A Tale of Two Farms: Conference Highlights, Part 4

Attendees at the Local Food Project’s 2009 conference—“Half Pint and Essex: A Tale of Two Farms”—had the chance to see a local draft horse team in action. Justin Lamountain, owner of Piedmont Virginia-based Greenman Forest Management, and his hardworking Suffolks gave conference attendees a sense of the horse power in use at Essex Farm. Justin and his team are also responsible for sustainably harvesting the wood used in the frame of our passive solar hoophouse. Conference participants had the chance to see these beautiful animals up close and ask questions about their work.

View more conference photos in our online album. Thank you to everyone who attended “A Tale of Two Farms”! We look forward to seeing you at the next Local Food Project at Airlie event. Our 2009 calendar will be available soon.

A Tale of Two Farms: Conference Highlights, Part 3

A memorable part of the Local Food Project’s 2009 conference—“Half Pint and Essex: A Tale of Two Farms”—was the delicious buffet lunch prepared by Airlie’s talented team of chefs.
Conference participants enjoyed a feast of seasonal, locally grown foods—roasted carrots and braised cabbage, braised pork with rosemary and shitake mushrooms, roasted red and purple potatoes with herbs, and other sumptuous dishes. Aside from the yummy feast of local foods, attendees had the chance to share new ideas sparked by the presentations and hear one another’s farming and gardening stories.

View more conference photos in our online album. Stay tuned for more highlights from “A Tale of Two Farms”!

A Tale of Two Farms: Conference Highlights, Part 2

The Local Food Project’s 2009 conference—“Half Pint and Essex: A Tale of Two Farms”—shared a peek into the innovative systems of two very different farms. Mara and Spencer Welton of Half Pint Farm (Burlington, VT) inspired us with their passion for farming and eagerness to have fun while doing it. They wowed our audience with their dedication to record-keeping, showing samples of spreadsheets with data on every aspect of running the farm—from weather and soil conditions, to market sales and production yields and beyond! Participants also got a kick out of Half Pint’s “annual meeting”—the demanding agenda for last year’s strategy session showed how comfortably Mara and Spencer take on various roles—CEO, farm manager, field worker, marketer.

Mark and Kristin Kimball of Essex Farm (Essex, NY) led an interactive presentation that mirrored how they describe their farm—high-energy and physical. A series of hand-drawn posters gave conference attendees a visual sense of the systems that make Essex go. Essex employees Sam Ehrenfeld and Matt Volz helped Mark and Kristin take questions from the audience and they all spoke about the farm’s main components: providing a full diet—veggies, fruits, dairy, meat, and baked goods; allowing its 75 members free choice in what they select each week (no pre-measured boxes or bags); feeding members on a year-round basis (summer and winter shares); working the farm with draft horse power; and operating as a membership organization where folks pay for the food at the beginning of each season.

Conference attendee Ellen Polishuk, owner of Potomac Vegetable Farms, appreciated getting such an up-close look into the farms’ systems: “The intensive study of these farms is exactly what made it so valuable, and of course the fact that they were so funny and amazing.”

View more conference photos in our online album. Stay tuned for more highlights from “A Tale of Two Farms”!

A Tale of Two Farms: Conference Highlights, Part 1

The Local Food Project’s 2009 conference—“Half Pint and Essex: A Tale of Two Farms”—was a great success! On January 9, we welcomed more than 100 participants to Airlie for a dynamic day of learning, networking, food and fun. We want to share some of the highlights from this fantastic event and welcome feedback from anyone who attended. If you weren’t able to make it, explore the blog for content summaries, photos, and other valuable info from the conference.

This photo shows folks gathered in our passive solar hoophouse for the networking social that wrapped up the day. After a morning of in-depth presentations on designing successful farm systems, conference participants had the chance to get to know one another and share their impressions. One attendee, Nancy Gravely, appreciated the opportunity to talk with other small farm enthusiasts: “It really makes a difference to spend time with other people who are doing it, seems as though something gets passed along just by being in their company.”

View more conference photos in our online album. Stay tuned for more highlights from “A Tale of Two Farms”!

Winter’s Many Shades of Green

Lettuces, bok choy, kale, and other cool-weather favorites
Originally uploaded by Local Food Project at Airlie

Our new batch of seeds for the hoophouse recently arrived and we can already envision the tasty salads we’ll be harvesting for Airlie Center’s guests come February.

Arugula—Astro
Asian Greens—Yukina Savoy and Tatsoi
Cress—Presto
Pac Choi—Mei Qing
Allstar Lettuce Mix
Encore Lettuce Mix
Minutina (Erba Stella)

December’s Colorful Harvest

The first day of December dawned cold and gray, but these brilliantly-colored beets made the garden feel as festive as the tropics! Surviving the frosts under swaths of row cover, our “Chioggia” (red) and “Golden” (orange) beets are a favorite of Airlie Center chefs and are among the last of our 2008 field crops.

Another heartening find was this perfect head of “Red Cross” lettuce, still prettily ruffled, crisp, and unharmed by frost, deer, or groundhog.

Winter salad bar

Jericho Lettuce
Originally uploaded by Local Food Project at Airlie

This fall marks the Local Food Project’s first season growing veggies in our new passive solar hoophouse. The structure was built with assistance from members of the community during a workshop led by biodynamic farming guru Steve Moore. We laid out the beds and aisles to allow easy access for visitors, setting aside a gathering space in the middle for wine tastings or warming up with hot cocoa. We’re still putting the finishing touches on the hoophouse—installing solar-powered vents, constructing doors from sustainably logged wood—but the cool-season crops we’ve planted are already making great progress.

Here’s what we’re growing:

Green Lettuce—Jericho
Red lettuce—Red Cross, Yugoslavian, and Sweet Valentine
Kale—Laci Nato, Vates
Bok Choy—Mei Ping
Swiss Chard—Rainbow
Basil—Lettuce Leaf, Lemon, Red Rubin, Italian Large Leaf
Dill
Fennel

Once we get the hoophouse completely sealed up, I’m thinking it’s going to be our favorite place to escape the winter cold. And I can’t wait for next spring when it will help launch our spring and summer garden.