alliums ameraucana Anthony Bourdain aphids Appleseed Permaculture aquaponics arthritis artichokes Asian Vegetables aussie basil baby chicks baby turnips bearss lime bee keeping beet greens beneficial insects benner tree farm Biochar Bitter Melon blight blooming hill farm boothby blonde cucumber brix broccoli brussels sprouts cabbage cabbage hill farm camp hill farm cancer caraflex celeriac chicken coop chickens children chinese tamale chives cilantro cilantro root coconut cold frames collard greens Compost coriander corn crop rotation cruciferous crucifers cucumber Dan Barber dan kittredge Dave Llewellyn detox dirty dozen dragon fruit Dutch white clover dwarf citrus eggplant Elderberries factory farms farm to table farmer's market farmers markets Fava beans ffarm to table fish oil flea beetle flowers food allergies food combining food miles founding farmers four wind growers Fred Kirschenmann french bulldog G6pd deficiency garlic garlic festival garlic scapes geese Glynwood grass-fed beef Great Outdoors Listening Tour green tomatoes greenhouse growing indoors Hanalei Hemlock Hill Farm heritage turkey heritage USA hudson valley farms hurricane Irene hyssop iced tea infections influenza Insect control isothiocyanates joan gussow jolie lampkin joong kaffir lime kale Kauai kohlrabi korean licorice mint Ladybugs late blight leeks lettuces local food locust tree maine avenue fish market menhaden meyer lemon mycelia mycorrhizal natural fertilizers nectary nightshades No Reservations Nurse cropping nutrient density okra organic Baby food organic christmas tree Organic Pest Control Parsley Paul tappenden peas Permaculture pesticides pesto petite watermelon plant sap pH plymouth barred rock pole beans potatoes preserving food purple basil qunice Radish Greens rainbeau ridge farm raised beds rampicante raw food real food campaign red hook Rockland Farm Alliance ronnybrook farm row covers salt-preserved duck eggs sambucus nigra seed saving seedlings Sheet mulching small space soil analysis soil blocks soil conductivity sorrel Squash Vine Borer star fruit sugar snap peas sustainability sustainable fishing Swiss Chard tabbouleh TEDx Manhattan terracing three sisters tomato sauce tomatoes trellis trovita orange turkana farms Tuttle Farm urban zen volt white clover winter harvest Winter Squash Young Farmers Conference
Indispensable Books and Resources
  • Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set)
    Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set)
    by Dave Jacke, Eric Toensmeier
  • The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses
    The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses
    by Eliot Coleman
  • The Biological Farmer: A Complete Guide to the Sustainable & Profitable Biological System of Farming
    The Biological Farmer: A Complete Guide to the Sustainable & Profitable Biological System of Farming
    by Gary F. Zimmer
  • The Garden Primer: Second Edition
    The Garden Primer: Second Edition
    by Barbara Damrosch
  • 1500 Live LadyBugs - A GOOD BUG! - Lady Bug
    1500 Live LadyBugs - A GOOD BUG! - Lady Bug
    Organic Insect Control
  • Acres U.S.A.
    Acres U.S.A.
    Acres U.S.A.

    The best farming and growing magazine money can buy!

  • Seed Starter Soil Block Maker Makes 4 Medium Blocks
    Seed Starter Soil Block Maker Makes 4 Medium Blocks

    2" Soil Blocker

  • Mini Soil Blocker
    Mini Soil Blocker
  • New York City Farmer & Feast: Harvesting Local Bounty
    New York City Farmer & Feast: Harvesting Local Bounty
    by Emily Brooks
  • What Doctors Eat: Tips, Recipes, and the Ultimate Eating Plan for Lasting Weight Loss and Perfect Health
    What Doctors Eat: Tips, Recipes, and the Ultimate Eating Plan for Lasting Weight Loss and Perfect Health
    by Tasneem Bhatia, Editors of Prevention

 

 

 

 

 

THE DAILY BROADFORK

Short journal entries detailing the nuts and bolts of our ventures in growing food at our micro-farm

Entries by Pam (61)

Sunday
Mar212010

Nutrient Dense Foods: Minerals and Soil Analysis part 2 of 6

Sci-Fi Mineral Harvester Henry Hudson
For those who are fans of science fiction reading, often a space traveler will find themselves stranded on a remote area devoid of what the traveler requires to sustain life. Our traveler will then tunnel to the center of the planet it lands on, harvest the raw minerals in the rock and then construct anything it needs using only these minerals, and a very sophisticated computer, as well as some imagination on the part of the reader.


There is some truth to these stories though. For those of us who remember the periodic table from high school chemistry, the thought of reciting these minerals often leads to immediate nausea and abdominal pain. However, with a little attention to a few of the important minerals, we can increase the yield of our plants as well as the nutritional quality of what we are feeding those who eat our food.

In the last entry on Nutrient Dense Foods, I began the introductory explanation of how most produce, organic or not, is not necessarily high in nutrition as measured by vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes and anti-oxidants. The first place to address in our pursuit of increasing the nutritional content of our food is to look at the growing medium - SOIL.  Soil has become so empty and depleted that the plants that grow from this soil do so but are nutritionally compromised and are then susceptible to disease, short storage lives, and they taste like substandard produce.  This is the second in a six-part series as we embark on learning and incorporating this nutrient density farming technique as we attend a course led by Dan Kittridege of the Real Food Campaign.

Anyone who has been among animals knows that they have an intuitive nature.  Your dog may start getting excited way before you pull up to the driveway or even your street.  We know of a NYC cat named Ichabod who started howling at his owner when a space heater was plugged in and minutes later it blew up.  Animals seem to also know what’s better for them.  A Hudson Valley farmer present at the Nutrient Density Growing conference stated that he once tried feeding his pigs the same type of feed he usually does however he used a GMO (genetically modified) variety and they refused to eat!  The same could be said about bees as well and may indicate one possible reason for colony collapse disorder, the phenomena of disappearing bees in North America.  According to Arden Andersen, soil scientist and physician, bees will preferentially go to flowers with a BRIX measurement of 7 or higher.  BRIX, as discussed in previous posts, is an easy measurement performed with a device called a refractometer, that correlates with nutritional quality and density of the plant or fruit.  For a bee to pollinate a lower BRIX flower, it will expend more energy to make the honey than the bee is receiving from the lower BRIX pollen.  If only we had access to that intuitive nature, than we could stand before the produce section in the supermarket and know what to preferentially select to eat!  In the meantime, we can start with purchasing a refractometer and testing the produce ourselves or to buy from farmers who employ these techniques.

What Next?

A lot of people tell us that they don’t have luck growing bell peppers, or that they are inundated with pests like slugs, or that their attempts at gardening seem to produce much less than the effort given.  Our first advice is to TEST YOUR SOIL.  For example, gardeners who use only compost to enhance their soil will uniformly find it to be deficient in Calcium and Magnesium. Before learning about Nutrient Density Growing, we were and still are, Eliot Coleman disciples.  Compost was everything.  But if you think carefully about this, compost only has what it was made from.  If you are making your own compost and you are using the remains of vegetable plants, grass clippings, and table scraps and coffee grinds, your compost will only have the nutrients that are the breakdown products of these additions.  Calcium is the king or queen of all minerals.  It is absolutely necessary to have enough Calcium to ensure that the plant will have strong cell walls in it’s leaves and roots which will then provide the plant with the defense mechanisms to avoid being overtaken by disease and pests. Calcium stimulates soil microbes and earthworms,  and is the primary base for other molecules to react with.  It is essential for overall plant health.

 

 

 

How to Test Your Soil

There are a variety of labs that you can send you sample to for roughly $25.  We use International Ag Labs and Logan Labs.  For $15, you can use Cornell University Labs though they employ a “strong acid” test rather than a “weak acid” test which we believe to represent a better indication of what’s actually available to the plant.  What we recommend doing if you have multiple raised beds like we do, is to take multiple samples from different beds to get an overall picture of what’s going on.  If there are several different locations you grow on and want to analyze than it makes sense to do them separately.  For example, it makes sense to test soil that grows berries separately from the area where you grow your annual vegetables.  Once you get the results back, you will have an idea of what deficiencies and excesses you have and how to remediate it.  Oftentimes, the labs that test your soil offer an analysis for for $25 and will recommend the amount of minerals that will be necessary to replete your specific size growing area.  Your other option to avoid the extra test cost of “recommendations” after the analysis is to contact the companies that sell the rock salts and minerals, tell them your square footage, and have them make suggestions based on your soil results.  Lancaster Ag, Nutrient Density Supply Company, and North Country Organics are some of the reliable companies you can consult.

The next entry in this series will focus on more specifics on the use of brix measuring, transplanting and direct seeding into your garden bed and using foliar sprays, measuring pH and electrical conductivity in the soil and nutrient drenches through the growing season.  The goal we have, and hope you have as well, is to achieve the maximum biologic vitality in the food you grow which then translates to the maximum biologic vitality of your body.

 

Farmer Pam MD and Charlie, Wheelbarrow Operator

Wednesday
Feb102010

Fish For Fodder: Can Eating Fish or Fish Oil Supplements be Sustainable?

Kevin Ferry pulls some striped bass from the tanks at Cabbage Hill FarmIn the gray winter months, I clamor for some signs of the lush green vegetative growth I was privy to from April to November.  Farm life here, for the most part, is about sitting down and dreaming of more ways in which we can grow more food on our micro-farm, or trying to wrestle with crop rotation when you have such a small space and grow bio-intensively.  Fortunately, some nearby farms were still open to the public for tours during these bleak months so we visited Cabbage Hill Farm in Mt Kisco, New York.  All of their outside beds were resting for the winter months however upon walking into the main greenhouse, life was in full gear.  Cabbage Hill farm is known for their work in Aquaponics - which is the system whereby fish and plants live in a symbiotic recirculating relationship.  Vegetation on the left, fish on the rightThe fish provide nutritious waste which is then funneled out to the roots of plants and vegetables which happily grow from this nitrogen source, and in turn, clean the water that gets funneled back again to the fish tanks.  There is little to fear with PCB, dioxin and mercury fish contamination and in theory it is a sustainable system with the only input being the feed for the fish [though there was lots of electrical needs that could eventually be offset by solar panels].  This system imitates the ancient practice of allowing carp, herbivorous fish, to swim in rice paddies.  The rice benefit from the carp excrement and the roots filter the water for the fish.    At Cabbage Hill Farm 6000-8000 lbs of tilapia, trout and striped bass are sold to markets and local restaurants every year.


It is estimated that for every pound of vegetarian fish food used at Cabbage Hill 1/4 lb of fish and 8-10 lbs of vegetables (bok choy, chard, lettuces, mustard greens and herbs) are produced.


Sustainability

 
More and more, people are becoming aware that they can make sustainable choices in the types of fish they eat and there are several well-known chefs, like Rick Moonen of Vegas’s RM Seafood restaurant, who are trying to spread the word within the culinary industry.  What about fish oil supplements?  Can they be sustainable and what type of information does one need to eat fish sustainably?  This is a difficult question that I’ve been wrestling with especially since eating fish has so many obvious health benefits.  There are countless studies on the health benefits of omega -3 fatty acids which are found in high concentrations in oily fish.  I first began recommending fish oil to patients with cardiovascular disease at least a decade ago but with the plethora of studies continuing to show benefit for a wide range of conditions from cancer cachexia to depression, it has become the supplement du jour.   Since 2006, the US market for omega-3 neutraceuticals has doubled to an estimated $1 billion (and that doesn’t include the fortified foods like infant formulas for example).

Though the word sustainable is thrown around a lot, it’s helpful to really dissect the definition of what it truly means before coming to a reasonable conclusion of whether or not eating fish or consuming fish oil supplements can be sustainable.

According to Wikipedia, that bastion of knowledge that most people turn to on the web, sustainability means “the capacity to endure” which “can be applied to every facet of life on Earth.”  To me, it is most obviously applies to our limited resources but less obvious, it also pertains to the health and well-being of humans.  Pertaining to our discussion here, fish are the limited resource.  There are simple things one can do: refuse to buy and eat any fish that is being overfished i.e. Chilean Seabass, Beluga Sturgeon, Bluefish Tuna. These actions would be for the sustainability of the planet.  Then there are other fish you should avoid which is for the sustainability (health) of humans because of high pollutant and contamination levels (farmed salmon, orange roughy, swordfish and tuna (longline)).

This is relatively easy to grasp and there are numerous resource, pocket and mobile phone guides you can download and keep with you for when you shop or dine out.  I like the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch which will break down the guides according to which area you live in the US.

Now the hard part. Is the use of fish oil an environmentally unsustainable practice?  This recently was discussed in an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, and brought to my attention, the plight of the Menhaden fish, a fish that I had never heard of before this piece.  Menhaden provides one of the largest sources of omega-3 fish oils in the supplement industry.  Other sources include sardines, anchovies and cod which are fished mostly in Peru.

First a lesson in Omega-3 fatty acids which I will make as simple as possible:

Omega-3 fatty acids are an essential fatty acid, which means our bodies do not produce them.  They must be consumed.  The reason why certain fish have high levels of omega 3-fatty acids is that they either consume algae or they eat other fish that have in turn consumed algae.  So predatory fish like tuna or shark aren’t just born with high levels of omega 3 fatty acids, they consume fish that in turn eat smaller fish like Menhaden which, by the way, are a “colossal eater” of algae.  The larger the fish, the large the accumulation of omega3- fatty acids which is the good news, but the bad news is that these same fish are also larger accumulators of toxic pollutants like mercury, PCB’s and dioxins.  The same applies when you buy eggs high in omega-3 fatty acids: they are simply fed omega-3 fatty acids usually in the form of flaxseed but they may also have been fed Menhaden as well.  Be sure to look for the label “vegetarian fed” on your egg cartons.  So what’s Menhaden and why is it important in the ecological scheme of things?

Menhaden, an oily inedible fish, that used to swim in schools as large as 40 miles long on the eastern seaboard, have been fished so drastically over the last 200 years that the impact is being felt in the entire ecologically systems of both the Atlantic ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.  To understand this, one needs to know what Menhaden do:

1. Menhaden are filter feeders.  One Menhaden fish can filter 4-8 gallons of water per minute.  Because they only eat phytoplankton, which are algae, or cellulose from rotting vegetation, (one of the few fish that do this) they essentially clean the water.  What happens if the water is not cleaned?  Though there are other causes of algal blooms which lead to “dead zones,” areas in the water that cannot support any life, Menhaden can dramatically reduce these areas, but only if they are around.  Massive Algal Bloom in a Freshwater Chinese LakeThink of a swamp ecology - thick algae blocks sunlight which decreases oxygen and thus create a inhospitable environment for fish and shellfish.


2. They are the main food source for other marine animals like bluefish, striped bass and fluke.  The Menhaden are the preferred meal for these predators which is substantiated by the fact that it’s the best bait you can use when fishing.  When this is eliminated, populations of these fish are greatly reduced.  These predators then hunt other fish like herring and those populations eventually will decrease.

This Book Rocks! A great read.As you can see, when you take this particularly unknown fish out of the water, the ecosystem begins to fall apart.  A must-read for all those who consume fish and care about the environment is H. Bruce Franklin’s The Most Important Fish In The Sea.  During his extensive research several biologists to environmental advocates emphasized the critical role of Menhaden; “[One] can’t overemphasize the importance of this fish to the ecology of the entire East Coast” or that the Menhaden are “the absolute keystone species for the health of the entire Atlantic ecosystem.”  His book provided me with the inspiration to look into this matter further as it pertains to my patients and my use of prescribing fish oils.



 

What to do with this information?

Eat Vegetable Sources of Omega 3’s

There are many plant sources of omega-3 fatty acids in the form of alpha-linolenic acid.  These include flaxseed and oil, walnuts, purslane and canola oil, hemp seed and hemp milk, chia, and soybean.  The issue here is that the beneficial omega-3’s known as DHA and EPA, which are readily available from fish, are not in these vegetarian sources.  The body must convert them slowly to these forms and a small percentage of the population has the genetic polymorphism that doesn’t enable the critical enzyme delta-6-desaturase to convert alpha-linolenic acid to the long chain DHA and EPA.


Eat fish and not supplements

This is becoming more and more difficult to do give the effects of toxic contaminants that have filled our oceans and rivers.  However, there are choices one can make when eating out or purchasing fish.  The most important being knowing exactly where your fish comes from.  The Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Environmental Defense Fund both provide interactive guides online about good, bad and worse choices. As a frequent consumer of sushi, I especially like their pocket sushi guide where you can download HERE.

Educate yourself on the companies that produce your fish oil.

One of the things you can do to make an impact on the Atlantic ocean’s ecosystem is to vote with your dollar.  Do not support companies that use Menhaden either as their source for fish oil, pet food, food products or fertilizer.  In fact, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the worst choices (purity standards) you can make in purchasing fish oil supplements is from the company that continues to be responsible for the destruction of the Menhaden population: Omega Protein which makes Omega Pure fish oil.  They had contaminant levels well beyond the standards for their survey.  Finally, consider algae-based omega-3 supplementation.  The caveat here is that it provides primarily DHA and not EPA fatty acids.

Read what your dog food is made of: brands like VeRUS, Wellness Core Ocean formula, Earthborn Holistic Ocean or Solid Gold Holistique Blend Fish all use Menhaden fish in their formulas.  There are PLENTY of other safe choices.Butters says: "Boycott Menhaden in your food!  Better yet, become acquainted with Omega Pure’s website and their products.  Menhaden oil is the source of omega 3’s in Smart Balance Buttery Spread and Cindy’s Kitchen “All Natural” salad dressings.  Don’t buy!

 

 

 

Become a Seafood Watch Advocate

By joining, you can increase awareness to the restaurants and markets you shop as well as being able to educate your friends and families about their choices and the effect those choices have on our delicate and fragile ocean ecology.  Join HERE.

Farmer Pam, MD

Saturday
Jan302010

Nutrient Dense Foods: Heal the Soil, Heal Ourselves Part 1 of 6

“While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.” - Thomas Jefferson

 

 

Perhaps you’ve heard the complaints about how produce tastes these days: That it’s dull and lacks the flavor it had back when your grandparents were growing up.  Or perhaps from Europeans who state that the US has such lackluster produce compared to what they have back home.  Or the more obvious one: that the tomato you grow in your backyard is infinitely tastier than the one you buy at the supermarket or even at your organic grocer.  More importantly, from a health perspective, the lack of flavor actually translates to a lack of nutritional quality.  The soil in your backyard where you grow food, typically, has not been over farmed, over fertilized or over-sprayed with fungicides and herbicides.  Most of our conventional farmland has had all of these insults without a method of remineralizing the soil.  This surprisingly applies to some organically grown crops.  Organic simply means that synthetic chemicals are not used or genetically modified crops are not grown, but there is generally very little attention given to nutritionally managing the soil.  The clear issue here is the state of our soil because that is the medium for which all of life, as we know it, is derived from.  If we improve our soil, we improved our food, and from that we improve our health.  What are the steps that we can take to remediate our soil, our food and our bodies?  An understanding of what soil is would be the first step.From the study: Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950-1999

Soil

There is a common thought in alternative agriculture that states that if we were to eliminate our topsoil (the first 6-8” of the ground) then our civilization would fall.  John Jeavons, ecology and food activist, estimates in his book, How To Grow More Vegetables, that worldwide only about 42-84 years worth of topsoil remain. In one handful of soil, you will find the most complex systems on earth containing trillions of organisms.  Some soil scientists speculate that there are more species of organisms in a shovel full of soil than can be found above ground in the entire Amazon rainforest.  And Scientists are beginning to create a genomic catalog of the earth's microbes.  These organisms are comprised of bacteria, nematodes, fungi, algae, protozoa and large macroscopic insects like earthworms and millipedes.  In order for this complex world to function, these organisms need to be present and they rely on minerals for their own function but also to impart that nutrition into the plant that eventually feeds you or feeds livestock that then becomes food for you.  Agriculture relies primarily on “N-P-K” feeding which you may have seen in different ratios on fertilizers.  All that stands for is Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potash (Potassium).  But there are 60-80 nutrients that are often ignored that are needed for an optimally functioning system to be in place.  It’s like taking a general multi-vitamin.  You get some basic nutrients but the body needs a greater and more diverse nutrient pool than what a multi-vitamin can give you.  It’s not something that I advise my patients to rely on.  For example, one multi-vitamin can contain the antioxidant beta-carotene as a pre-source of vitamin A.  What about the rest of the carotenoid family of lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene, gamma and alpha carotenoids?  A multi-vitamin is a reductionistic approach.  Eating whole food feeds you full-spectrum nutrition.  The caveat is that the food you eat hopefully is grown in soil that enables the plant to produce the full-spectrum nutrients it was designed to have.

Improving Our Soil

If you think about which areas in this world are teeming with life, we think of the Nile or Amazon Rivers.  These are bodies of water that flood during certain seasons.  What happens with the flood is that silt is brought up from the river laid down on the earth after the flood and causes the soil to be remineralized regularly.  Life then grows abundantly from that soil.  In our agricultural system, we take and take from the soil and we try to give it a multi-vitamin from time to time but it isn’t enough to produce the healthiest plants.  So we need pesticides to kill off what’s attacking these unhealthy plants and herbicides to kill off the weeds that are choking the plants.  And that makes it on to your dinner plate.  The fact is, that an invasion of insects is a scientific index of unhealthy plants and similarly disease and illness in humans is a scientific index of a human with poor nutrition or a poor immune system.  Ensure the plant has what it needs and that plant will not succumb to disease.  Ensure the human has truly proper nutrition and a well-functioning immune system, they will be less likely to succumb to disease.  Of course, it’s more complex than this when we factor in genetics and environmental exposures but that’s for another blog entry.

A great case in point - we grew San Marzano tomatoes, the famed tomatoes from Southern Italy that are thought to be the best tomato for making sauce according to many chefs and foodies.  The few that survived blight last year were tasty but not mind-blowing.  When you look further into where in Southern Italy these tomatoes are typically grown, they are grown at the base of Mount Vesuvius.  The volcanic soil is one that is rich in minerals and nutrients!  The rich mineralized soil is the key factor in the legendary taste of the San Marzano tomato.

 

 

Growing Nutrient Dense Crops

Dan Kittredge Demonstrating Seed InoculationAfter learning about this “new” science we signed up for a year long course with Dan Kittridge, a farmer and researcher, to bring these techniques to the food that we grow to consume and to the seedlings that we grow and sell to our community.  I say “new” because there is more research that we need to coordinate and gather so that this can eventually become mainstream sustainable agriculture.  The “brix” measurement which I alluded to in December’s blog is a method to quickly ascertain the nutritional quality of a vegetable or fruit.  This brix measurement correlates with a longer shelf life because the fruit has more vitality and it also correlates with it's flavor.
 
To illustrate this point, we took a brix measurement of an apple which was cut at 11AM.  We all know that apples, when cut, turn brown because of an oxidative process that converts phenolic compounds which are beneficial substances found in certain foods, for example, resveratrol in grapes or catechins in green tea. The less phenolic compounds present, the quicker the oxidative process happens converting those phenols to secondary metabolites that take on a brown appearance.  We can then say that a highly nutritious apple, has high phenolic compounds and will take a much longer time to turn brown than the regular run of the mill apple.   This is a photo 3 hours later compared with a freshly sliced section of the apple.  Brix measurement of this apple was measured at 11 and an average apple should be at 10, a good apple should measure at 14 and an excellent apple at 18.  If this apple was just above average in terms of nutrition, what is that apple you’re eating that turns brown in less than 10 minutes?Apple slice on left cut at 11AM, slice on right cut at 2PM

Stay tuned to the next blog in this 6 part series to find out more about soil and what you can do about ensuring the maximum biological vitality in your food through nutrient dense growing techniques.  In the meantime, be sure to visit Dan Kittredge’s website “Real Food Campaign” and the non-profit organization “Remineralize the Earth” to understand more.

Farmer Pam, MD

Friday
Dec042009

The Future of Food and Farming: 2009 Young Farmer's Conference at Stone Barns


“The farmer is the only person in our economy who buys everything retail, sells everything wholesale and pays the freight both ways” - JFK

The Old Rockefeller Dairy Barn is now Stone Barns Ag Center
For the second time, we attended the "Young Farmer’s Conference: Reviving the Culture of Agriculture" (YFC) held at Stone Barns Agricultural Center this year in Pocantico Hills, New York.  This 2 day course was geared towards providing both the young and new farmer with tools and ideas to help ensure their success, to provide a place where these new farmers can network and exchange ideas, to learn the nuts and bolts of sustainable farming, and to discuss the obstacles, especially financial obstacles, of starting and maintaining your own farm.  The New York Times reported earlier this year, on a wave of liberal arts students choosing their summer internships, not at Goldman Sachs, but at farms in search of work (usually unpaid or nominal wages) and also fostering the student's belief in the need for social change.  This seemed to be reflected in the sea of 250 fresh young faces at the sold-out YFC this year.

With only 400,000 farmers in this country providing about 95% of the food we eat, the future of farming is dependant on a new generation of farmers that not only can farm, but are innovative and creative enough to face the new set of challenges that farming faces:  energy, climate and water changes.  We are facing the end of cheap energy, we'll need farming systems that will be resilient with climate change, and we’ll need to learn to grow food with 1/2 the amount of water we now use.
High Tunnels at Stone Barns

We started the first day with a beautiful breakfast provided by our favorite restaurant in the world, Blue Hill, in the context of a modern elegant setting with farmhouse nuances.

Meals in the grand dining room

 

THE CONFERENCE

Charlie's first lecture was an extremely practical one for those farmers who want to grow through the winter season. It was given by the head farmer at Stone Barns, Jack Algiere. It was extremely informative and fun to watch Jack get a bed ready for the next planting. As is usual with farmers, and not in many other business models, their are no "trade secrets" Everyone is always available to help their neighbor or competing farm learn the latest technique or any modality that will increase yield. It is so refreshing to be around people like that. One can only imagine what the day would feel like in other businesses if everyone approached work and their "competition" in this manner.

Jack Algiere demonstrating greenhouse seeding

I veered off to a lecture given by Benneth Phelps and Ethan Roland on Permaculture, which is a sustainable way of farming, gardening and landscaping where it provides design tools for those that grow biodynamically, organically or even conventionally.  Everything is about increasing efficiency; tools and plants have multi-purposes, for example.  Things are planted with the goal of the "least effort for the largest effect."  I like that.  The most common example is the Sunchoke, also known as the Jerusalem Artichoke.  You plant this once and it not only yields a delicious root vegetable to be consumed, but it also grows tall providing ground cover that may act as a barrier to wind or provide shade, and also provides beautiful chocolate-scented flowers.  The beauty here for me is that I’ll never have to replant this; it’s perennial!  So I just got a food source, shade, wind protection and cut flowers in one plant!  We planted these out last October.

The next lecture we went to was “Vegetables with Taste: Growing and Marketing Vegetables with a Culinary Focus” given by Tom Wilcox and Caroline Pam from The Kitchen Garden Farm in Massachusetts.  They are a lovely couple with a food background (Caroline was a food critic and they both have been schooled in cooking) who now farm full time. It was very sobering to hear their financial data and how hard they work just to maintain a salary that is competitive to that they pay their workers. They gave some great insight into the personal relationships growers have with their clients and how important it is for business and also how rewarding it makes their day.

The next lecture we went to was given by Connor Stedman from Gaia University on Treecrops and Agroforestry.  This was a subset and extension of the Permaculture lecture and we came away with ideas for nut and fruit trees and bushes.  Next steps for HMG are currants, gooseberries, hardy kiwi and Paw Paw (a taste of the tropics in the Northeast!), American Persimmons, and hazelnut trees.


Photo from the Glynwood Center
On Friday we were inundated with extremely practical information.  The first was on soil nutrition given by Dave Llewellyn at the Glynwood Center in Cold Spring, New York.  The Glynwood Center is an amazing non-profit center that promotes environmentally sustainable agriculture and the preservation of farmland in the Northeast.  Dave spoke about nutrient density in vegetables citing a shocking example of the state of the present day quality of our food.  In order to get the equivalent nutrients of 1 apple grown in the 1930’s, we’d have to eat 6 of our present day apples!  Vegetables and fruits can be measured by a simple tool called the refractometer which tells you the “brix” content of the plant.  RefractometerWe think of brix typically in the wine, orange juice and maple syrup industries.  It's a measurement of sugar content but it also translates to a higher nutritional quantity of the plant.    For me, this was an "aha" moment.  I've been looking at various studies either supporting or refuting the idea that organic food is more nutritious.  Recently, a review came out stating that organic foods are no more nutritious than those conventionally grown. The reason why we may be seeing these discrepancies is that organic doesn't necessarily mean higher nutritional quality as defined by brix measurements!  Sure, I firmly believe that we should eat food that is free of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides and still believe that organic certified foods are important; those health effects may not be measured in terms of nutrition but unmeasurable by the potential effects years or decades later.  But, this is the reason why organic certification is not the be all and end all of what it means to be the perfect food.  It's ultimately much more important to know specifically where your food comes from rather than looking for a label at a supermarket.

 

This was reinforced when we had our lunch time Q and A with Dan Barber, chef of Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Blue Hill NYC, and winner of the 2009 James Beard award for Outstanding Chef.  (See Inside Dan Barber's Kitchen)  This guy was such a charismatic, witty, and energetic speaker that I had a fleeting thought that his head might explode while talking.  He told us about a great story of some Mokum carrots he served as one of the entrees at the Blue Hill tasting menu. A cantankerouDan Barber, Food Gods customer called him up to complain about how embarrassed she was for her guests who were at the table because they were served some measly carrots at a meal that cost $90-125 per person excluding beverages.  Mind you, the carrots were pulled fresh from the farm, marinated for 4 hours in a carrot stock and 5 other things I couldn’t imagine doing to some carrots to produce an intense carrot experience.  The customer didn't feel she was getting what she paid for because carrots, in her mind, are a cheap produce item.  In any case, we got around to the sobering stats of running a restaurant, the reality of buying locally, organically and realizing that the cost of food, even at Blue Hill, can even drive the buyers there to sometimes seek the lowest price.  Mr. Barber had once tested the brix content of an organic carrot the restaurant received from California and that reading was a big fat ZERO!.  Normally a good reading would be 8 or higher.  A great example of how organic doesn’t mean everything.

Padraic MacLeish. Photo from www.mnn.comOur last lecture of the day was on Small Scale Beekeeping by Padraic MacLeish, beekeeper at Stone Barns.  We learned the biology of bees and the logistics of keeping bees on a small scale in New York including obtaining hive materials, equipment, approaching bees, and getting sweet honey.  BTW, if you want bees for next year, start now!  You need to start the process of buying and getting their hives set up now so that you will be ready by spring.  The Pfeiffer Center in Chestnut Ridge, New York will be giving a biodynamically-oriented intro course February 2010. 

 

 

 

CLOSING REMARKS

Closing remarks were given by Fred Kirschenmann, a leader of the organic/sustainable food movement, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, and manager of a 3500 acre organic farm in North Dakota and president of the board at Stone Barns.  This extremely uplifting speech was important especially to those young and aspiring farmers who understand the reality of running their own farm - low pay, long hours and inclement weather.  He envisions that agriculture will change over to smaller operations with more knowledgeable farmers who can manage and intensively restore the biological health of the soil.   More importantly, the new young farmers will fundamentally redesign a system where everything is bred for high yield (maximum production and short term return) to a resilient system that is about nutritional quality, not just yield.  He gave us 6 suggestions for the young farmers in the room.

          1. To recognize that challenges are always opportunities.

          2. To accumulate a new capital other than money.  A human capital can provide us with       imagination, creatively and innovation.  This will be critical to solving the problems.  He referred to an essay by ecologist Richard Heinberg called “The 50 Million Farmers” who predicts that by the year 2040, there will be 50 million people growing food in their own gardens or in community gardens.  This is the type of human capital that we need.

          3. Creation of a caring economy: referred to a book by Riane Eisler: "The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics" whereby we create a system simply to help each other thrive and survive rather than the competitive one man/woman to him/herself kind of ethic that has predominated our economy.  He gave the example of the company Shepherd’s Grain  where grain farmers from Washington, Oregon and Idaho developed a relationship with local millers and bakers and together determined the price based on growing conditions and production costs.  It’s not based on the usual lower marketplace price of grain.  This business model is working.  Sales have exploded and this is a model we should look at.


          4. Reduction of transaction costs.  Travelling 250 miles to a Bronx farmer's market in a pick up truck won’t be sustainable when oil eventually approaches $300/barrel.  Places like Basis Foods in New York are committed to helping small and mid-sized farmers find a place for their products in restaurants and markets all while reducing transportation costs .  For the consumer, all their food will be entirely traceable.


           5. Create and pay attention to new sustainable models.  One example is Will Allen who grows tilapia and perch in addition to veggies in his 3 acre urban farm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  This is a closed cycle that feeds 10,000 people on 3 acres!

           6. Engage governmental agencies.  Yeah, we're really disappointed in some of Obama's appointments but there is hope in the new young blood in the USDA forming the resistance and trying to develop new policies.

This conference was such an inspiration for us that we plan to make big changes at our micro-farm.  Bees next year, serious scientific inquiry into the real nutritional quality of the food we produce, more efficient techniques will be in place, permaculture design applied to the remaining parts of the property that have not been tapped into and maybe trying out some Aquaponics.  That’s right - growing our own fish source!  We’ll be sure to be at the conference next year and in the meantime, I hope everyone who reads this will continue to vote with their dollars in making the right food choices to both support their own health and their local farmers.

Sunday
Nov152009

Weekly Musings: Kohlrabi - What the Hell is That?

Kids call this the flying saucer vegetableOne of the many things I’ve learned from having a micro-farm is being forced to explore my boundaries. I have a constant curiosity about things and a love of learning.  I guess that’s how I went from English Major in college to advertising post college, to medical school, to holistic/integrative medicine, to farmer.  This has applied to, among other things, food.  While I’m not quite as adventurous as insect-organ-rodent eating Andrew Zimmern of Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods, I could be persuaded to, at least, try many cultural delicacies.  But one does not have to venture far from the beaten path to explore the vast varieties of vegetables available either at farmer’s markets or to be grown at home.  Kohlrabi is one of the vegetables I’ve been introduced to in the last 2 years that I have really come to love.  Prior to this, I had never heard of or eaten Kohlrabi and was skeptical of this sci-fi looking bulb with it’s big leafy protrusions.  But as I experimented with it, it has now been added to my repertoire of cancer-fighting cruciferous vegetables in addition to being a good source of fiber, potassium, calcium and vitamins C and A.

In my practice, I see a fair amount of people with different cancers in different stages and one of the things that they are most interested in when seeking unconventional therapies or ways in which they might complement their existing allopathic treatments, is what they should eat to support their bodies.  One of the family of vegetables that I always stress, based on current research, are the family of cruciferous vegetables also known as brassicas.  The phytochemicals most notably important are indole-3-carbinol and isothiocyanates which, on a cellular level, may lead to the arrest and death of cancer cells.  Patients are always surprised to learn about the variety of brassicas available, aside from the usual broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.  Well, we can now add kohlrabi to the list.  It’s important when modifying one’s diet to rotate foods if not for anything other than avoiding sheer boredom.  When you present variety and surprise, people are less apt to revert to their usual poor eating choices.

Kohlrabi: The Basics


Kohlrabi are European in origin.  The name translates to “cabbage-turnip” in German but found its way to Northern Indian in the late 17th century.  But to this day, Kohlrabi is still an unknown to most people in the US.  That was proven when I went to Chelsea Market -- the ultimate foodie’s shopping paradise in the trendy Meatpacking district of Manhattan and home to the Food TV Network.  When I’m planning on pairing a dinner I rely on two people to turn to for exquisite pairings: my local connect Joe Printz at Grape D’Vine in Tappan NY and Chelsea Wine Vault at Chelsea Market.  So I asked the staff at Chelsea Wine Vault for a pairing with my kohlrabi cakes.  “What’s kohlrabi?” he asked.  Puzzled, he referred me to an even more experienced pairer who pairs wine for the Food Network TV, and who also wasn’t sure what kohlrabi was. After a description of the taste of the veggie - a cross between broccoli stems and turnips, he made a pairing that was right on.  

Kohlrabi is a pale green bulb (or purple) that forms from the stem just above the soil and is best eaten small (2-3” in diameter) in warm weather since it can become woody in texture if grown any larger.  But cooler weather allows the stem to get larger without the change in consistency.  Usually, it is grated raw for salads and coleslaw or chopped and used as a component in stir-fry dishes.  The leaves, if young, can be used in the same way as kale.  I like to find other ways to prepare kohlrabi and my favorite one is kohlrabi cakes with minted yogurt sauce (see below)


Growing/Harvest/Storage Tips:

This easy to grow vegetable can withstand shady areas so I often tuck it in places along the fence where nothing else will flourish.  Though this can be direct seeded, I like to start indoors in soil blocks 4-5 weeks before transplanting out both in the cool spring weather and again in the late summer for a fall harvest.  Quick to mature (50-65 days), the varieties I’ve grown most successfully is “Kossack” and I’m experimenting with the purple variety “Kohlibri“.  If grown in warmer weather, be sure to harvest when small (2-2.5” diameter).  The bulb will be more forgiving in the fall when you can allow it to get as large as 4” and still retain the sweet and crunchy consistency.  Bulbs can be kept in the refrigerator for several weeks but only with their leaf stems removed.

 

Young fall purple kohlrabi
Recipe: Kohlrabi Cakes with Minted Yogurt Sauce

4 Kohlrabi bulbs (approximately 1.5 lbs)
1/2 cup chopped scallions
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbs bread crumbs
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1/2 tsp dried red pepper flakes
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup of oil for frying (I use grapeseed or rice bran oil)
1 1/2 cups of minted yogurt sauce

Peel (for large bulbs) and shred kohlrabi and set aside in colander to drain for 30 minutes.  Squeeze out any excess moisture
Combine kohlrabi with scallions, eggs, bread crumbs, ginger and red pepper flakes, S &P.  Blend well in a mixing bowl.
Heat oil in large skillet and drop mixture to preferred size  until golden, 3-5 minutes per side.  Drain on paper towels.  Serve with yogurt sauce.

Minted Yogurt Sauce:

Combine 1 1/2 cups of greek yogurt with 1/4 cup chopped mint, 1 Tbs lemon juice and 1/2 tsp of salt and black pepper to taste..  Refrigerate until ready to use.


Adapted from The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso & Shiela Lukins

 

Farmer Pam, MD

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