It happened again – minus the need to raise funds for the devastation of last year’s tornado that ripped through Balch Springs. Eden’s Garden, Artysby J Photography and Edible Dallas & Fort Worth co-sponsored this year’s event which was expanded to include a paid formal dinner, special guest speaker, free movie screening and auction in addition to the traditional free live concert. 

After being wooed by the sultry voice of Lorynn the Red Head, and welcomed to the farm by owner Marie Tedei, Barn Aid guests were introduced to two very worth causes that are working hard to help people less fortunate by providing basic necessities including food.  The Gleaning Network of Texas based in north Texas, works with area farms to reduce wasted food by harvesting the misshapen, damaged or overages that normally end up in the compost heap, plowed under or trashed. This food is perfectly good to eat, just maybe not as perfectly shaped as what we have come to expect at the store or in market baskets.  Food is donated to small, often overlooked, food pantries.  Canteyuke, Inc., also locally based, helps the Lakota people of the Rosebud Reserve in South Dakota, by providing assistance with food, clothing, blankets and other necessities.  These people live in 3^rd world country conditions right here in our own country and without many resources, changing their lifestyle for the better is difficult at best.

When I left off last time, I put the question out there; “what if you couldn’t get clean, high quality, fresh produce from your local supermarket?”  In New York, they discovered that with all things optimum, every square foot of agricultural land in production and distribution at peak levels within the city, they could only supply 34% of its city’s food needs for its citizens.  I bet it didn’t set well when that report hit the news. Read the above link for some eye-popping information about who controls you via the food you eat. I’ll wait.

What can we do? How many countries did the ingredients of your dinner come from last night – if you even prepared and ate dinner at home? How far did your dinner travel from to get to your table?  Granted, most of America’s standard produce only comes from California, which doesn’t seem too far – but, what if they have a drought? What if our oil prices spike again – guess that is not if, but when. And if not just for those reasons, for those concerned with shipping “fresh” food through gasoline powered means leaving a larger than desired carbon footprint – consider local food.  It really is a better choice.

Kermit had it right when he sang that song.  Besides the huge learning curve, the logistics of green, renewable energy are not always what you think they are going to be. 

When I decided to farm my land last year, I knew up front I would do so organically; without synthetic, soil damaging fertilizers or toxic, long lasting, synthetic poisons to control pests or disease.  But I also wanted the farm to be green in as many other ways as possible.  That meant no city water, with all of its chemicals and such, as well as no conventional electrical service at the gardens. I started out, quite naively, with a 12volt lawn mower battery and an agricultural sprayer.  Well, we’ve come a long, long way from that set up – but we’re still struggling to have consistent irrigation results. 

With the fine expertise and countless hours of labor volunteered, not to mention parts and equipment donated, of a few of our CSA members, we now have a functioning solar panel and wind turbine set up charging our batteries that provide power to a pump.  However, while irrigation out of a pond using a marine pump works well in a perfect world, Eden’s Garden, in spite of the name, is far from perfection. 

We have fish and algae that clog up hoses and block water flow on the screened cage.  We have a very big deficit of rainfall which means the pond is almost 6’ below where it was when we started – exceeding the “lift” maximum for our pumps so we had little pressure shooting down our rows.  We’ve set up 2 pumps now, in tandem, and have the opposite problem as it seems we get too much of a good thing and it shuts the pumps off with the back pressure. 

Needless to say, all of this has taken a toll on the gardens.  We can’t control the searing temps, which kept many plants from doing their thing, but the lack of water has taken the lives of some of the tomato plants and while the squash are seeing a resurgence of new growth, it was not until after much stress and damage and kept the size of some of the fruit smaller than usual.  Now the squash bugs are coming....

It is hard to say whether or not a constant flow of irrigation would have resolved some of the problems we had this summer, because the heat kicked in so very early, well before we normally see upper 90’s and 100’s, and many of the plants weren’t mature enough yet to take it.  But we are working to resolve the situation so we can stay green, in more ways than one and keep the gardens irrigated at least. 

We are looking at well pumps and more permanent trenched in pipelines at lower levels more even with the pond’s shoreline as well as new rain dance techniques.  Actually, I had thought about a prayer meeting out here as it seemed the rain just skirts around us and never leaves but a few drops.  Are we sending out the wrong energy?  Is there a lesson here?  Not sure, but we do know one thing – we need more moisture! 

Wow – what a summer we’ve had – so far!  It is only the end of July and we’ve already seen more 100+ days than last year I think. What will August hold for us? 

Local farms have struggled this summer all across north Texas, between the drought and then wet, wet and more wet – keeping the ground cold and then sudden hot temps after a very late freeze followed by more dryness save the one day of never ending rain - 7" in some parts. No matter how well you plan, the weather dictates it all in farming. 

Central Texas and the Hill Country are having fits with the drought more so than we are.  I have talked to many a farmer across the state and we’re all facing various challenges this year – and failures.  Where’d all the peaches go? Blueberries were smaller.  And certainly unless you are able to irrigate the daylights out of things, summer harvesting has been a bit lighter than normal and smaller as well.  What did the pioneers ever manage to eat without drip irrigation??

Here we go again!

What is New on the Farm?

As I ease back into the administrative part of my farm work, I found that while I was busy with other things, there were over 100 new people joining the list waiting to hear from me about our farm! Dallas - I think you are really starting to GET IT about local food! The magazine Edible DFW is in town, more local chefs are tuning into local farms and there are way more mini-farmer's markets than the farmers can keep up with! What a good problem to have I guess. The awareness level is growing fast. I hope this encourages more people to make better food choices.

I'll plant a bit extra this season as more people are looking for produce at Eden's Market Days and I have a few specific items requested by Chef Gilbert that I'll be planting, including some of the potatoes that are already in the ground. He's the executive chef at the new Restaurant in West Village called LAZARE and he is working directly with Eden's as well as several other local farms and ranches here in the north Texas area.  Great food, great service, and you know what you are eating is fresh and healthy for you since he's getting as much from local organic farms as he can. 

Eden's community gardens' Swiss Chard has been a big hit with Chef! The monies raised from the sales will help pay for some new "drip bucket" irrigation systems I am hoping to get soon. This will get us off of "city" water and on rain water in our community gardens. We have a few plots open if you have too much shade or just want to come garden with others from your community. 

There is sooo much going on in the news locally and in DC I don't know where to start.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100234410&GT1=31036

This may be a good place to start before you head out to lunch.
Fortunately, I think most of you know it is better to pack a salad and some fresh veggies for lunch.

But then there is always Lazare!

http://eatsblog.guidelive.com/archives/2009/03/lazare-has-its-soft-opening-to.html


BIG BROTHER
But, in order for us to continue to get to eat locally farm fresh, from your favorite farm of choice, we need to keep DC out of it. They need to focus on the far away farms, not farms where we can go talk to the farmer if there is a problem with something they grew or raised.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=92002

This is an interesting story about a piece of legislation that has been circulating and starting rumors. It is so vague that it encompasses just about any and everything anyone ever grows or raises. A bit much. Farming is labor intensive enough, without having to spend all that mental energy on staying ahead of the paperwork the gov't wants to put us through.

Can we look at those cities embracing this great county's roots – let’s be proud of our agricultural history – not ashamed.  That way, those who look at us will know we are “Town AND Country” – the old Balch Springs motto! 

The issue is very near and dear to many a heart as young and old alike came to the podium one after the other to plead for the very lives of their roosters and hens.  Limiting residents to just one rooster and 2 hens, much less the outright banning of roosters all together, united the city tonight and caused the ordinance to be tabled pending a Town Hall meeting on January 31^st –

NOTE I rec'd an email from William McDonald of the city this morning confirming that the Town Hall Meeting is on Jan. 31st, 2pm at the Balch Springs Civic Center on Elam Road.