News from the
Mini-Farm, Friends and Colleagues
Ecology Action staff gave a Three-Day
Workshop in March at the Mini-Farm for 16 people.
One participant was a young woman apprenticing at
a CSA farm in Massachusetts. She is part of the
CRAFT program, whereby apprentices on different
farms in a region receive training on a regular
basis on different aspects of farming from the farmers
themselves. One man had attended a Peak Oil Conference
and started working with the Post Carbon Institute.
He feels that learning how to grow his own food
and teaching others can be his contribution for
life in the future.
Common Ground Store in Palo Alto co-sponsored a
conference in February for networking opportunities
with others wanting to grow edible organic food
gardens.
On April 11 John Jeavons made a presentation to
the WEL organization in Willits to well over 100
people. (See article about WEL in the May 2005 hard
copy of the EA newsletter.) On May 2 John was interviewed
and videotaped by Julian Darley, founder of the
Post Carbon Institute.
In February
John Jeavons received an email from Marion Cartwright,
who was assistant garden manager in the original
Ecology Action research garden in the Syntex parking
lot in Palo Alto, California-almost 30 years ago.
She sent information about her current project:
helping restore the garden at Elawa Farm in Lake
Forest, Illinois. The farm was originally built
between 1915 and 1917 by Elsa and A. Watson Armour
as a gentleman's farm and has now been designated
an American cultural landmark. Garden operations
ceased in the 1950s and "the garden was eventually
lost under a 15-foot-high thicket."
The following are excerpts from
Marion's letter to John:
There has been a long hiatus in our communication,
as is the way with life. I think of you often as
you know because you have been a major teacher in
my life. I hope I gave you help and support in return
and can once again, as this gutsy group of us gets
started in a 2.2-acre production garden. I remember
how you sometimes felt like a gas station pump where
people came to fill up, pump from you and then take
off on their own without giving anything back to
the pump. I believe in two-way filling.
Now that I will be back into a raised-bed market
garden, I hope to teach classes once again and spread
the word about your publications and your years
of research and dedication. I have enjoyed many
a snowy wintry day this winter pouring over all
of the files kept from the sunny days in the Syntex
garden and your books and pamphlets from Ecology
Action.
Raised-bed market gardening came to find me rather
than me seeking it out as a career change. For right
now, our dedicated little group is focused on just
getting started. We have no tools, no shed, no hoses,
no wheelbarrows, no money. Just recently cleared
ground. It took us a year to get the brush cleared
away and to reshape the original garden tiers. Done
on the weekends when we could find the time. You
know the drill. We'll grow annual flowers, cover
crops and pumpkins the first year as we prepare
the ground and secure funding, build a loyal cadre
of volunteers and discover just how bad the deer
damage is going to be out there.
The following
was written by Allan LaValier, Certified Basic-Level
GROW BIOINTENSIVE teacher from Minnesota, who spent
time at the Willits Mini-Farm in February helping
plant spring grains. With several other people he
attended a permaculture workshop in another area
of Mendocino County. We are including his description
of the event because of its celebration of local
agricultural resources.
[The event] took place at the Anderson Valley High
School Domes in Boonville. The warm, sunny day illuminated
the venue as we arrived and saw the school orchard,
a small field of knee-high grains and fava beans,
greenhouses, and fellow earth tenders. Grafting,
pruning, advanced propagation, and garden seed saving
were to be offered as workshops. The workshops were
most informative, casual in approach, and provided
much breadth from the wealth of each presenter's
base of experience. In one of the domes a table
was spread with related books and catalogues for
perusal, another was laden with seeds for exchanging,
sponsored by the Emerald Earth Seed Savers, and
another was set with a Mexican lunch by the Salsalitas
offering tamales, beans, rice, flan, chips, and
perhaps a dozen different salsas! On the outside,
rootstocks of gourmet fruit varieties were for sale,
several walnut varieties in the shell were open
for tasting, local apple cider and syrup were sampled,
and scions were being exchanged along with relationships,
knowledge, garden wisdom, and friendship. Throughout
the day spontaneous conversations of the heart and
mind erupted, and information joined the free domain.
The following
are edited excerpts of two emails received at the
end of February from Alex Kachan in Israel:
The research/demonstration and teaching GROW BIOINTENSIVE
mini-farm is steadily growing in the Kefar Galim
Youth Village, just outside the city of Haifa. There
are 15 school students, 9th to 11th grade, who work
regularly under my supervision 4 days a week, 2
hours each day. Each kid has a bed which he double-dug,
fertilized and planted. The kids also maintain a
big compost pile with organic waste from the Village's
kitchen (that otherwise would have gone to the dumpster).
Under my initiative, Kefar Galim High School has
launched a new pilot program for academically disadvantaged
12th graders. They are being trained to lead community
groups (hopefully their own community) in creating
a community garden. They will work under and with
the local municipality and teach community members
GROW BIOINTENSIVE food-growing skills. The intention
is to use this program to draw to this school young
people who are specifically interested in learning
this; at the end of the program (which is planned
to be 3 years), they will receive certification
from the Ministry of Employment as Urban Mini-Agriculture
and Community Garden instructors.
Besides them I have another 15 students who work
with me in the afternoon. All but one are Ethiopian
who were also born there. Their parents were all
farmers, but here in Israel they are losing this
aspect of their culture so I'm trying to bring it
back.
Notes from
an April 1 email from Calvin Bey: All is
well here. I had another class of 25, using How
to Grow.. They were very interested students who
will all be here for a field day on Saturday. I
have started a chapter of the Weston Price Foundation
here in NW Arkansas. I'm getting some of these folks
interested in Biointensive. Spoke at the Ozark Natural
Foods annual meeting and will be on the program
for Earth Day.. Just plugging away.
Following is an edited short
email from Melina Hurtado of Colombia, a student
at EARTH University in Costa Rica, who was an intern
at Ecology Action last year:
I miss you so much, and I miss the garden. Thanks
for everything. I learned a lot in all my time in
Ecology Action. I had the most beautiful experience
in my life and the most amazing memories. Sometimes
I have tears in my eyes when I think of you and
also an immense happiness to have met you and to
learn a little bit about the Biointensive method.
I have so much work in my class, and I am so excited
with my graduation project. It is about Ecology
and Holistic Education for a sustainable life. Also,
I am working on the design of the Biointensive garden
at EARTH University. The people here are open to
learning about growing healthy food with the Biointensive
method. It is great! |