Initially established as a permaculture project in 2008, we are now growing to be an educational center that teaches people about ways they can incorporate sustainability into their everyday lives wherever they live. Our farm has become the playground and laboratory where we experiment with new techniques, learn from our mistakes, and try until we succeed. Along the path of mistakes and subsequent successes, our passion lies in sharing our knowledge and experience with everyone we encounter, from urban folks to local farmers. Beyond farming, we greatly emphasize living well—from the collection of indigenous tropical medicinal herbs to the principles of eating well and fostering an intentional community with common values towards the aim of living more harmoniously on earth. After all, we are made from the dust of the earth. Read More | Comments
- FARM PROFILES
-
March15th
Permaculture in Perak, Malaysia
Posted in: FARM PROFILES
-
February29th
The Lord’s Acre is a not for profit 501(c)3 garden in western North Carolina. All the organic produce grown is given away to our local food pantries, Welcome Table, and individuals in need. Last year we grew 8 tons of produce on 1/2 acre using a combination of raised beds, field cropping, wide rows and by demonstrating various methods that can be used by backyard gardeners. We are currently in three-season production of a wide variety of mixed vegetables with cover cropping used as a crop rotation as well as being standard winter practice. This year, 2012, will be our fourth growing season and the progress we’ve made in such a short time is a testament to the community’s involvement. Along with volunteering in the garden, the community has provided such things as a tractor trailer load of compost, an irrigation pump, a site plan by civil engineers, a used barn, construction of a shed, financial support and so much more. During the growing season, there are regular volunteer work times as well as group volunteer times. We also house and train up to three interns per growing season. Read More | Comments -
February22nd
Nestled in a holler in the Hominy Valley, a few miles outside of the mountain town of Asheville, North Carolina, is a small family farm. Though it is surrounded by many similar plots, this farm is one of the most unique in the area. This is the home of Smoking J’s Fiery Foods and Farm. Owned by Joel and Tara Mowrey, who live on the property with their two daughters, the farm is set apart from its Western North Carolina neighbors by many things, but one most of all: the crops grown here. Smoking J’s is not only a farm, where some of the hottest and rarest chili peppers in the world are cultivated, but also a small company that uses those peppers to make hot sauces, salsas and more. The story of Smoking J’s is not unlike those of other similar companies. It is, however, one that could not be recounted if it were it not for the extensive local network of resources, outlets and community support for local food and products, among other factors. This article, then, will serve to expound on just how these things were brought together in a comprehensive farm-and-business plan to create what is now Smoking J’s Fiery Foods and Farm. Read More | Comments -
January24th
By Doug Decandia, Food Growing Project CoordinatorThe Food Growing Program is a project initiated by the Food Bank for Westchester, of Westchester County, NY. The Food Bank is the supply and support center for over 200 hunger relief agencies (soup kitchens, shelters, food pantries, etc.) throughout the county. These agencies that directly distribute food and supplies to individuals and families experiencing hunger. Read More | Comments
-
October17th
Submitted by Tommy Tepper
As a part-time community gardener at the Joyner Community Garden in Asheville, North Carolina, I am writing this piece to add to A Growing Culture’s scope of global food production. Food is the essence of every culture and it is the commonality of us all, no matter who you are. This is not just in terms of large farms, but also backyard gardens and community gardens. These types of garden systems should be held in the same regard as all other food production systems. All of us are trying to simply reinforce the vital importance of knowing what’s in your soil, knowing what, in fact, is on your plate or in your hands when you are eating. The fact that many people don’t seem to know how their food got to them or all that went into making the product just makes no sense to me.
I am very blessed to live in an American town like Asheville where there are many community gardens and so many backyard gardens. Some even have fishponds, ducks, goats, and chickens, but what really is important and good to know is that the word and the message keep on spreading from one person to the next. People walk by the Joyner Community Garden all the time, asking, “how did you grow that?” or, “what kind of vegetable is that?” Or, even, “why are you guys and girls here all the time?” The point is that people can‘t help but notice the flowers, the bees and butterflies; that for some reason on this city street filled with houses upon houses, there is this rather small parcel of land with a garden with lots of things growing. Even if it is just the neighborhood mail carrier deciding to plant 4 tomato plants at his house or a new neighbor getting her hands dirty at the community garden, all these things spread wings and that, to me, is the whole point. Read More | Comments
-
July27th
Biodynamic Agriculture at Granja Las Ondinas, a Farm just outside Buenos Aires — Argentina
Posted in: FARM PROFILES
Granja las Ondinas (or Farm of the Fairies) is situated just after the immense urban sprawl of Buenos Aires finally gives way to the vast expanse of the seemingly interminable flatness of the Argentinean pampas. The surrounding agricultural land consists largely of hen-houses and soy fields, and if it were not for the occasional family of four riding a moped on the highway next to Las Ondinas, one could easily mistake the location for a typical scene straight out of the American Mid-West. However, this farm is far from typical or ordinary. It seems to exist between two worlds; the urban and the rural, the modern and the ancient, the celestial and the terrestrial. Read More | Comments -
May27th
Pasture Raised Chicken: Flexibility & Functionality at Coq Au Coin—Saint Francisville, Louisiana
Posted in: FARM PROFILES
Coq Au Coin Pasture Raised Chicken is a flexible operation that is able to use minimal land on leased acreage to provide a pastured bird product that is superior in flavor and more nutritious than what is currently available for this region’s meat eating consumer. Raising chickens on pasture allows the birds to forage as they would naturally. The chickens get up to 30 percent of their diet consuming bugs, grass, and other life in the soil. Chickens on pasture give back what they take from the ground in the form of high quality manure. The diversity in a pasture diet creates a healthy chicken that makes a healthy meat packed full of antioxidants and Omega 3 fatty acids for the consumer. In a world where our food increasingly is losing its nutritional value because of a quantity over quality food industry Coq Au Coin is proud to be able to offer a product that is both good for the land and good for the eater. Read More | Comments -
April7th
The Aloha Natural Farm is located in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines on 2.8 hectares (7 acres, 17 rai). A century ago this land was tropical rainforest. Farming began ten years ago on denatured, demineralized soil infested with cogon grass, Imperata cylindrical. The soil was mapped by the JCIA and Dept of Agriculture as an oxisol ustox, also known as a highly weathered, low organic matter, low C.E.C., brownish red clay soil. Soil tests show that base saturation is high in magnesium and in need of plant available calcium.Aloha House is a non-stock, non-profit, NGO (Non-Government Organization) and charitable mission serving the community of Palawan and the nation of the Philippines. Aloha House is duly licensed and accredited by the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) as a Child Caring, Child Placing and Community Serving Agency. The agency is proactive in supplying the staff and children in their care with chemical free nutrient dense food. A large surplus of fruits and vegetables are made available through various marketing practices discussed below. Read More | Comments
-
March2nd
The Panya Project
Posted in: FARM PROFILES
Essay submitted by Christian Shearer, owner of Panya Project and permaculture consultant for Terra Genesis International.Location: Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Founded: August, 2006The Panya Project is a permaculture, natural building and sustainable living education center in Northern Thailand. Panya is operating as a volunteer-run, profit-sharing education center and hopes to inspire change!
Project Concept: To experiment with and model an integrally sustainable way of living in the wet/dry tropics. This project aims for sustainability not only in the physical environment, but also in the social environment, our physical bodies, and the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual realms. Permaculture is the system that will primarily describe how the project moves forward on a physical plane.
-
February21st
The Warren Wilson College Farm (WWC Farm) has been in continuous operation for 117 years, when the college opened as the Asheville Farm School in 1894. Some of the land would have been farmed in the decades prior to our ownership, by other settlers. Thousands of years before this, we have evidence of cultivation by the pre-Cherokee tribes of the Swannanoa River Valley. The land is rich, with good soils in the river bottom supporting a long term crop rotation of corn, small grains and forages. The upland pastures vary in their productivity, but in general, they are highly suitable to the production of forages.In the early days of the farm, production was for college consumption and surplus sold or traded. Meat, milk, timber, wool, and vegetables are a few of the crops they produced. For most of the last four decades of the twentieth century, the WWC Farm focused on beef cattle, farrow to finish hogs, corn silage and some grain production. The cowherd numbered around 100 at times, with large framed cattle eating a diet of corn silage, planted on most of the 125 tillable acres, and calves sold as feeders or pre-conditioned cattle. Some cattle were finished for college consumption and butchered in the basement of a dormitory but this practice was discontinued in the 1980’s. The hogs were managed in dry lots with farrowing and finishing happening in confinement houses with crates.
Read More | Comments
