Our visit to Soil Born Farms, The Farm on Hurly Way

This morning our family had a chance to visit The Farm on Hurly Way. The Hurly Farm (as Farmer Eric calls it) is a small urban farm that belongs to Soil Born Farms. This particular farm is managed by our good friend Farmer Eric and his partner Farmer Sarah.  

Farmer Eric

As starting out urban farmers we are in LOVE with Soil Born Farms. Back in 2000 Sean Harrison and Marco Franciosa, two friends who were young and inexperienced organic farmers (reminds me of us Happy Green Lifers) decided to start an Urban Agriculture and Education Project. Today youth and adults can visit the farm and learn to grow, eat, and love farming!

Farmer Sarah

Last year Farmer Eric and Farmer Sarah joined Soil Born Farms for their Farming Apprenticeship program. They started with 40 other applicants and worked their butts off until there was just four farmers left, their prize was wining their current position as co-managers of the Farm on Hurly Way (or the Hurly Farm).

Since taking over the farm the two have planted lettuce, artichokes, and TONS of garlic! Farmer Eric showed us their experimental espalier fruit trees. This is the process of training fruit tree branches to grow in a specific way. The trees on the Hurly Farm are being trained to grow into a wall.

espalier fruit trees

Over the winter the fields that weren’t full of crops were planted with vetch and oat grass. Vetch is a legume that is planted to put nitrogen back into the field between harvests. Farmer Eric pulled up some Vetch for us and showed us how it had been affected by a bacteria called Rhizobium. The rhizobium creates nitrogen nodules to grow on the roots. These put nitrogen back into the soil so that the next group of plants that grow there will have the proper nutrients to grow.

Nitrogen nodules

Rows of different lettuce

After checking out the plants we got to meet the farm ducks and chickens. Indian Runner ducks were chosen for the eggs that they will produce. They do not fly and they run instead of waddle, we got to see this as the men were trying to catch them to show the kids. The farm has a large variety of chickens also chosen for their eggs. Rhode Island Red, buff orpington, barred rock, araucana, and australorp’s can be found throughout the farm eating bugs and helping fertilize the ground.

Lots of Garlic!

We had a wonderful time visiting the farm. They invited us back to help work, which we will be doing so we can learn to work on our own farm. They will also being making a visit out to our little farm to help us harvest and plant our spring veggies!!

If you live in the Sacramento, CA area you need to check out Soil Born Farms. They have a lot of activates scheduled for families including a kids day and kids summer camp!! https://www.soilborn.org/

-Amanda

Our Happy Urban Farm

I am getting ready to graduate with my masters in environmental studies and as my classes and projects get more intense so do my desires to live sustainably. Like I have said before I grew up on a mini farm that practiced sustainable living but my poor husband did not. He grew up in the city; his closest interaction with farming was mowing the 5x10 foot lawn in front of his mom’s house.

When I decided to go back to school he was very supportive, I had originally studied government and had talked a lot about law school so he was all smiles at the thought of us boosting our family income. But then I broke the news that I was going to pursue environmentalism. He smiled and said, “Whatever makes you happy, I support you,” but he was thinking, “I have married a hippie lunatic!” He thought this again when I informed him that we were going to tear out his precious back yard lawn and start an urban farm!

So this is our new project, we are going to start urban farming. Our current garden measures 3 x 10 ft. (it runs along the side of our house), but our new one will be 10 x 30. We are starting off with 20 vegetables beds and then a 10 x 10 patch of wheat. We currently have four fruit trees along the back perimeter of our yard, by next summer we plan to have added 10 more. We also plan to add chickens in the spring for eggs and meat. We want to grow enough food to feed the entire Happy Green Life Crew and our extended families, and maybe someday have enough to sell at the farmers market.

What is exciting, besides the prospect of never having to go grocery shopping again, is that all of our family and friends want to be a part of it. All of our friends and family have offered to come and help us. Even friends of friends have gotten excited by the idea of us doing this and have offered to help; we even had offers of land if we find that our dinky back yard is holding us back!

We are so excited, and a little scared, after all this is crazy! Remember my husband is a city boy and while I may have grown up on a farm I spent the majority of the time watching 90210 in my bedroom-far far away from any farm like activity.  Luckily we have friends with knowledge! My husband is in the military and one of his fellow soldiers is a member of the Farmer-Veteran Coalition. This group offers training and grants to veterans who want to become farmers. Our friend Eric has been working for the last two months with us getting all of our preparations for our urban farm. He has taught us everything from soil testing and PH levels, to layouts and crop rotations. This weekend along with the whole Happy Green Life crew we will be putting in our first winter crop! We are all very excited! This is going to be quite an adventure for all of us. After our first crop is in we will be learning how to harvest and then rotate, and then as the spring gets near we will be looking into what to plant as the season changes. We will be looking into chickens and how to build a coop and our resident chef Michael will be teaching us green ways to cook with our garden!

I am so excited to share this crazy adventure with you guys. I am sure it is going to be full of ups and downs but I think it will be fun.
-Amanda

Organic or All Natural?

There has been a major debate in the food world on what is better for your body and environment Organic or All Natural. I thought I would put some facts together to help you make an informed decision for your family. Within the past year we have been living a greener life not only to help our health but the environment as well, recently my family and I had the opportunity to visit an all organic farm to do some research on what the big difference is in Organic versus All Natural products and what we found just like any other opinion was a biased view.

In this post we will be going over two of the world most respected and used groups that provide certifications to be labeled as organic or natural. The CCOF: California Certified Organic Farmers and the NPA: Natural Product Association.

The “CCOF promotes and supports organic food and agriculture through a premier organic certification program, trade support, producer and consumer education and political advocacy. From apples to zucchini, from almonds to wine, CCOF is involved in every facet of organics, with over 1,300 different organic crops and products, including livestock, processed products and services.”[i]

The “Natural Products Association is the nation’s largest and oldest non-profit organization dedicated to the natural products industry. The Natural Products Association represents over 1,900 members accounting for over 10,000 retail, manufacturing, wholesale, and distribution locations of natural products, including foods, dietary supplements, and health/beauty aids. NPA unites a diverse membership, from the smallest health food store to the largest dietary supplement manufacturer.”[ii]

While there are not many differences between USDA Organic and USDA All Natural processes, some of the differences are significant. Here is an overview of these differences to aid you in your decision making.

Organic certifications concentrates on the farming aspect. To be labeled as 100% organic you may not use synthetic (non-biological) fertilizer or synthetic pest management solutions in any way. The soil must be tested and have been clean of all synthetic products for a minimum of five years. Organic livestock can only be fed with crops that meet the above criteria. Ranchers may not use any synthetic antibiotics or hormones while the animals are being raised. This is where the organic process stops. Once the Animal or produce is sent to the production facilities it is no longer monitored by the USDA Organic umbrella.
For instance:
· All machinery that touches organic ingredients can be cleaned with steam or bleach.
· The Packaging of organic products can use a wide range of materials including Styrofoam trays, cellophane wrap and other Non-natural materials.
· Organic can also be frozen using conventional methods (slow freezing, below 32° F), which allows crystallization, and the possibility of harmful bacteria that need oxygen to grow like E Coli.

· Organic product is not required to be vacuumed sealed which allows the possibility of other harmful bacteria that need oxygen to live) like salmonella.
This is amazing and shocking to me as a professional chef for over twelve years you would think I would know this type of information.

There is a list of Nonagricultural (nonorganic) substances allowed as ingredients in or on processed products labeled as “organic” or “made with organic”. While not all of these items are bad they are not organic, isn’t that a contradiction? Here is a link to the complete list to the allowed substances. http://law.justia.com/cfr/title07/7-3.1.1.9.31.7.344.6.html. The only way to ensure you are buying a fully organic product is if it states “100% ORGANIC” on the label accompanied with a USDA and/or a CCOF label. Companies are only allowed to use the term 100% organic if they have met the detailed requirements by the CCOF or USDA. Here is a diagram of what passes as 100% organic and the different levels of organic certification.

Now let’s talk about All Natural product. USDA and the Natural Products Association (NPA) concentrates on the processing aspect of food production through very strict guidelines covering production. The farming aspect of All Natural is similar to Organic in that no synthetic fertilizer and no non-biological pest management solutions can be used during the growing cycle of the crops or raising of the animal.

All natural focuses on the current growing cycle, in other words, there could be trace amounts of synthetic fertilizer or non-biological herbicides still in the soil from previous years of non-natural growing. Fortunately, these are measured in nanograms (one billionth of a gram, 0.000000001g) and have not been shown to have any affects on humans. All Natural livestock can also be fed from crops that have these nanograms of residue in the soil. You are probably asking yourself, ‘how big is a nanogram’? Imagine a grain of rice, this weighs approximately 2-3 grams, now imagine that grain of rice divided by 2 billion, that would be a nanogram.

Once the crop is harvested or the animal is raised and given to the production facility, the strict guidelines of the USDA & NPA continue.
For instance:
· all machinery that touches the product must be steam cleaned and the use of bleach is prohibited.
· In order to receive a USDA or NAP certification only natural products can touch the food like rice paper or other all natural materials during packaging.
· Also, blast freezing is the only method allowed this means the item was frozen at 50° below zero instantly. This prevents crystallization and eliminates almost all anaerobic bacteria (bacteria that do not need oxygen to live) like E. coli.
· Food products must also be vacuum sealed, which eliminates all aerobic bacteria (bacteria that need oxygen to live) like salmonella.

I hope after reading this post it helps you realize the benefits of Organic and All Natural. There are many differences, and like all things we must weigh these differences and determine what is important to our families. My family’s decision is leaning towards focusing on All Natural products. We feel that the positive environmental and economical impacts of All Natural outweigh any potential nanograms of residual pesticides in the soil. We like the idea that All Natural is mandated to follow steam cleaning, all natural packaging, blast freezing and vacuum sealing procedures. While, Organic companies can be following those requirements on their own volition, it is not required and without labeling we would not know for sure who is doing what. Either way, purchasing 100% Organic or All Natural products is better than not looking for these types of products because of the high standards that they are held to. We appreciate the CCOF and NAP’s efforts on holding these companies to these higher standards and thus producing better products.
Here’s to Happy Green purchasing!

Mike

[i] http://ccof.org/about.php
[ii] http://www.npainfo.org/index.php?submenu=About&src=gendocs&ref=AboutNPA&category=About