. It evolved from an international development study that found that what is now Ho Chi Minh City must divert garbage from open sewers and two huge, fly-invested landfills to a facility that could turn the problem into rich organic fertilizer.
"This was a long pregnancy," said Poldi Gerard, Ngo's spouse of 29 years, business partner and general manager of the 4-acre project. She has spent most of the last several years in Vietnam. "This project is about economics and environmentalism. It also will be the flagship for others we will do. We keep garbage out of the landfills, do something useful with it and, eventually, make a profit."
The project broke ground in early 2008. Dozens of construction workers fabricated pilings on-site that were pounded into the ground by huge pile drivers, the first footings in a complex that will employ 600 workers by 2011. They will process 1,200 tons of garbage daily into compost for sale to farmers. The business is expected to cut Vietnam's imported-fertilizer bill by tens of millions of dollars annually.
Nothing moves fast in Vietnam, save the darting motor scooters and bicycles on the streets of the former Saigon. The financial credit crisis of 2008-09 halted construction and one financial partner backed out. In the end, Lemna's equity contribution totals nearly $11 million, matched last fall by a $5.6 million investment by VINA Capital, an American concern that operates Vietnamese investment funds, and about $36 million from lenders.
Saigon, as it is still commonly known, is the commercial hub of the fastest-growing country in Asia behind neighboring China to the north.
The Lemna plant, operated by Lemna's Vietstar subsidiary, lies in the Cu Chi District, a fairly tranquil area of farms and forests. But during the war, Cu Chi was synonymous with close-quarter combat. Miles of tunnels provided shelter and safe routes for local Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops entering South Vietnam from Cambodia, about 15 miles to the west.
Since 1995 and the normalization of relations with the United States, Vietnam has opened itself to business with the West and moved 65 percent of its 83 million people from poverty to working-class status through manufacturing, agriculture and information technology, particularly around Saigon and Hanoi.
Although belatedly, the country is now determined to pace its economic growth with progressive environmental management, Pham Van Hai, a scientist who heads the Center for Environmental Science and Sustainable Development, told me in an interview last year.
The Lemna-Vietstar plant is evidence of that.
General Electric just announced plans to build a wind-turbine manufacturing plant, oil-exploration firms are prowling coastal waters off Vietnam, and the country is moving to overhaul its aging power-generation and distribution systems.
The Vietstar project is the first to turn organic garbage into fertilizer, said Do Thu Ngan, the CEO of Saigon-based Sacombank Leasing.
Vietstar will be paid $6 to $12 per ton for fertilizer under an agreement with the city of Saigon.
Paper, cardboard, wood, metal, glass and just about everything but organic garbage is recycled by scrap merchants and industry in Vietnam. That leaves small blue bags of organic waste left outside households that are picked up a couple of times a week by garbage trucks.
"Vietnam now imports fertilizer and plastic, DoThu Ngan said. "The garbage becomes fertilizer and the plastic from the bags will be recycled into pellets that will be sold to the plastics industry. Both products replace imports, and this addresses an environmental issue in Vietnam."
Poor waste-management practices and inadequately lined landfills over the years have resulted in serious pollution. That and past slash-and-burn agriculture, deforestation and soil degradation have caused the government to plot a new course through public education, stricter environmental laws, penalties and incentives for environmental remediation and sustainable environmental projects.
"Composting is the perfect solution for tropical countries with monsoon seasons," Gerard said.
Lemna, headquartered in the elegant old mansion on Park Avenue that once was home of the Brooks family that made its fortune in timber, was founded by Viet Ngo in 1983 as a wastewater treatment facility designer. The company has expanded into energy and other projects from the Midwest to Vietnam and Nigeria. It has built 300-plus pond-based municipal and industrial treatment facilities that rely largely on biological, low-cost systems for treating wastewater pollutants.
Bob Bannerman, an official with the U.S. Commercial Service in Vietnam until he moved to Rome in 2008, helped Lemna approach the Saigon government after a U.S. Trade and Development Agency study in 2001 said Saigon was threatened by sewage-related pollution.
"Virtually all household waste was simply dumped into sewers that fed eventually into the many canals, streams and rivers that are a part of the Mekong River basin," he said. "The city government was interested in attracting foreign investment that would provide technical solutions to this problem, but they needed to be convinced that Lemna could deliver what it promised."
Delivery is scheduled for September.
from The Star Tribune

Farmers Warm To CSA

MILLIS, MASSACHUSETTS - As he finished packing corn, tomatoes and blueberries into shopping bags at a Massachusetts farm, software engineer Alex Lian said his new shopping habits had changed his attitude to food.
"As a city person, I've never had this much connection to the seasons and eating things as they're picked," the 32-year-old said as he looked out over fields at Tangerini's Spring Street Farm where his produce had been grown.
Tangerini's is one of a growing number of mostly small-scale U.S. farm operations that have turned to community-supported agriculture as a new business model.
The 74-acre (30-hectare) farm sells shares of its crop of vegetable and fruit crop in winter and early spring. Its 230 customers pick up their share of the produce every week at the farm, starting in June and running through the growing season.
Laura Tangerini has been farming for more than 20 years. But in the two years since she's adopted community-supported agriculture, her family's outlook on the farming business has changed dramatically
"What I'm seeing with the CSA is a future for my farm past me," Tangerini said in an interview at her farm about 20 miles southwest of Boston. She no longer has to borrow money to buy seeds and pay other early-season expenses, and her college-aged sons are starting to show an interest in farming.
SHOOTS OF GROWTH
The CSA model traces its roots to experiments in cooperative farming in Germany and Japan in the 1960s. It arrived in the United States in 1985 when activists in western Massachusetts founded Indian Line Farm, which remains in operation today.
Recently, the number of U.S. farms using the CSA model has spiked, according to people who study it. People have become more interested in locally-grown produce after reading books like "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollen and "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver.
"There is a big new growth shoot that has taken place," said Elizabeth Henderson of Peacework Organic Farm in New York state, author of "Sharing the Harvest."
"They finally get it -- why buying from a local, family-scale farm is important," she said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture released figures this year showing that 12,549 U.S. farms had sold products through CSAs in 2007. It had not previously tried to count CSAs in its census of agriculture, which is conducted every five years.
"There are more CSAs in the country than there were five years ago ... Our database is growing by leaps and bounds," said Erin Barnett, director of LocalHarvest.org, a Web site that tracks them. The site has added 690 farms to its roster of 2,905 this year.
'JUST GORGEOUS'
Several CSA members interviewed said they were attracted by the quality of the produce. Typically CSA farms pick fruits and vegetables the same day they distribute them, either at the farm, some central distribution point in a nearby city or through home delivery.
"It's so much fresher than what we get in the grocery store," said Sara Ervin, 28, an interior designer who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "It looks just gorgeous."
Farmers who run CSAs, which represent less than 1 percent of the nation's 2.1 million farms, said the model allows them to take a different approach.
While "big agriculture" farms focus on producing just a few crops in immense qualities or raise one kind of livestock, CSAs need to grow a wide variety to satisfy their customers.
"It allows us to be extremely diverse. I can grow lots of different things, and if one thing doesn't work out ... there are so many other things that are available," said Elizabeth Keen of Indian Line Farm in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Having a backup plan -- multiple varieties of greens, for instance -- is critical since members share the farmer's risk. If a particular crops fails, members typically have to go without or find another source.
"Anyone who has ever tried to grow vegetables, or any type of plants, knows that sometimes you lose them," said Susan Speers, 59, a member of Tangerini's CSA.
In practice, the process takes stress that normally falls on the shoulders of the farmer and spreads it out.
"It's a wonderful way for farmers to maybe not get caught up in that lending and financing thing, because if they have a bad season, that can put them under," said Christine Mayer, program manager of the Fulton Center for Sustainable Living at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, which tracks U.S. CSAs and also runs its own 6-acre (2.4 hectare) farm.
"It takes a lot of the risk and a lot of the fear out of the farming," said Ben Doherty, who co-founded Open Hands Farm outside Northfield, Minnesota in 2006. "If we have mediocre or bad tomatoes for the year, we don't make $5,000 or $10,000 less. Everybody gets a few less tomatoes."
from Reuters

Huge Potential For Vermicompost In South Africa

SOUTH AFRICA - Organic recycling company Turfnet sees huge potential for vermicompost in South Africa, an organic compost that is believed to be the cleanest form of organics in the world.
The company’s organic recycling centre, in the north of Johannesburg, specialises in both vermicompost and green-matter compost.
Turfnet MD Dan Barwick says that the company’s compost is a soil amendment and not a fertiliser. The company uses a base of all organic materials made from garden refuse.
“You can take bad quality soil and only make it into a good quality soil by adding compost. This cannot be done using a synthetic fertiliser,” says Barwick.
Landscapers dump their garden refuse on the company’s site at no cost. The refuse, which consists of leaves, flowers, grass and branches, is sorted into piles of green matter and wood.
The green-matter piles are hosed down with nutrient-rich water to aid in the decomposition of the material, which is left for 45 days before a ratio of carbon to nitrogen of 20:1 is achieved. Once the material pile reaches its peak stage of decomposition, it is aerated by an industrial turner. This stage is essential as harmful ammonia is released from the compost and microbial activity is increased.
When the refuse is incinerated or dumped on landfill sites, gas emissions such as methane and nitric oxide are released into the atmosphere. Organic compost production reduces greenhouse-gas emissions through the recycling of garden refuse.
“The recycling of green matter back into soil is a huge part of preventing global warming,” says Barwick.
Meanwhile, he says that the true value of the compost lies in its bacteria content.
“The compost simply acts as a home for the bacteria and is of no value without it,” he adds.
The nutrients within the compost are broken down into a simpler form by the bacte- ria, which allow an easier uptake by plants.
The aerobic bacteria used in the cycle are bred on site in a static compost system consisting of several successive layers of grass and manure. The bacteria bred in the system are put back into the compost.
Barwick says that any well-produced and well-maintained compost pile or vermicompost box should be odourless. If the compost does have an odour, it should be of an earthy smell. He says that if decomposition becomes anaerobic from excess feedstock added to the bin in wet conditions, it will begin to smell like ammonia.
Vermicompost
The company also specialises in vermicompost, which consists mostly of worm casts, compost and decayed organic matter.
The worm cast or vermicast is the end product of the breakdown of organic matter by compost worms. Vermicompost is an excellent, nutrient- rich organic soil conditioner that contains water-soluble nutrients and bacteria, says Barwick.
The company uses two methods to farm vermicompost. The first involves the use of a windrow, which is a shallow bin containing bedding material and compost for the worms to live in. Vegetables, which are grown on site, are fed to the worms.
The second method, involves the American box model, which acts as a raised bed or flow-through system. The worms are fed across the top of the bed. An inch of castings is harvested from below by pulling a breaker bar across a large mesh screen that forms the base of the bed.
Barwick says that because the worms are surface dwellers, they are constantly moving towards the new food source. The flow-through system eliminates the need to separate worms from castings before packaging.
One ton of vermicompost is sold for R2 000; however, one handful of vericompost can be spread over a large area because of the high nutrient content.
Barwick says that not many companies have taken up vermicomposting technology and that there is huge potential for this technology as demand is picking up because of the environmental benefits.
The company employs 12 workers who ensure that all the material dumped on site goes to use. Tree cuttings are used to create bird nesting logs and feeders, while the perimeter wall of the recycling centre has been created out of large stones collected from the garden refuse and around the site. Rainwater is collected and fed through a settlement tank, which is then used to supply the green matter piles with water.
The company is supplying its products to nurseries, landscapers, farmers and golfcourses. In addition, Barwick says the company is involved in a joint venture with landscaping com- pany Top Turf in setting up an organic compost facility at leisure resort Sun City.
from Engineering News

Mushroom Farm Developers Say Gozo Residents Are Used To “Rural Odours”

MALTA - A proposed mushroom factory earmarked for an outside development site near the five-star Kempinski San Lawrenz resort has attracted concern from MEPA’s natural heritage panel.
The panel said that the factory could produce offensive odours in the vicinity of Gozo’s crafts village and the holiday resort, despite the mitigation measures being proposed by the developers.
But the developers of the farm have claimed in an environmental planning statement that residents of San Lawrenz are used to “rural odours” since manure is used to fertilise the surrounding fields.
The panel stressed that “the risks of emission of offensive odours remain, especially while the fresh manure is being transported to the farm.”
The panel added that the odours could negatively affect the Ta’ Dbiegi crafts village and other residential units in the area. “The total elimination of these risks is well-nigh impossible,” the panel stated.
The farm developers have presented an Environment Planning Statement in which experts have replied to concerns voiced by the Gharb local council. “One can imagine the unbearable smell the chicken manure would have on the area including the Crafts Village, the residential area as well as the Kempinski 5-star resort which are a stone throw away,” the council said.
But the developers’ experts contend that the risk of odours will be minimal, because the transport of chicken manure will take place in closed trucks and will be stored in an enclosed and aerated rooms. They also argue that the aeration will minimise the anaerobic fermentation, which causes odours.
While the EPS says the scheme will not impact the landscape, the natural heritage panel expressed its concern on the loss of high quality agricultural land.
from Malta Today

Probing Who Hatched Chicken Manure Scheme

CANADA - Chicken manure spread on city property in Surrey, B.C., is causing a stink at city hall following allegations that city crews left the manure to prevent the homeless from loitering.
Chicken manure was left on the grass, along sidewalks and in an empty city-owned lot beside the Front Room, a busy resource centre for the homeless on 135a Street in North Surrey.
"You got all this staff here at the Front Room trying to save lives. They can't even sit out here and talk to the clients, try to guide them to the right place when all that smell is around," said Front Room counsellor Tim Tabor.
"It's just inhuman. How would they like it in their yard?" said Tabor, who added witnesses saw Surrey city workers for spreading the manure.
Acting Surrey mayor Barinder Rasode did not deny it was municipal employees who did the deed but she said the order was not given by city council or the mayor.
An investigation is underway into whether bylaw officers and RCMP initiated the plan, Rasode said.
"A part of our understanding [is] that it may have been the city's law enforcement agency, which are the bylaw officers, in conjunction with maybe a local officer at the [RCMP] office," Rasode told CBC News.
Rasode said that following the complaints, the manure was removed over the weekend.
from CBC News

Late Blight Tomatoes

CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE- Tomato plants have been removed from stores in half a dozen states as a destructive and infectious plant disease makes its earliest and most widespread appearance ever in the eastern United States.
Late blight - the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s - occurs sporadically in the Northeast, but this year's outbreak is more severe for two reasons: infected plants have been widely distributed by big-box retail stores and rainy weather has hastened the spores' airborne spread.
The disease, which is not harmful to humans, is extremely contagious and experts say it most likely spread on garden center shelves to plants not involved in the initial infection. It also can spread once plants reach their final destination, putting tomato and potato plants in both home gardens and commercial fields at risk.
Meg McGrath, professor of plant pathology at Cornell University, calls late blight "worse than the Bubonic Plague for plants."
"People need to realize this is probably one of the worst diseases we have in the vegetable world," she said. "It's certain death for a tomato plant."
Tomato plants have been removed from Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Lowe's and Kmart stores in all six New England states, plus New York. Late blight also has been identified in all other East Coast states except Georgia, as well as Alabama, West Virginia and Ohio, McGrath said.
It is too early in the season to know whether infected plants will taint large crops or negatively affect commercial growers. But if that happens, growers could be forced to raise prices to cover costs associated with combating the disease.
Agriculture officials in the various states still are trying to determine where the outbreak started. One major grower, Alabama-based Bonnie Plants, supplies most of the tomato plants to big-box stores, but it is unclear whether the plants were infected before or after leaving the supplier's multiple greenhouses.
"There's no way in the world you can pin this on one plant company, but we just happen to be the biggest," said Dennis Thomas, the company's general manager.
The company has regularly inspected greenhouses in 38 states, including Maine, New Hampshire and New York. Its most recent inspections - in New Jersey and Pennsylvania - found no evidence of disease.
"We've not been written up one time for any late blight disease that was confirmed," Thomas said, noting that Bonnie Plants sprays seedlings before shipping them to stores, but that doesn't happen after the plants arrive. He said the company was proactive in removing plants once the outbreak occurred.
In the meantime, plant experts are warning gardeners to be on the lookout for the disease and to take quick action if it crops up. The first sign is often brown spots on plant stems, followed by nickel-sized olive-green or brown spots on the tops of leaves and fuzzy white fungal growth underneath. Tomato fruit will show firm, brown spots.
Spraying with fungicides can control late blight if begun before symptoms appear, but many plant experts recommend removing and destroying the plants instead to prevent spores from traveling.
Donald Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board, said the state's potato farmers are concerned, but not in crisis mode.
"It's pretty easy to make our growers aware of it, that's the simple part. But what we've started to do is really reach out to home gardeners throughout Maine to ask them to be very diligent about checking their tomato plants or potato plants," he said.
Hilary Chapman of Hopkinton, N.H., hasn't yet seen any signs of blight on her four tomato plants - two she planted from seed and two purchased from a small local greenhouse.
"I have one plant that has two tomatoes on it, and everything looks good," she said, "but I'll be watching."
from The Associated Press

Toilet Fee Bum Deal For Greenie

NEW ZEALAND - The owner of a Golden Bay guesthouse has accused the Tasman District Council of "punishing" those who help the environment by charging them twice for their toilet service.
Peter Finlayson, who with his partner Pete Banham runs Autumn Farm in Central Takaka, told councillors at a submissions hearing on its 10-year plan he should be exempt from paying council pan charges.
The couple pay $450 a year on the pan charge, despite using a compost toilet and a grey water disposal system they installed themselves.
Mr Finlayson said he'd already paid resource consent fees for the greywater system and an annual fee of $325 for discharging grey water onto his land, on top of the annual pan charge.
He said it was "ludicrous" they had to pay the charge towards maintaining a sewerage system when their 4.2-hectare property was not connected to it and the system was "anathema to our environmental beliefs".
"We see no reason why TDC should be allowed to levy us costs twice over for the same service. We are penalised because we didn't wish to be a burden on our environment or be part of a mass system."
He also wants his "forced $3000 contribution" to the Central Takaka sewerage system returned as well.
Mr Finlayson said compost toilets, which are becoming more common in the region, recycled human waste into useful fertile soil. He uses his on the vegetable garden and as a mulch for his fruit trees.
The environmental benefits from compost toilets also included saving an enormous amount of water.
"How does the council expect an environmental awareness to develop in the hearts and minds of its constituents when its very own policies punish folk who walk the talk?"
Autumn Farm also has one flush toilet, for which there is a septic tank.
The guest house and campground hosts up to 50 people during five organised summer events.
Mr Finlayson said most guests approved of the concept behind compost toilets, although some opted to use the flush toilet instead.
Council engineering manager Peter Thomson confirmed that pan charges were made to households that could connect to a mains sewerage scheme whether or not they chose to connect to the system.
He said it would be up to councillors to decide whether to change that policy.
Council environmental and planning manager Dennis Bush-King said all compost toilets and grey water systems had to comply with Australian/New Zealand guidelines regarding solid and grey water waste.
from The Nelson Mail