Airlie's Corn Maze

As we head into September, the Local Food Project crew is excited to open Airlie's Organic Corn Maze, located just two hundred yards from the main Airlie House, and right in the LFP garden.

The one acre maze of towering heirloom field corn provides an amazing platform for a variety of group challenges. Four flag stations within the maze each await discovery by competing participants. A hidden gathering place in the middle of the maze is a perfect location for appetizers and local wines. Groups can incorporate their own riddles and challenges into the maze for a customized experience, and enjoy a harvest dinner right next to the maze with views of the organic garden and Piedmont foothills. The Organic Corn Maze is open September through early November, and it's a great way for guests at Airlie to have some fun while learning about sustainable agriculture. Our plan is to rotate the corn maze plot each year, and build in educational experience components. Come check it out!

New Blog Site for the Local Food Project at Airlie

Hello all, in the next couple weeks, we will be transferring Sixteen Foot Ladder, the current LFP blog, over to the Localfoodproject.blogspot.com, this our new home for a refreshed blog. Just in time for harvest season!

June Update

Hello faithful readers! Ben here. It's hard to believe we're already half way through June--the month is passing by like an afternoon shower!

The past month has been full of activity here at the Local Food Project. So full, in fact, that we haven't kept up with this blog as much as we would like. Since so much has happened, let's lean on this writer's favorite crutch: bullet points. Here's a smattering of what we've been up to at the LFP.

• We attended another great CRAFT program event at The Farm at Sunnyside. A great turnout and a lot of great food! See this post for more about the CRAFT program.
• Pablo contributed an article to Flavor Magazine, describing the CRAFT program its value to aspiring farmers.
• We planted 30 beds (2700 sq ft) of squash, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce mix, and beets...in one day!

• Filled the hoop house with tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.
• Completed various infrastructure projects such as reinforcing our deer fence and cutting new row cover.
• Humanely trapped a family of groundhogs whose home was not even ten feet from our squash beds. We dropped them off far away from the garden. I believe a groundhog is born with the right to look for his shadow, as long as that shadow is not cast on our crops.
• Hosted several tours and a team building dinner with guests at the Airlie Center.
• Last, but certainly not least, we acquired two interns to (do all of the) work for us during the next 6-8 weeks. Welcome Shaina and Yuka!

Now you're up to speed. We have another CRAFT event this week and plants growing quickly, so we'll have more to report soon.

Programs for Emerging Growers

The last week has featured two exciting programs for aspiring local food producers here in the DC area. First, on April 11, we enjoyed a full evening program titled- Project Launch- here at Airlie Center, which brought together emerging food producers for a spring networking session and evaluative exercises designed to help new food projects get off the ground. Speakers included Harvey Ussery of The Modern Homestead in Hume, VA, Jesse Straight of Pastured Poultry in Warrenton, VA, and Stacey Carlberg of the Farm at Sunnyside, Little Washington, VA. Modeled after the Exploring the Small Farm Dream course, this one-time event was designed as a refresher as the busy spring season gets underway.

On Wednesday, April 14, we were thrilled to participate as a cofounder of the CRAFT program (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) here in the DC Metro Area. Featuring monthly tours of different farms and potlucks, the CRAFT program will facilitate new farmer training and networking. Chesapeake CRAFT is modeled after other CRAFT programs in the United States, and is a cooperative, farmer-based effort.

Away We Go

Hello Readers! Spring is in full swing at the LFP (with a little summer weather mixed in), which means it's time to get to work. For Pablo, that means it's time to hire a new drone to do the work for him. Ladies and gentlemen, I am that drone.



My name is Ben Hanna and I'll be the Local Food Project Coordinator for the 2010 season. Of course, I'm treated better than a drone and I'm excited for working with Pablo and other Airlie Center staff in the coming months.

During the past week I've been familiarizing myself with the LFP's 3 acres and trying to soak up as much of Pablo's wisdom as possible. We've been working in the hoophouse for the most part while the ground outside warms up a bit. We sowed cress, cilantro, and phak choi last week, with potatoes and lettuce going in this week. I'll check back in soon!

Spring Garlic Greens

March is the fastest month of the year here at the LFP garden! Not in terms of harvest, or even physical activity, but the rate of change. To recap: the month started with piles of snow and broken tree limbs everyhwere, as the DC area slowly recovered from the mess of 'snowmaggedon', 'snowcalypse', and whatever over-the-top phrase used to describe the over-the-top winter storms we endured here in early 2010.

And just a few weeks later, the frogs are out hopping, trees are budding rapidly, the grass is green, and farmers already feel behind!

The sound of geese heading North at pre-dawn makes for restless starts to mornings. We farmers and gardeners twist and turn with all the things we still need to get done in the mythical 'off-season', that seeming infinite expanse of winter to do all possible manner of projects, which instead got stuffed with holidays, snow, and sleep.

How is it that three weeks can take us from a blanketed winterland to the humid, dark green rush of flora and fauna energy?

Add to this surge in biological activity a surge in the length of our daytime, thanks to Daylight Savings. Days seem suddenly hours longer, like we've been propelled into a new world where we have an extra half day with which to start seeds, clear old stalks from the garden and repair fence lines.

March brings a frantic close to winter, and a rapid start to spring. It's all evident in the Garlic, which takes the early lead as it shoots through the winter straw mulch.

2010 Local Food Project Conference a Success!

Eric, Anne, Mary-Howell and Klaas answer questions from the audience....

 

 

Eric Nordell provides an overview of Beech Grove farm

Klaas and Mary-Howell Martens emphasize the importance of 'thinking upstream' in organic agriculture

Klaas tells the story of Lakeview's transition to organic agriculture

Guest enjoy the local food lunch!

The Martens family takes a break from presenting to refuel before the afternoon sessions...

The Nordells and the Martens rocked the house at Airlie Center with in-depth presentations on innovative approaches to organic agriculture, at this year's Local Food Project conference, last Wednesday, January 13.

Guests not only enjoyed five hours of intensive seminars with the Nordells & Martens, but a wonderful lunch featuring local foods, prepared by Chef Jeff and the Airlie Center kichen staff.

The premise of the annual Local Food Project is that quality, true quality, is at the heart of the local food movement in the United States. The quality that local food systems bring to our lives, in the form of fresh, nutrient dense vegetables, meats, dairy, fruits, grains and herbs; the quality of local farms in our communities as centers of learning for our children, habitat for wildlife, places of restoration for ecosystems and humans alike; the quality of the relationship between local food producers and consumers; all of this quality should resonate with high quality programs on sustainable agriculture as well.

Rather than a thousand presenters overwhelming the audience with information on countless subjects, the Local Food Project conference concentrates on a few, in-depth presentations featuring effective presenters, and in an intimate environment where attendees have the opportunity to ask questions both specific and broad in nature, where the conversations penetrate beneath a surface level consideration of any topic, to the deeper practical and philosophical underpinnings of the topics discussed. Both presenting farms each brought over twenty years of organic farm experience and production to the table, along with practical, tried-and-true approaches to innovative organic agriculture.

Eric & Anne Nordell of Beech Grove Farm (Trout Run, PA) kicked off the morning presentations with a seamless discussion of "Culture in Vegetable Cultivation", and explained the incredible sytem of crop rotations and strategies they have developed to eliminate weed pressure while enhancing soil fertility and crop growth. Klaas and Mary-Howell Martens of Lakeview Organic Grain (Penn Yan, NY) followed up with "Thinking Upstream", the story of their transition to organic agriculture after Klaas could no longer feel his left arm one season thanks to toxic agricultural chemicals, and the development of their organic grain and feed production in the Finger Lakes region of New York.

After a feast in the Airlie dining room featuring local foods, we split into breakout sessions where presenters could talk more in-depth about specific organic agriculture topics. In two afternoon sessions, the Nordells covered "Minimalist Tillage, Tools & Techniques", and "Season Extension with Portable Hoophouses". The Martens covered "Small Grains for Feed, Food & Forage", "Understanding and Using Your Soil Tests," and "Homesteading on a Commercial Scale Farm".

We wrapped up the day-long conference with a farmer social in the Garden Room at Airlie, an opportunity for networking amongst attendees and celebration of the knowledge-filled day.