Evaluating Waxy Maize Germplasm

This past winter my good friend Castanea at Homegrown Goodness was kind enough to send me some bulk packages of Waxy Maize seed from Lion Seed. Three varieties in total which I posted pictures of on the blog back when. Two of these were hybrids and a third was OP all being white and 90 days to maturity (he also sent a yellow flint which was high oil and ended up in a backcross to Amanda Palmer this season).

I set out to test the germplasm this summer past. Due to cross pollination concerns with the wide range of DTM in my Amanda Palmer and flint corn populations I didn't bother to plant the Waxy corn until late June/Early July. I knew this would have a major effect on it's productivity. As well it was planted on unamended soil which had not been treated with lime in several years.

The corn germinated quickly and seemed to grow well. It had a a bit of a nitrogen deficiency but continued on quite well regardless. By mid-October some of the corn was drying down and ready for harvest. As expected the harvest was a bit nill due to the late planting and fertility factors, none the less, I was rewarded with plenty of good seed for replanting this coming season.

A few observations about the corns growth that I made. It seemed to me the stalks were a bit fragile and pithy but this could be due once again to lack of nitrogen. The cob formation seems quite squat and the way the husk develops and connects to the handle is a bit odd with the husk itself having almost a vegetable quaility to it with a texture like that of the inside of a cabbage at the base of the cob. I did sample some of the corn in the milk stage and the flavor was similar to that of an SU sweet corn. Once I had dried ears in hand I took some of those that I rejected for seed and fed them out in an animal preference test to the pigs as well as the turkeys. 3 to 1 the animals seemed to prefer the waxy maize to Amanda Palmer, likely even they know they are able to process more of the starch than in a dent line.

This coming year I hope to grow a quarter acre and take a better look at the corn in more ideal conditions. One of the other major issues I experienced with the waxy corn was the preference deer and raccons and squirrels also showed for the corn so it's going to have to be planted somewhere a bit closer to the house and human activity that I am accustomed to planting Amanda Palmer for instance. This season I will also add a sample of colored waxy maize I recieved from my good friend Joseph Lofthouse as well.

Tobacco Lath Display Racks

One thing that I've always been at a loss for at the farmers markets I've done is good display racks for handmade stuff and seeds. Recently I started building a few out of tobacco lath. I've had some luck selling some of these and thought I'd share with my blog readers as some of you might be interested.
These ladder racks are fantastic for displaying handmade washrags exct. Or if you screw some i-hooks into them are great for displaying earrings. 20.00 plus shipping.

Next up are these custom made soap racks, they fold flat with the addition of a bolt and wing nut. These are 15 x 15 inches. I can make them like this or vertical racking as well. 25.00 each plus shipping.

Next up are seed racks we did for Fresh Start Growers supply in louisville KY. We can make these of any size you might want or need and make custom signs for them if needed as well. We also currently have three Face Of The Earth 10 variety seed racks for sale at 225.00 (the seeds alone would normally be 300.00) with your choice of seeds from Face Of The Earth (Amanda Palmer is completely sold out however). We can make you a custom seed rack for your needs. Just shoot as an e-mail or phone call (812-967-2073) for particulars

Uncle Penns Circle W Old Fashioned Lye Soap

Uncle Penns Circle W Lye Soap inventory.

We've been refining our products the past couple of weeks, changing up the recipie a bit and finding what shoes fit us best. It's our goal to provide a useful, healthful, and well rounded American product that is utiliterian in nature (no need to pretend to be Bath and Body supply for us!) and speaks to those folks who like life like us, simple. What we've come up with fits our personality here ...at Bishop's Homegrown: The Southern Indiana source for Eco-Logical produce! well and matches our needs (cleaning and conditioning of the skin) and we believe our customers would agree! In this spirit we have decided on a number of utiliterian soap types including Grit Getter (corn and honey), Polenta (corn and chamomille), Home Brew/Yeah Buddy (Elderberry Wine, Honey, Chamomille, and oats)Workin Man (coffe scrub), Manda (old fashioned lye soap with well water), Mull Digger (pine tar), Castille (Olive Oil and well water), American Castille (Sunflower oil, Elderberry Wine, Honey) to make up the bulk of our year round offerings. Other soaps will be seasonal in nature. All of these soaps use the same formula consisting of coconut oil, lard, sunflower oil, and beeswax (except of course Manda, Castille, and American Castille which are lard, olive oil, and sunflower oil respectively) and all (except "Manda" which is 3%) are 5% superfated for their moisturizing properties

honey to the mixAnother new one we came up with; American Castille. This one is made from Sunflower oil which has much in common with Olive Oil just with the addition of naturally occuring vitamin E. We throw in some homegrown honey and beeswax and superfat to 5% with an Elderberry Wine base.

For those with retail locations we do have soap racks available complete with retail racks for our other future products including kisser fixer. Get with us at bishopshomegrown@gmail.com or 812-967-2073 about getting a rack in your location!

All of our soaps are now 4.00 each. Were still working on some new bulk shipping prices and options. Individual bars are 3.00 each shipped. All soaps are at least 4.5-5.0 ounces.

Send order inquiries to bishopshomegrown@gmail.com or call Alan Bishop 812-967-2073

Back by popular demand; Bishop's Homegrown Farmstand Credit Program

Well, we've heard our customes and listened. No traditional CSA here, seems the farmstand credit works better for our customers and since our customers keep us in business we do what makes 'em happy!

Tell me this isn't an awesome deal? More bang for your buck and more choices! Please pass it on!


Bishop's Homegrown Farm Stand Credit Program! A new local/regional CSA program alternative. Providing more convenience and better value to our community. For 2012 Season.Bishop's Homegrown is a small Eco-Logical and self sustainable farm in the town of Pekin Indiana. We are family owned and a fourth generation farm focused on providing quality produce from yesteryear as well as the new food and flower crops of the future to our valued friends and community members.

We use the strictest possible sustainable guidelines for on farm food production and make no exceptions. We feel that it is of utmost importance that locavores, members of the slow food movement, and community members, know who and from where their food comes from and how it is grown. We produce 90% of our own seed crops as well as 100% of our own organic fertilizer and we never ever opt for chemical options to control pests or disease issues on farm, feeling that growing food “eco-logically” is the only alternative to our failing food system in the United States.

We have searched the world over to bring you the most unique, exciting, and rare food crops from diverse cultures the world over with an emphasis on nutrition and taste! Our doors are always open to our community and customers who we encourage to visit the farm in order to see and know where and how their food was grown. Food security begins when a relationship is formed between the community and its farmers, this essential connection is what allowed civilization to flourish 10,000 years ago.

This year we would like to introduce you to our newest program which we feel you will find immense value in!The Farm Stand Credit Program: The concept of Community Supported Agriculture (AKA. CSA) is generally defined as a mutually beneficial arrangement between a farmer and his customer wherein the customer agrees to share in the risks and rewards of local farming for the benefit of their food production and the farmers well being. The CSA consumers become by proxy shareholders in the farm and it's well being by paying an upfront membership due which covers the production of food in a “Share” system. Generally a traditional CSA allows for the consumer to pay for up front costs of the farmers start up cost with the farmer reciprocating by preparing a predetermined amount of produce every week through the growing season which the shareholders pick up once a week. The farmer generally picks the produce that the customer will receive.This year Bishop's Homegrown is looking to create a viable alternative to the traditional CSA program by creating a farm stand coupon program which will allow customers to still share in helping us get our business going during the part of the season in which seed and implements and other essentials are being purchased while also making the relationship more convenient for the farmer and the shareholders. In this arrangement, instead of the farmer putting together a box of produce weekly he has selected for you you will instead receive credit from our farm which will allow you to visit our farm stand or farm where you can make your selection of produce that we have available including also a selection of seedlings, nursery stock, seeds, compost, poultry and other items from our farm. This gives you the opportunity to decide what you want instead of us deciding what you want.

Every $100 you invest will also get you a 10% discount which means that you will actually get 10% more produce for your food dollars.Our produce will be available to you via Washington County Artisans and Farmers market held at Pekin Park in Pekin Indiana on Saturday Mornings from 8 AM to 12 PM as well as at all subsequent “winter markets” held at the Pierce Polk Vol Fire Dept. in Pekin Indiana (as well as any additional events) For convineince you can also schedule a time to pick up things or peruse the fields here at the farm!. It is important to note that we don't usually deal in custom ordered bulk produce on a normal basis (i.e., a bushel beans, or a bushel of corn) but that when these items are available at market, as they often are, your credit can be used to purchase them as well.

FAQ

How much does it cost? The investment levels start at 50.00. An investment at the 100 dollar or above level will earn you a 10% discount which means that an investment at the $100 level only costs you $90! Thats right; $100 dollars of credit only costs $90! That's essentially the same as getting $10 of produce free just for paying ahead of time! Your credit is good for two years which means that whatever is not spent this season can be carried over to next season! The maximum investment is $500.

Here is the layout:

$50 credit for $50
$100 credit for $90
$200 credit for $180
$300 credit for $270
$400 credit for $360
$500 credit for $450

How will we keep track of your credit? Good old fashioned pen and paper, anytime you make a purchase we will deduct that price from our ledger. You will receive a receipt after each transaction so you too can keep track of the amount of produce purchased.What if I make it to market late and you are out of what I want? Unfortunately this may happen from time to time which is why we are keeping the investment level low to start with. Sometimes we just flat out run out of an item due to popularity. The best bet is to show up to market early, the best of the best goes quickly!

There are occasions when we may not be able to make it to market from time to time due to emergencies or just the need to take a break here and there but we will inform you a few days ahead of time via e-mail (unless it's a last minute emergency) that we will not be at market in the coming week.

What can I purchase with Bishops homegrown credit? Does this offer only include produce? No, any item we bring to market is eligible for purchase via this credit, including seeds, plants, seedlings, poultry (chicks), occasionally rabbits, compost, fishing worms, handcrafts including soap and wood or any other product we have at market or our farm stand. We also occasionally have winter produce available. This also covers poultry butchered here on the farm including a Thanksgivning turkey. This also includes nursery stock and our new Face Of The Earth Seed company seeds!

Payment is due by the February 2012 in order that we know what we have in the bank and can plan accordingly. Payment can be made by check, money order, or well concealed cash. Credit takes effect immediately and rolls over for a two year period.

Make checks or money orders payable to: Debbie Bishop and send to: Alan Bishop 5604 S. State Rd. 60 Pekin IN 47165Also include a note with your full name, address, e-mail address, phone number and a list of people who you will allow to purchase items with your credit if you need to send someone to the farm stand in your place!

If you have any questions feel free to e-mail bishopshomegrown@gmail.com or give me a call at 812-967-2073

Enoch's Garden

A "Tire Garden" proper....

If there is such a thing as a proper tire garden!

Back in the 70's tire gardens were all the rage as the back to land folks made use of what sources they had due to a lack of money, jobs, or desire to be a part of capitalism (or perhaps all of the above). I've seen a ton of articles about tire gardening in old Mother Earth News Magazine that my friend Karen Padgett passed on to me but somehwere way back then the idea got dropped.....

Likely, as with most things, I'm sure some eco trend probably contributed to this as well as yuppy folks deciding they didn't like the looks of the black rubber monsters surrounding their house.....to be honest I had never even considered doing it until this year.

While working some business deals with a neighbor he showed me his tire garden. A few rows here and there spread out throughought his quarter acre garden filled with asparagus, garlic, beans, potatoes, squash and some various other crops. I still wasn't sold on it yet, I mean afterall what of the health and eco-logical consequences of all that rubber and heavy metal....I began my research and learned that the chemicals and heavy metals are actually so tied up in the rubber matrix that they don't present any problems until reduced to tiny particles.....I began hauling tires and compost from the neighbors farm, truck load after truckload!

Lots of hard manual labor latter I had a nice little tire garden on the hill behind the house and a second smaller one next to the drive.

Why tires you might ask?

Let me explain my theories and thoughts.

The tires warm the soil quite a bit earlier in the season than even an ordinary raised bed giving you a couple weeks early planting in spring and late harvest in the fall.

The tires can be used on sections of ground not suited to ordinary cultivation such as steep hilsides, areas of poor soil, and rocky ground opening up new opporotunities for planting that did not exist previously.

No till planting; part of what makes this work and proved its value to me was the no till method of planting. Essentially you are creating a nice habitat to culture useful micro-organisms which maintain fertility as long as you start with a good quality compost and top dress a little over winter and in the spring. In between the tires I leave a nice 2 foot walkway which I cover with straw and in time I will build these row centers up in every other row by applying straw through the growing season and compost in the off season, after a few years of building up humous in this way I can plant the center rows to low impact crops such as strawberries, onions, and garlic nearly doubling the productivity of the given pieces of ground.

Most of the articles I read in Mother Earth advocated cutting off the outside flap of the tires but I decided to keep them as the one on the bottom will help to retain moisture in dry weather.

The only down side of the tires is the high heat of summer which I handle with the straw in between rows by simply piling it high enough to cover the edges of the tires, even then the tires get dry, this of course could be remidied with some drip irrigation on the upper slope of the hill above each row of the tire.

Cover crops could really expand the soil line beneath the tire, Daikon raddish would be a great crop which could help to break up the hard ground underneath the tires and make some water channels as well as pull up nutrients otherwise not available in the tires.

We decided to name the garden "Enoch's Garden" in honor of Enoch and his wife Sarah who are credited on the deed to the land as the original owners of this farm and builders of the barn that I recently renovated. It is of course also an homage to my interest in Gnosticism as well. By next year we hope to have a fence built around the garde to preclude access to the ducks and turkeys. At the moment we are building u strawberry stocks, garlic, multiplying onions, walking onions, and potatoe onions there as well as about 50 varieties of garlic. We will also be overwintering our turnip and kale and collards there for seed production next season.

This past summer we grew a number of crops in the tires including late tomatoes, peppers, onions, lettuce, sweet potatoes, potatoes, summer squash, winter squash and a few others.

Breeding for bio-regions and fighting multi-nationals!

I've been doing a bit of research as of late on many old corn lines and newly developed ones, of course along the way I might finds something incredibly awesome about squash, tomatoes, turnips, watermelons, strawberries, fruit trees, or any number of other things which might derail my chosen subject of "obsession" at the moment. Either way, it's all about how deep down the rabbit hole you choose to go and while scrounging through a particularly fruitful shelf within that rabbit hole I came accross an amazing web-site dealing with the Oscar H. Will seed company. I have discused this company in the past on the blog, particularly their connection to the Native Americans and the varieties of seed which were given to Oscar Will by the natives of North Dakota, but I knew very little of both the man and his son (the future heri to the company) and their personal struggles.

This article gave me some insight:
http://history.nd.gov/exhibits/gardening/ddvegetables1.html

It's nice to know that there were other kindred souls out there struggling not just with producing seed and breeding seed but also with the "human condition" in general, it gave me hope and inspiration for which I have put to good use with my work.

It's really amazing to me to think that Oscar H. Will, James J.H. Gregory and Luther Burbank all three walked this earth and worked specifically within their diverse bio-regions at the same time. Wow, is such geneious to be found now, I know it is, just got to motivate some of these guys to get their stuff out there in the open a little more "efficiently".

Anyhow, as with many plant breeders, it is obvious that I have borrowed many of the genetics in my "Astronomy Domine" line directly from Oscar H. Will (via the Mandan Indians) by way of Nuetta and Sunshine sweet corns, and probably others. As we speak I am looking for a definitive list of varieties which were introduced via his famous seed house.

I really enjoyed reading most of all about his descriptions of varieties as well as his overal description of the work presented in his catalog. The use of "key words" like hardiness, cold tolerance, resistance, almost metaphorical in their meaning in certain ways speaks to me and my work using metaphorical alchemy to describe what I wish to do.

People often ask us, Kim and Myself, why we have such and impetetus on breeding, I have addressed this many times in my writing and have written many unique articles about the why's and hows, but people don't always seem to "get it". They don't understand why we go through the trials and tribulations involved when they have come to the understanding that "so many good varieties already exist", and they are right, there are many amazing heirloom and OP varieties, but what they don't realize is that none of these varieties is "static". Evolution never stops, every time you save seed you are making a selection, even if only subconciously, but more importantly you are adapting that variety to your location.

The real reasons why we persue plant breeding have a lot to do with room for improvement, there are amazing old varieties out there, many tailored to our particular bio-region here in the mid-west/Ohio Valley region but often times they are under productive or fall to the various weather related diseases, sometimes they are incredibly bottlenecked via genetics (IE. Inbred) and most of all they may not fit my tastes, nor the tastes of my customers. Of course we are also dealing with a dynamic and changing environment (wether natural or manmade; global warming or cooling) and of course the conspiracy theorist in me is always preparing for things to get FUBAR, as we all should be. Most of all I love exploring, I love adapting things, being creative, selecting for unique adaptations.

I have in just 6 seasons created lines adapted to incredibly low fertility, high and low PH, cool soil germination, powdery mildew tolerance, drought, flood conditions and more, and all of it relied on both the old OP varieties and modern hybrids as sources of germplasm. Grex/Mix/Landrace/Genepool, they all mean the same thing, but what they ultimately give us is an amazing amount of diversity and an assurance of abundance in the hardes of times, in the worst of conditions, an extended cropping system, advanced disease and environmental tolerances, an assurance that we can, when we need to be, be self sufficient farmers, stewards of seed, earth, and human life. With these seeds we also make a powerful statement to the powers that be in this world, to the Monsantos, the Syngentas, to the elements of government and beyond that seek to control us and domesticate us like "Chattel". We will not ever "Die Born".

We recently made the move to dedicate our lives and our business; Bishop's Homegrown: Face Of The Earth Seed soley to the breeding and introduction of incredibly diverse and yet completely reliable landraces of vegetables, fruits, nursery stock, chickens, guineas, turkeys, and more. A decision I won't regret, if only for the fact that I have come to realize that devoting my life soley to selling produce (which I will continue on a smaller scale, focusing on a CSA and taking extras to market) will not accomplish what we seek in this world in the way of forging connections to the earth and to The Real by way of our varieties and Gnosis with other people. No, I think a traveling seedsman is a fine thing to be, a traveling sustainable extension office is even better, it also at least makes us a moving target for the powers that be. Ultimately we would love to inspire others in other bio-regions to become interested in becoming plant breeders and then seedsman and teachers. To some extent that is a success, some thanks to our doing and some thanks to their own god given instincts. Joseph Lofthouse is one of those fellows, John Grahm another. There are lots of them, if you want to become one I suggest checking out alanbishop.proboards60.com where you can find tons of information and like minds.


One thing I would like to say to the myriad of trust fund, do it yourself type hippies currently trying to enter the world of self sustainability, even if you don't breed, save your seeds. If you aren't saving seeds you are part of the problem, not part of the solution, as you ignorance of the stewardship of life is overlooking the very most important part of the equation. I get tired of having that conversation with certain people all the time, just remember for all of your anti-Monsanto rage, you keep buying seeds and they will become more interested in them and they will "own" them if only to control you and your "exploits". Your not part of the club, but your so close, make the leap.



I was also doing some research in regards to modern field corn breeding. No, not Mosterous breeding like that done by Monsanto and the He Who Walks Behind The Rows Monsanto blog, but true, time tested, safe, traditional plant breeding, both for animal feed as well as for human consumption and came accross an interesting article about a breeder I hadn't heard of before, possibly because his main aim is geared towards farming, but all of us should be breeders. You can find the article here:
http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/features/2005/0205/specht/index.shtml

It's always awesome to see someone bettering their vison of the world through truly self sustainable farming.

"We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of the dreams!"

"All I need is a tall ship and a star to sail her by!"

This year we made an amazing grex/mix/genepool of some terrific OP corns with a UK Tuxpeno base. Tuxpeno gives us the dent/flint characteristics we are looking for while also allowing us the diversity and compatibility to intergress characteristics from the older southern dents. We have also learned that our Turkey flock prefers Tuxpeno over traditional southern dents and the rate of gain is greatly increased. Come fall when we release the "Grand Bazzar" you will find five new "composite/synthetic" corn varieties of amazing diversity, including one which contains genes from Kculi (maize morado). This past weekend we made inroads into the amish communities via these very seed sources with orders for "plot bags" of seed in the pipeline as the Amish too are trying to escape the tenticles of "bio-tech".

In coming years (now that we have increased initial seed stock) we will allow room for expeimentation in crosses between some of the more "elite" lines of parch, flour, and mostly waxy endosperm corns.


Finally, tying all this together I came accross a terrifying Monanto video via God Like Productions, I don't have a link for an inbed so I am simply copying and pasting the link to the actual forum thread with imbedded video. I warn you, some of the posts on the thread and at god like productions in general are "out there", some are BS, some are people making jokes, some are actually informative if you know where to look.

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message567279/pg1

I will live to see the day that bio-tech fails, probably the same day the people wake up to the manipulation of our everyday world by the powers that be.

Smashing the glass box....continued.

A prime example: The Washington County “Farmers and Merchants” fair.

This year we entered several varieties into our county fair, only secondarily glancing at the many “rules” and “standards”, without much thought we proceeded in the false assumption that there was some sort of standard by which varieties were judged, surely it was on more than size or what it publicly “accepted”.

Wrong.

They don’t even taste the produce. They just judge on size and preconceived notions of what a crop “should” look like.

As an example, while I didn’t enter any tomatoes, there were only three real tomato entries. A plate of ripe romas, a plate of unripe romas, and great white tomato.


Guess what got 1’st place? Ripe Romas.

2’nd place you ask? Unripe Romas.

3’d was the great white. What a joke. These were beauties in their own right, fully ripe, beautiful white and globe shaped and they got third place? Not only that, but unripe romas beat them?


I will admit it was amusing to watch the judges, some of which I know and comprise the group of master gardeners who toured the farm a couple years ago, try to figure out how to classify the Face Of The Earth products. Those who had been to the farm had a good understanding of our breeding work, those who hadn’t couldn’t quite figure out the idea that such diverse crops could comprise one “variety”. Apparently they don’t teach the Master Gardeners about breeding or seed saving, none the less making mass crosses, gene pools, grexes, or landraces.

The “Farm Product” category was quite possibly the most exhausting for me to wrap my head around however. You see for years on end one single family, nay, one man, has won every sub-category under “farm product” heading. This heading is comprised of the following: categories:

Peck of shelled corn
Peck of wheat
Peck of oats
Peck of soybeans
3 ears field corn
3 ears pop corn
Largest ear corn
Largest plant corn
Larges plant soybean

He, or a family member, wins every category, every year, for as long as I can possibly remember. Of course he relies on the “latest and greatest” from one of the conglomerated seed companies, GMO monstrosities I am sure. This year I decided to challenge him in the category of 3 ears of corn as well as largest ear of corn, as well as challenge my community to rethink what makes “field corn” in terms of color and type and not “Indian Corn” (a name which I might denote does have some racist connotations associated with it).

Obviously the local farmers all use products from the previous growing season (minus the largest plant categories), but considering I had fed or used for seed all of my crop from last season, I took a trip to my breeding plots in a search for the earliest maturing of my “Amanda Palmer” gene pool. What I found was astounding, it turns out that I have several variations, mostly of Tuxpeno influence, that are already drying down. More amazing is the fact that Tuxpeno tends to be 120 DTM and was originally from a lowland, sub-tropical population, later adapted to the mid Kentucky region and I got a nearly 100% stand with planting on April 1’st (suck that Monsanto! Done without a single gene from an Octopus!).


Anyhow, back to the story at hand, I picked six excellent ears, mostly Tuxpeno germ plasm but also a few ears with obvious genetic influence coming from Bloody Butcher and Reids Yellow Dent. I entered three in my name and three in Kim’s name. Now, bear in mind, that at the time of picking these ears they still aren’t completely dry, but I am figuring that judgment will be made on type, variety, size of cob, size of kernels, number of kernels, earliness, animal preference, digestibility, protein content, or at least some kind of agronomic trait. WRONG.

I noticed the bias immediately when I got to the open class building at the fair, as I entered the corn into the competition, the fellow accepting the entries immediately commented on the corn not being all yellow, as well as the semi-dent/semi-flint state of the Tuxpeno. I went in Naïve I might add, telling him about my breeding projects and how this was this year’s crop, not last years, he obviously didn’t care, his only real comment was “It’s hard to compete with Monsanto and Pioneer.” What followed was “Righteous Indignation” on my behalf; “Not if you have half a brain and can see through the shit we are sold in this nation it’s not.” Blank Stare, crickets, definitely not converting anybody at this table.

None the less, neither I nor Kim won the 3 ears contest, but we did take 1’st and 3’d in largest ear. Small victory. Worth it. And next year I will win.

What amazes me the most about all of this is the amount of culture our county has based around agriculture, a culture which it appears the judges at the county fair don’t understand or embrace. When you go back and you read the literature from the 1700’s and the 1800’s you quickly to begin to realize what a big deal it was to win one of these “blue ribbons” with a new variety, you quickly realize that the fairs weren’t for people to just enter something they grew, but instead you see that the fairs existed as the publics first introduction to newly bred and newly discovered varieties, that the fairs were PR for up and coming breeders, and that winning in a category with a new variety got your name out to the public, took you to the state fair, and if you won there, it was on to possibly the worlds fair or straight into a seed catalog, not now though. Thanks to Disney World and the Green Revolution those days are over and the world and rural culture is worse off for it!

Hell, way back in the day they even had “Corn Shows”, that’s right, entire fairs based on open pollinated corn genetics and breeding. If you won one of those, that was it, you were the man for the year and every seed company within 1,000 miles was trying to get hold of your “award winning seed.”

This brings me to poultry. I thought about entering some turkeys in the open class poultry show, but after taking one look at some of the birds in that building I wouldn’t house mine next to them for any amount of prize money. Here is the kicker, they don’t even judge by a book of standards! Period, there is no way they do. That said, guess what got 1’st, 2’nd, and 3’d place in regards to the “turkey” division? Nicholas Whites, yeah, those broad breasted monstrosities grown out by the thousands in production houses. And why? Because they were the only thing entered. I can’t even begin to explain how terrible they looked, discounting completely the fact that they are what they are and have leg, weight, and heart issues, the also had clipped beaks, and were covered with fecal matter. Discarding the fact that Nicholas whites aren’t even in the “standard”, if I were the people accepting entries into the fair, I would have turned those monstrosities away on the basis of their health and well-being alone, fearing just what “factory farmed” disease they brought with them.

Guess what else they had way back in the day? Yeah, Turkey Shows, once again, if you won you were “the man”. Where do you think the Mammoth or Standard/Wishard bronze got its name from?


Entering these Face Of The Earth genetics was most certainly an experience I won’t soon forget or give up on, as a matter of fact it gave me even more resolve in accomplishing my mission, in smashing that glass box previously mentioned, in that now I have a public platform that with time I think I can transform into something useful. You see, I got to looking at the rules in the “fair book” and noticed a loophole. Whoever wrote that fair book though all the bases were covered in regards to assuring that only round red tomatoes and forty pound red watermelons could be accepted as fair standards, must have overlooked the fact that “Other” as a category can include a lot of variables, even so far as being catered specifically to describing certain FOE genetics, and for me it’s not a matter of “wining”, it’s a matter of catching the public interest in “odd” varieties and more specifically plant breeding, seed saving, and locally adapted landraces. Not only because it will cause others to seek out my work, but because I think it will inspire others to enter some “different” varieties, or to breed their own, and perhaps force the judges to rethink their “standards” and actually test the agronomics and taste of the varieties themselves. Perhaps in 20 or 30 years it might even reinvigorate and reorientate the fair in such a way that it actually represents the type of sustainable agriculture, genetics, stewardship and farming that gave birth to county fairs in the first place.

Using my new found “other” loophole I did find some success, even with only the small handful of varieties I did enter, I managed to win first place on Chromatica Acorn, Red Okra, 1’st and 2’nd on icebox watermelon with some white fleshed variations, 2’nd place on flower arrangement with Saucerful of Secrets Sunflower, 1’st place on “other” squash with a different Chromatica Acorn genotype, and even got a 3’d place on 3 ears corn! This also gave us a bit of “research money” to put back into the breeding projects.

Next year we enter everything! With each passing year perhaps more and more people will decide to enter those things which a few years earlier they would have thought too "odd" or "antique" to entere in the previos 30 or so years, only time will tell but I am willing to give it a go in an attempt to inspire such entries. Our short time and public exposure at the fair has already paid off in spades judging by the number of people who commented on the red corn and on the odly striped watermelons, red okra, and odd colored acorn squash, from that bit of exposure we have already allowed a certain number of people to come into the right headspace to examine the possibilities given to us adventerous gardeners. My former high school agriculture/animal science/soil science/forestry teach and his wife and I have spoken about entering some heritage turkeys next season, where there is competition others will come and perhaps in time the enigmas of seing a Nicholas White turkey with 1'st, 2'nd, and 3'd at our county fair will come to an end!

To be continued……..

Smashing the glass box that is conventional agriculture!

Smashing the glass box that is conventional agriculture!


I didn’t attend college. Period.

That’s not just a statement, it is a declaration.

Now, maybe I didn’t attend college because I was lazy, or perhaps I didn’t attend because college had nothing to sell or tell me that would convince me to give up my life to debtors. I will let you figure that one out.

Over the last six years I have subjected my family, my fiance, and her family to my endless curiosity for all things agronomic with a heavy slant towards ecological solutions and breeding, driving them sometimes up the wall, I am sure, and leaving them all wondering how I would make a living for myself. I have grown, tested, trialed, and tasted more varieties of crops than I care to imagine. F1’s, Open Pollinated types, segregates, populations, synthetics. I have dabbled in soil sciences from all over the world, and taken a gander at the true possibilities that soil and various cropping systems on this southern Indiana farm can offer me by looking through the eye of a prism and following each individual “color” to it’s perspective end.

I have harvested acres of corn by hand and subsequently shelled it for seed until my hands were litterally bloody.

I have dabbled with poultry genetics and selected for meat, body confirmation, color, egg size, color of egg and and more.

I have grown crops completely unadapted to this bio-region in trials and breeding plots which often become the source of distress and disaster in unconventional systems which others would only scoff at.

I have cursed, pulled hair, kicked, screamed, been pissed off and generally aggrevated to the point of chain smoking.

I have aged 10 years in 6.

I have alienated friends and made enemies.

I have subjected myself to myriads of manual labor which will effect my health for seasons to come.

And I regret none of it.

For all of those negatives and from all of those moments of extreme aggrevation I have deduced that the root of all of this is knowledge and I’ve accomplished more than I have failed.

I have made friends.

I have opened eyes and minds.

I have had a hand in the fostering of new kinds of varieties which have never existed before.

I have mastered the “forcing” of many crops using only wood heat and plastic in winter weather.

I have discovered those things which work and those which do not.
I have observed nature in ways that many others have not.

I have created new methods of sustaining and creating soil fertility and have foregone sterile mixes in favor of homemade, compost laced solutions.

I have taught myself about trap crops, vermicomposting, herbal medicine, bio-intensive methodology, soil sciences, seed saving, plant breeding, animal husbandry and so much more.

And most importantly I have put myself through School of a type very few others in recent memory ever have. “Warior Training” is perhaps more apt.

I would call myself an agronomist, even if I am missing the “official” credentialed piece of pulp paper that the world might accept as “proof” of such a claim. I don’t need it.

I have created something out of nothing.


And now it is time to move forward with this “gnosis.”

It’s time to smash the glass box that contains “conventional” agriculture.

The conventional agriculture that keeps us tied up in the slave trade of petrochemical fertilizer, genetically modified traits, and “ORGANIC STANDARDS” as set forth by the USDA.

The time for trial and error are over and the time for proof of concept have arrived. 2011 will be the year that I take the first true look at what I have been working on, taking the amalgamated teachings of the best methods and varieties I have utilized and placing them into a fully functional “eco-logical” garden of Eden.


Breeding work will continue with poultry and perennials and the occasional hybrid vegetable, but the introduction of many new varieties and their implementation into the overal scheme and outlay of the farm and it’s profits will take precedence.


In time I hope to open the eyes and minds of many in our bio-region to the true possibilities available to those of us who can think in terms of .5 - 50 acres instead of 500. 5-100 birds as opposed to 20,000.

I hope to help people recognize their true culture, a culture of agriculture, free of the bindings which hold “conventional” agriculture in place and breaking the bonds placed on us by our government and the mainstream media. To help foster those ideas which draw us together and help us see that the binds of civilization are held together only by our ability to use agriculture, in a sustainable way, to our advantage.

To be continued:

A fantastic Interview with Dr. John Navazio via seeds of change.

Well it snowed here, a lot, and because of that snow I am tending to stay close to the house a bit more and spend some time studying before the season kicks in hard. Later this week I'll be making a couple thousand soil blocks and starting seeds. Some have already been started for the greenhouse project, I've also got some new baby rabbits, my first experience with rabbit kindling and it's going pretty well so far. One of the incubators is full of turkey eggs as well and during all of this I am attempting to kick my bad smoking habbit, so even when it's slow it's still a bit busy.

That being said, while looking around the net for some information regarding a few seed varieties I am searching for I came accross an interesting and very informative interview via Seeds Of Change with plant breeder extrodinaire Dr. John Navazio. Anyone with an interest in seed saving, self sustainable agriculture or particularly plant breeding should check it out, there is a ton of good information in there particularly in regards to selecting from a diverse set of genetics (without any actual cross polinating) for new varieties of food and flower plants. I think after reading this many more of you will veiw yourselves as plant breeders as opposed to seed savers after reading this one.

The interview is here:

http://www.seedsofchange.com/market_growers/field_report_navazio_32.aspx

La Bonne Terre Soil Blocks and Mini-Greenhouses

Today I started some of the seed for the improved greenhouse. As mentioned in previous entries we are making the larger unheated greenhouse into a raised bed in order to get a jump on spring crops and to grow throughout the winter.

I should be planting the greenhouse come the end of Feb. We plan on having quite a garden in this small area including cabbage, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, tomatoes, snow peas, sugar peas, maybe some old French forcing melons and early season watermelons, lettuce and so on. Today we sowed seed into the La Bonne Terre soil blocks which have been previously mentioned here on the blog and I thought I'd share some pics. with you of said soil blocks as well as our "mini-greenhouse" systems. These mini-greenhouses are actually nothing more than dollar store storage translucent storage boxes, but they make a wonderful alternative to the costly and easily sun damaged flats and humidity domes, plus they stack!



Seed sown thus far include:
Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage (Thanks Hayne/CFF)
Yellow Cabbage Collards
Red Mustard (Thanks Ottowa Gardener)
and
Kale Mix (Thanks Lieven and Frank Moreton)

More to come, but I must invest in some more "mini-greenhouses"!

Some pictures from around the farm, thanks to Kim!

"La Bonne Terre" part 2!

Ok, so there are a few concepts here I wanted to expand upon. I will add some photos of my soil block set up as well as seedlings started in them in the coming days.


I was working yesterday and today with some soil of a slightly heavier type clay then what I have used in the past and I should point out that the ratio of sifted compost/worm castings and sand to soil along with lime will very depending on the type of soil you will be using as your base, so everyone will be a bit different.

For example, the soil I sterilized on Friday and used yesterday and today was quite heavy, a lot of organic matter, but quite a bit of clay base as well, in that case I used about 3:1 ration of castings to soil and quite a bit more sand as well, the sand is probably not necesary in the blocks but I use it basically as a way to amend the soil in the fields and loosen it some which it could certainly use.

I also failed to mention that when it is available I also make use of activated charcoal (bio-char/terra pretta concept) in the potting/blocking mix. I charge it using urine and break it into nearly dust sized particles and use it as about 3-5% of the base. As you all well know from my past research into terra pretta and your subsequent research this could most certainly have a great effect on the growth of the plant and longevity of the base NPK levels of the blocks which don't tend to need further fertilization until planting out (at which time I water seedlings in with worm casting tea)


Another concept I wanted to bring tot he forefront is the La Bonne Terre corn and high nitrogen crops fertilizer that I make use of.

I have access to literally a few hundred lbs of cofee grounds sans filters every year and thus it makes a great nitrogen base for corn and other high nitrogen crops. The concept is the same as before mostly, the cofee grounds become the base to which is added worm castings, lime, sand (for bulking and ease of spread) and sifted thermophilic poultry compost and wood ash for P. I should point out that for those with access to cofee grounds that used cofee grounds are almost always the exact same Nitrogen as composted chicken litter at 2.9-3.5 or so, if you keep them moist and don't let them dry down (1.5-2.0 for dry matter) they will actually be higher nitrogen than composted poultry litter and are usually free to the clever taker eager enough to aske a cofee house proprieter if they can have them! Of course to this I also add diatomacious earth. All of these fertilizers are either placed in the bottom of the planting hole for seedlings or seeds and covered with a quarter to half inch of soil (promoting root growth) or in the case of corn they are layed in the trench at a depth of 1-2 inches thick and covered with a quarter to half inch of soil and the seed is layed down on top of this and then covered. This keeps the tender seedlings from being burned by nitrogen in the high nitrogen version but also precludes insects from being attracted to rich organic layers atop the soil in spring to lay seed eating larvee. Oh, I should mention, sometimes I add bat guano too! I guess it's all about the baseline information and this info will give you an idea of where to go! Always soil test first, this will give you the baseline to make an informed decision in regards to your options. I will say, the more nitrogen you use, the more chance you are going to need woodash and calcium carbonate (lime).

Stay tuned, lots to come in the next few weeks, rabbit hutches, hatching turkeys, raising guinea keets, planting the raised bed greenhouse and so much more!

La Bonne Terre

This past week I have been busy harvesting worm castings for this springs crop of soil amendments, soil blocks, and potting soil mixes. It's a painfully slow process, but so worth the work and to boot, even on cold days when the temps are in the teens it's at least fifty five in the wormhouse (so long as the sun is out). On days like today where the outside temp is in the fourties, it just darn near feels like late spring in the wormhouse with temperatures approaching 80 degrees.


I have been vermicomposting for about four years now, trying new means and methods here and there as I go, having started out on the small scale with a couple of totes bought from the dollar store, moving up to 20 of those in what is now the primary turkey shed, and now with 13 4 x 4 x 4 wooden bins located in a 20 x 36 greenhouse called appropriately "The Wyrm".

Vermicomposting is a form of cold composting, a form of composting inherently better for plant fertility since you are not loosing valuable micro-biological life to extreme heat or loosing nutrients as readily via off gassing. There is a trade off in that you can if not carefully choose to feed diseased plants into the bins and the diseases then get passed into the plants that you fertilize with worm castings, however a few things in a worm bin are working on our side other than just the worms. The micro-biological rich humus organisms do a lot to fight off disease, both plant based as well as diseases which can occur in nature and infect humans, couple the work of these microbes with the action of black soldier fly larvae and sow bugs which are capable of digesting and destroying heavy metal particles and disease particles and your good to go!


As you can see above, the Homegrown Worm Harvester talked about on the blog here many times is still being put to good use. Currently I am in the process of harvesting 3 bins of material with a further two ready to go. The material in the bins is close to 95% finished castings, the only issue is that much of this material is still wet which means that once it is run through the harvester it has a tendency to "stick" together in moist balls. There is a solution, but it is, as said above, painfully slow. The first step in harvesting a bin is to create a refuge for the active worms to escape into which can be moved into a new bin, this started on December 1'st 2009. We use bread racks from a convenience store and place new organic material on it moistened down to attract the worm heard into the new material, after a month many of the worms have moved into this material which you can then pick up and move into a new bin. Afterwords I remove the top inch of material into a new bin as well just to pick up some of the worms that were a bit slower than the others, since most of the composting worms work within a couple inces of the top of the compost this method works pretty good, but you will never "rescue" all of them and you'll be surprised at the numbers left in the remaining finished compost.


Since I have not yet found a cheap and convenient continuous flow system the castings on the bottom do have a tendency to get waterlogged so the first thing we have to realize is that there is going to be a "drying time" for the castings. We let them set without water for the entire month of December while the worms are moving into their new bedding, once the worms are moved we begin the harvest. On the first pass through the harvester you only get about 8% of the bulk of the material as harvest able due to the moisture, we usually run one wheelbarrow worth through the harvester three times, pulling off about 15% of the bulk. At this point the other material, which is completely finished but wet, is bulked into empty worm bins where it will set for 1 to 2 weeks while we allow the worms to break it up again without the aid of any water wherein it will be harvested again with a gain from the bulk of 80% pure castings, the remaining material then goes into a new worm bin.

One of the big advantages of the initial harvest is that air is allowed to work it's way into the material that was located in the bottom of the bin and is the most moist. This turns portions of the bin that were a bit anaerobic to material in an aerobic state facilitating the breakdown of the majority of the material that was left undigested as well as accommodating a quicker dry down of the finished material.


Five years ago Kim and I decided no chemical would touch our soil again, creating thermophilic compost on farm and a worm farm went a long way, but there was never enough of this material to take care of all of the crops, for the first year in those five years we will not have to supplement our compost harvest with any bought manures or organic amendments with the exception of course of lime. We currently also have 5 4 x 4 x 4 containers in thermophilic mode of chicken/turkey/ and guinea material as well.

We will use these castings for just about every purpose here on the farm, fertilizer, potting soil, and soil blocking recipes, as follows are the methods we use to produce Bishop's Homegrown "La Bonne Terre" (the good earth) in it's many variations.


La Bonne Terre Soil Blocking Receipt:
We have struggled in searching out a way to create potting and soil blocking mixes completely self sustainably from material here on the farm. It wasn't easy, but we have found something that works well for us.

We use 2 parts worm castings (1 part is roughly four gallons by volume)
2 parts garden loam - Heavily amended clay based soil
1/4 part sand
1/4 cup bat guano
1 cup of lime
1 cup diatomacious Earth

Mixed together well and moistened this holds together as well if not better than any store bought mix or "homemade" mix with blood meal and imported coco-coir (food miles self sustainable guys?) or the non renewable sphagnum. We feel this also makes our plants far more adapted to their future planting than any other method we have ever used, and trust me, I've used all of it. To sterilize the garden loam and prevent fungal disease, weed seeds, and insect damage to plants or seed we use an old wash tub filled with garden soil to which we add 2 five gallon buckets of water and place above a fire on our outside wood pit. We heat it to 160-170 degrees for sterilization purposes. Works wonders and costs nearly nothing minus the lime. This is the same mix we use for potting soil with the exception of adding leaf mold and Forrest dander for water retention as well as gravel at the bottom of the pots for drainage.


La Bonne Terre Soil Amendment/Fertilizer
This is our main fertilizer at this point. In previous years we have added composts directly to the soil along with unprocessed animal manures which have led to many seed and plant pests as well as weed issues. Until this year we have never had enough of any self produced material to create this mix on a large enough scale to feed all the crops including the new orchard crops and raised bed greenhouse crops.

It works like this:
one part castings, 1/8 part bat guano, a cup of lime per five gallons, 1/8 part screened high nitrogen compost (poultry litter), mixed with one cup diatomacious earth per five gallons. The diatomacious earth eliminates seed and root destroying pests. We have found this mix to be perfect for every crop that we grow, some have thought it might be two high or two low nitrogen for some things but we have found the ratios to be about ideal for an already decently balanced soil. We should point out that our soils have been heavily amended over a five year period with probably close to 40 tons of organic matter added if not more, to the entire area of cultivated land. It should also be pointed out that the worm herd gets fed a very diverse diet, mostly composed of high nutrient feed stocks as opposed to bulking material like sawdust and cellulose as is fed to most commercial worm heards, this gives us access to most of the micro nutrients that are missing from most commercial casting mixes as well as access to higher NPK numbers than commercial castings. The last test that was done ran 3-3-3. We also have to realize this isn't a nutrient shot like commercial fertilizers, the nutrients are slow release but they are active and more available to plants than in almost any other type of fertilizer. About a month after planting everything will get side dressed with another dose of La Bonne Terre and occasionally we make a tea to feed to certain plants. I should also point out that last year we placed several bat houses around the farm from which we ethically harvest bat guano for on farm use. This material as well as the castings contain Chitin's, the broken down proteins of the exo skeleton of insects, known to be an insect repellent.

Spring is here! (nearly). Some on farm updates.

The past week I have been spreading compost and working up the ground in preparation for early spring planting, including "double digging" some beds for trial next to the chicken coop. Yesterday was an exceedingly nice day for Southern Indiana at this time of the year, the high was about 77 degrees or so with ground temperature nearing 55 degrees.

I did some hand digging and bed making, did some discing with the tractor, and even got some Egyptian walking onions and red and white "green" onions in the ground along with numerous varieties of peas, some turnips, cabbage seeds, wildflowers and poppies and a nice section of hulless oats, we will probably continue to succession plant these crops for the next couple weeks, I plan on ordering another 10 lbs of hulless oat seeds in the near future. I will probably plant the vast majority of the "cole" crops somewhere around the 20'th of March should the weather co-operate.


We have spread nearly all of the compost from this past year and I am still running short as I still have four our five areas that need some additional organic matter, however I have noticed a marked improvement in soil fertility in these areas from the high amount of OM we have applied over the past three years and the relatively little cultivation that we have done in these areas. Alan Kapuler wrote a great paper once speaking of weeds as being a great source of organic, soil building matter and I think he is really onto something, we have plenty of weeds here and we try to keep them under control with straw mulching and some light cultivation but late into the fall we sort of let them do their own thing and build up their own bio-mass and then we bush hog them and allow them the winter to lie on top of the ground providing food and shelter for micro organisms and earthworms, early in the spring we very lightly plow the ground (about 3-6 inches or so) and reincorporate this new humous into the ground, every year we see a marked improvement in the crumbly and "earthy" smelling soil, it may be that the fields are not even in need of more improvement this year and I wasn't going to worry with it until a neighbor stopped by and offered me the opportunity to clean up a barn in which the manure is composed of already aged horse, goat, and chicken manures! So, I can't pass that up, it's a balanced meal for a garden! Friday I will be a busy man as I see at least ten manure spreader loads coming out of there, more than enough humous material for the remaining fields and a couple of loads good to go for some new compost piles.


This year we will really focus on composting everything, weeds, animal manures, humanure, food and flower plant residue, leaf mold, day old bread and so on and it will be done on the spot to allow for less wheel barrow travel.


Today the temperature plummeted back down to the 30's and 40's but made for a good day in the greenhouse where the temperature was a constant 80 degrees! I seeded about 30 flats of mostly tomatoes and peppers but also basil, Tom Wagners true potato seeds from last year, and a few other things. The brassicas in the greenhouse are up and running as are the early tomatoes for planting in the greenhouse in bags of composted cow manure which I'll probably plant early next week. I've still got just a bit more to get started in the greenhouse, mostly the several varieties of rice we will be trialing this year, Ken Allen's Tetra Baby watermelon, some cotton, eggplants, and Yacon and Oca.

Just for those wondering, the Tim Peters interview is still in the works, Tim gave me a call this morning to let me know that he had completed the interview twice only to have it disappear into the void that is cyberspace and that he needed a break, so I will be interviewing him by phone sometime early next week.

Composting, Starting Seeds, and Preparing for spring!

I know that I haven't been on much in the past couple of days, but the temperatures here have been outstanding! In the 60's! I can't be attached to the computer when the sun is shining in such a beautiful way! Too much to enjoy outside! We have been composting on a huge scale over the past couple of days, 600 loaves of bred, probably close to a hundred lbs of coffee grounds, lots of cow manure and some other materials! Sifting through worm compost as well as thermophilic compost and making soil blocks while cleaning up and sanatizing the greenhouses has taken up much of my time! Pictures to come soon and many more updates my friends!

Speaking Engagements - Spreading the word locally about Bishop's Homegrown, Self Sustainability, Natural Gardening, and Plant Breeding

January 15 and 16 2008 saw me give my first two agriculture related "official" speaking engagements here in my home county in Salem Indiana. The first was given to the local Salem Rotary and to say the least I think I've had better days, part of the problem I believe is that I tried to be a bit to structured in my delivery, using a paper I had written word for word and not being nearly liberal enough to ad lib which is something that always made me more comfortable when I was playing music and I hardly ever went on stage knowing what I was doing. The second engagement was given to the Washington County Master Gardeners association at the Washington County Government Building and I can honestly say I had a blast!

Everyone was so receptive to everything I was talking about and really got into the conversation. I fielded several questions ranging all kinds of topics. We covered my farm, my natural "eco-logical" growing practices, vermiculture, seed saving, plant breeding, the politics of food, greenhouses, enhanced nutrition, a little soil health, plant variety protection, genetics and so much more and I really had a lot of fun. I made a lot of new friends and got to share a couple of my creations with everyone including handing out samples of my "Robert Johnson Mississippi Delta" White Burley tobacco which I think everyone will really enjoy once they grow it

I would really like to do some more of these presentations in the future and would love to find some other places to do them so if you know of any then please e-mail me at bishopshomegrown@gmail.com I would love to do some more speaking in the near future!

Anyhow, since we didn't record the ad-libbed speech and since I haven't posted anything lately due to a bad chest cold and getting things ready for '08 including building a new greenhouse, I though I would post the paper that I used for the first lecture, I also used it as basically a notation of things that I would like to cover at the second lecture as well and definitely used the high points of the paper to illustrate my points. Anyhow, following is the paper pretty much un-edited, the paper will later appear in the 2007 research journal that I will be finishing shortly.


Bishops Homegrown
Hip-Gnosis Seed Development and “Eco-Logical” growing practices
An overview of the importance of self-sustainable, natural growing methods, seed breeding and selection in the 21’st century in lieu of modern food and farm safety dilemmas and small farm independence.
Written by: Alan Reed Bishop

I believe that the future is deeply embedded in our past. Depending upon the sources you choose to accept and read, agrarian agriculture and civilization has and did flourish for anywhere from 7,000 to 4,000 years. Civilizations rose and fell and were supported by a backbone of independent farmers and their selections of seeds and growing practices. Lessons learned and passed down through history by family members and tribal elders, observation of nature was more than a hobby, it was a way of life and the more one observed the more one began to “know” how eco-systems delicately intermingle and balance on one another.

Seeds are direct, living pieces of our agricultural past, each seed holds the germ of the plant selections of generations of peoples settled in one place and selecting a variety to grow in their specific conditions and for their needs over hundreds and sometimes even thousands of seeds, almost all modern open pollinated varieties and even hybrids have some amount of genetic material hearkening back to selection by tribal peoples or early settlers and pioneers.. Seed saving and development is mans way of furthering individual desirable traits and qualities and essentially serves sort of an enhanced form of evolutionary selection pressure.

In days past failing to save seeds and till the earth in preparation of spring meant that there was less food for the civilization and tribal peoples as a whole, a mistake which could in fact be fatal. Until the age of industrialization and the rise of corporate agriculture and synthetic inputs which would supposedly revolutionize the agriculture industry and make life easier all around. Indeed it did make life easier but in time also made folks more reliable on both fossil fuels and poisonous insect and disease controls coincidentally coinciding with the rise in Cancer rates as well as developmental disabilities, taking power from small family farms and putting it in the hands of large corporate conglomerates who would in the future unleash unsafe and highly unstable genetically modified crops and “terminator” genes which could put a stop to seed saving as a whole, damaging the environment and delicate eco-systems, and proving unsafe for human and even animal consumption

Seeds of days gone by do not contain these inherent dangers and neither do the offspring that we breed from two or more parents of open pollinated seeds. Often times these seeds produce in times when modern selections will not do so, and these seeds have done so for thousands of years under conditions less than desirable for growth and perfection, ushering generation after generation from birth, through life and on to death bye way of healthy food and soil.

In days gone by small regional and localized seed companies sold seed developed and suited to particular areas and regions, particularly adapted to the environments where the seed had been sowed, grown, cultivated and harvested over a number of years, often time seeds of merit able value were even shared by families with their favorite seed suppliers, but with the advent of modern commercialized, high input, and environmentally damaging agriculture these seed companies were replaced by large conglomerates only offering gardeners world wide plants that do well on “averages”.

As commercialized agriculture continued to grow so to do the widespread pollution and destruction of the very soil which has supported us along with the air we breathe and the water we drink. Agriculture took very little time to realize the ramifications of putting volatile chemicals directly into the ground, depleting the micro-organisms which feed the soil, destroying the valuable earthworms which Darwin once described as the intestines of the earth, and causing any number of environmental dangers and devastation. People literally forgot how to tend the earth.

Often times I am a target of criticism for my way of small farming, banking seeds, and putting much work into the soil which I tend. The most common comment I hear is “I do things the way my grandfather did.” A comment more often not born out of ignorance for the past, indeed most grandfathers in our community did not use synthetic fertilizers which at the time were either not commercially available or far to expensive to afford, more often in days gone buy composted or aged manure and ash were applied to fields building up the content of organic matter, increasing the micro flora of the soil, and allowing earthworm populations to flourish.

In modern times we have seen the rise of large food markets, fast food, high cholesterol, food poisoning and danger of Genetically Modified genes causing allergies or illness to seep into our food supply. More an more our own food supply is being outsourced and shipped in from other countries or from corporate farms who in fact do little to justify their “organic” labeling because “organic” is now overseen by a government who has done little to no research on “organic” growing practices and has used the “final rule” of organic growing and the paperwork and filing fees involved with “organic” certification to favor corporate agriculture.

In a time when going “green” is becoming trendy, but is none the less of high importance in the minds of many Americans it seems silly to think that we are being green by buying hybrid cars or equipping our house with solar panels while still buying our food at large grocery stores and not locally or even growing much of our own food, instead we are shipping it across country or even worse, across continents and oceans and racking up the food miles and enlarging our carbon foot print. What is truly green? Self sustainability and local food development is my opinion, it’s a small start, but none the less a start.

Where does all of this bring us? How can we start being Locavores?

Bishops Homegrown was started because for too long small family market farms have gone the way of the past, become sub-developed, or been corporate farms. I saw an important community resource, a source of food, friendship, health, and information eroding because my generation refused to pick up the torch of the old ways and carry it forward into the 21’st century. I decided to grow my produce in the most natural way that I could, avoiding “organic” certification and instead relying on educating the public and allowing our farm itself to be open to folks to tour or to come lend a helping hand if they so please, in this way people can indeed have a first hand experience with the person who grows their food, see where their food comes from and how it is produced, but I also wanted to take it a step further.
I wanted to provide agriculture information written by a young layman without a day of college under his belt for young laymen who are interested in resurrecting small farms and a way of life for their family, so I started taking notes and writing research papers to distribute yearly to those who are interested which led me to my next step. Revitalization of localized and regionalized plant breeding inspired by the unique and healthy advantages of colors, sizes, shapes and so on.
It was this that led me to start growing out massive amounts of germ-plasm (seeds) and searching for traits that are desirable for our climate such as diseases resistance, pest resistance, and drought tolerance as well as searching for pigmentation's which inherently contain free amino acids that are not commonly available in commercial agricultural products. For example, did you know that sweet corn comes in more colors than just yellow and white? What if I told you that it comes in every color of the rainbow and can contain high levels of an anti-cancer agent known as anthocyanin? What if I told you that the darker red that a watermelon is the higher the valuable anti-oxidant lycopene is present? Did you know that some carrots are purple, red, yellow, and contain more than just beta carotene? The also can contain lycopene and anthocyanin.

In my few years of independent plant breeding I have developed 8 distinct new lines of open pollinated tomatoes including blacks, purples, whites, greens, yellows, and reds, a new rainbow colored line of sweet corn, a number of sunflowers and tobaccos, winter squash of all shapes sizes and colors, bi-color yellow to red watermelons, rainbow colored high protein field dent and parching corns, A twenty four lettuce blend of seeds collected locally and a number of projects in the works, many which are exclusive to my operation and available only to my customers and community and friends.

I have also done a number of experiments in other fields of agriculture; one of our largest new fields of research at Bishops Homegrown is the raising of red worms for both fishing bait and compost. The red worms do a terrific job of turning produce beyond the point of sell or donation to a food bank into great and fertile compost which we use on the farm, slowly over time we have built up an ability to provide our own farm with nearly 80% of our own fertilizer produced on farm.


We have also been working on a number of lo till to no till experiments as well as inter cropping live mulches and planting of green manure cover crops on our soils to improve their tilth, drainage, and any erosion problems which we have.

Bishop’s Homegrown is striving not only to be a great business but to also be a great resource of healthy and viable food, seeds, and information for our community and indeed the world outside of our region, we send seeds and information to gardeners all over the world and do much work with independent seed breeders the world over to further improve the public domain food crops and their seeds for a world in which the future of food production and safety seems to be bleak.

2007 Season Wrap up

I just recently finished up harvesting the last of the greenhouse tomatoes and getting the old crop residues cleaned out. The spent spaghnum moss gave me some nice organic material to add to the small garden where the new cold frame will go, as well I had thrown in several red worms in each pot which had done a good job of breaking down the spaghnum and other amendments into worm castings, much of which was still fresh and will provide a nice additional boost to the plants in the small garden. The Lost River Market and Deli (our local co-op) really kept me pretty busy with the winter tomato crop, greens, turnips and so forth this winter, I wish I already had up the other greenhouse and cold frame to continue to supply through the winter but next year I plan on plowing right through the cold months of the year to deliver products.

I finally finished up harvesting the worm castings for the '07 season as well and ended up with about fifty, five gallon buckets that I will put to good use come spring, there was still a lot of finished material in the beds but was entirely to wet to harvest so I just added sever inches of new bedding, some food, and a little bit of water, I won't water again until I get ready to do some quick harvesting in spring when I plan on extracting most of the bedding and completely replacing it (unless of course they start to get too dry). I also sold a few lbs of bulk red worms for composting to some good friends of mine, I'm hoping people are starting to catch on to the great services that these little composters provide.

I'm currently taking a day or two to devote to working on my research papers for '07 which I will hopefully be posting soon and to plan for next seasons crops, rotations, fertilizer, plant sales, worm sales and all of those things.

After my little break I will be starting in on finishing the new greenhouse and getting the new cold frame up, it will take a nice chunk of the little bit of the money that I have out of my pocket, but thus that is the way that a new business runs for a few years anyhow and having the two new greenhouses up for next season will bring in a nice bit of cash for the business, farm, and my family. In 2008 I plan on finally having the capability to run for 12 straight months a year un-interrupted with field crops, greens, root crops, and tomatoes and may even start a winter CSA.

People have slowed down asking about the CSA here around the holidays but I believe the interest will pick right back up where it left off in the new year, or at least I hope it does.

Another project that I need to complete before planting time is restoring the old Ford Golden Jubilee tractor as well as the cub caddette (we use it to ferry around plants and supplies on a trailer) that my grandfather owned. In both cases we are looking at a new clutch and complete rebuild, needless to say, money I don't currently have but will find one way or the other.

The seed bank has been gradually growing throughout these winter months, filling up with both commercial seed and traded seed all waiting in que for their turn at open soil, this year indeed will see the most diversity my little market farm has ever known, exspecially in the breeding plots. I've also been putting my mind to doing some good research on organic amendments, plant breeding, natural selection and so forth, knowledge which will definetly come in handy in the fields of '08.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has a Happy New Year!