A Short Overviw of our "Eco-Logical" Methods

Bishop’s Homegrown

“Eco-Logical” Produce, Plants, Bait and More!

“Healthy Eco-Systems And Soil Make Healthy Plants and Healthy People, It’s Only Logical.”

Here are a few facts about the products we offer here at Bishop’s Homegrown and a few things to keep in mind elsewhere.

- Up to 50% of our fertilizer is created here on the farm through the use of Vermicomposting systems (worm composting), leaf molds and cover crops, these systems help us re-use and recycle produce and other natural products that would otherwise go to waste in an ordinary farming system, the remaining 50% of fertilizer comes from local cow manure which is steroid free and an occasional bit of composted chicken manure.

- We use “Bio-Logical” methods of pest and disease control first and foremost including beneficial insects, crop rotations, manual labor, and organic plant sprays and foliar feedings.

- 80% of our produce is exclusive to our farm in this region. We have our own plant breeding program concerned highly with beauty, taste, and nutrition that you will not find elsewhere, often with pigmentations higher in free amino acids than other produce vendors can provide we also provide documentation of our experiments and farm practices in our annually published research Journal each and every year.

- We also provide you with your favorite standby, old time, heirloom produce that you remember eating growing up as well as searching the world over for new varieties to bring to your Southern Indiana table.

- Our food miles: We are convinently located in Pekin Indiana and commonly distribute our produce to our customers within a 30-50 mile radius which provides for the freshest, petrol efficient produce possible.

- We absolutely never spray synthetic chemical pesticides or herbicides, instead relying on time tested traditional practices, natural selection, and beneficial insects to do the work for us

Information on our local CSA program

Bishop’s Homegrown

5604 S. State Rd. 60

Pekin, IN 47165

812-967-2073

A new Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) opportunity for those concerned about the health and quality of in season local produce!

Bishop’s Homegrown is proud to announce a new opportunity for those folks interested in healthy, naturally grown and ecologically sound produce that is local and in season. In 2008 we will be taking subscriptions to our new CSA program which can provide a family of three with a great selection of in season, fresh from the farm, and naturally grown produce of the highest quality!

First a quick explanation of what a CSA is:

A relationship of mutual support and commitment between local farmers and community members who pay the farmer an annual membership fee to cover the production costs of the farm. In turn, members receive a weekly share of the harvest during the local growing season.

Our CSA design:

Bishop’s Homegrown, located in Washington County Indiana, will offer our CSA program from May 1 2008 - October 2008 (22 weeks, dependent of first frost date). Each week our CSA customers will receive the equivalent of a half bushel of mixed produce such as lettuce, tomatoes, sweet corn, peppers, eggplant, cabbage, greens, ext. for a fraction of the price that would normally be payed for produce. Each item that is the subscriber’s box will be produced as naturally as possible and will be in season for that time of year, with enough of each item to feed at least a family of three. CSA members will find they can conveniently pick up their boxes each week at either our farm here in Pekin Indiana or at The Washington County Farmers Market at the fairgrounds in Salem Indiana. Members are also welcome at any time to make suggestions on varieties of produce that they would like to see grown and are welcome to visit our farm at any time during the growing season and we love to have visitors, members interested in our farm practices are also welcome to come by and share in the work we do here on the farm at any time during the season. This gives you the opportunity to really see and experience how the food that you buy is grown, the land is cared for, and in turn how much fresher and eco-logically sound the food your are buying is, this is also an excellent opportunity to support a growing family farm which strives to provide the best possible, healthy, chemical free (we don‘t use any sprays or chemicals at all) naturally grown produce to our local community.

As a member you will be notified by e-mail of what is available for your CSA box from week to week and will also have access to exclusive varieties not available at our farm stands!

As with any farm we are sometimes subject to certain crop failures so there are times when we may be short on a particular crop, just the same as if you were to grow a garden during a drought or flood period, so some items may not always be available as is the way of nature. However your contribution to our CSA helps take some of the financial burden and worry of our shoulders and allows us to focus on quality, sustainable produce production in a time when the norm at the local stores is high priced, low quality mass produced and nutritionally deficient produce.

Supposing an average family of three spends $20.00 a week on produce at a farmers market or local grocery your bill for 22 weeks would be $440.00, so you can see below how we have cut the costs to you for higher quality, locally grown, and chemically free produce.

As such our pricing is designed as follows:

A share is about a half bushel a week for 22 weeks. (May - Oct.) Of various mixed produce and herbs in season, naturally grown (chemical free) and locally raised. Cut flowers are also available throughout the summer for inclusion in your box upon request.

One Share- 250.00 or about 11.50 a week

Half shares are also available as half of a full share a week or a whole share every two weeks for 125.00

If you are interested in our new CSA program please feel free to contact us:

Via Phone:

1-812-967-2073

Or E-mail:

bishopshomegrown@gmail.com

If you would like to know more about our farm, feel free to check us out at the following locations:

Our gardening/market farming message board:

http://alanbishop.proboards60.com

Or our farm blog where you can keep up to date on what‘s growing on at the farm and find our latest links to photos, news, and our latest research papers:

http://homegrowngoodness.blogspot.com/

Bishops Homegrown produces a wide variety of produce in all colors shapes and sizes as well as flowers and herbs, if you are interested in something in particular or would like to make a suggestion regarding a variety or type you would like us to grow then please feel free to send you suggestions to us and we would love to accomidate. We currently maintain a living seed bank on the farm that houses close to 4, 500 accessions of rare heirloom, open pollinated, or de-hybridized fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers and more and are always looking to add to our gene pool for our customers satisfaction. Feel free to e-mail us with any suggestions or comments that you may have.

Howdy again....

Things have been picking up again here on our little farm in Pekin Indiana known as Bishop's Homegrown, we've been keeping ourselves busy with a bit of barn restoration as well as some tractor restoration, trying to bring our old Ford Golden Jubilee back into a usable state, we have decided once we get the money that we are going to do a complete restoration on this family heirloom (three generations, one tractor, one farm) as well we are restoring an old cub caddette lawn tractor for use with some old wheel horse and David Bradley implements, mostly for use in doing raised bed cultivation. Were also preparing to get our new greenhouse up and running and looking at buying a couple of good sized cold frames so that we can more efficiently run our business 12 months a year.

As always plant breeding and research papers are at the top of the agenda, we are already making our list of crosses and segregates for next year and we've got some really exciting things on the way, not the least of which is possibly the most genetically diverse sweet corn ever bred, so far we have bred 24 specific inbred heirloom/Open Pollinated and modern SE Hybrids into our Astronomy Domine breeding material and we will have more than enough to market next year....so say goodbye to bi-color, boring sweet corn and hello to multi-color, large eared, old timey Astronomy Domine!

Our plant breeding endeavours turned out rather nicely this year and we have distributed a number of seeds all over the world on our message board at http://alanbishop.proboards60.com/ as well as through http://www.tomatoland.net/ and with he help of http://www.wintersown.org/ a trend which we hope to watch grow over the next few years as home gardeners and market farmers become more open minded and become more interested in doing natural selection from our F1-F4 genetic material.

Currently we have some very nice tomatoes coming on in our greenhouse and not the rubbery, hydroponic supermarket kind, our tomato have been getting a lot of good reviews locally and we are proud to say that the new lost river market and deli in Paoli Indiana http://www.lostrivercoop.com/ as well as our local grocer's are now carrying our premium "Eco-Logically" grown produce! We also have a great selection of leaf lettuce, turnips, raddishes, kale, mustard, and mesclun available which we have been selling on farm and at the co-op as well. Be sure to check out the co-op if you live locally, they have a really nice selection of local and naturally grow/Eco-logically grown produce, meats, dairy and hygiene products.

Keep your eye peeled the next few weeks for our new 2007 research papers and new updates on the farm!

Check out the article in the Salem Leader about the new co-op (provided you live locally).

-Alan