Fall is beautiful in Eastern North Carolina.  I am loving the cool days, getting to wear layers again, seeing the sun rise every morning, and of course, seeing the leaves change color.  While we are not moving at the pace we were for most of the summer, we’re still keeping busy here on the Small Farm Unit.  A strawberry variety trial began in the newly constructed high tunnel days before it was even completed.  We don’t waste no time ’round here!

Fall strawberry variety trial will help determine a planting calendar for Eastern North Carolina high tunnel growers

This week our four beef steer were taken off of the farm for market.  While I understand their place in an integrated farming system, I cannot say I will miss building new fencing weekly.  It was a lot of work raising these boys!  And they sure grew up fast.

Our four beef steer are loaded onto a trailer.

We just celebrated the Center For Environmental Farming Systems’ (CEFS) 20th Anniversary.  Hundreds of people came to the Cherry Research Farm to learn from and celebrate about the work and people that make CEFS great.  The Soilbration! event was a success!

Dozens of farmers attended Soilbration! tours on the Small Farm Unit.

Last week we all went up to Blacksburg, Virginia to meet with Virginia Tech Civic Agriculture faculty and students, to see the campus Dining Hall Farm, and to visit other farming projects in the area.  Thank you, Marisa Benzle, for organizing a great, educational trip!

Professor Kim Niewolny was a fantastic host, and invited us to attend her undergraduate course in Civic Agriculture.  We got to see the animal husbandry operations on campus, and then had a meet-and-greet with graduate students so that they could learn about what we do here at the Center For Environmental Farming Systems.  The Dining Services farm seems like a unique project, with support from different Departments at VT.  The surrounding campus farmland is just beautiful this time of year.

Virginia Tech campus in Fall.

We visited Plenty, a food bank outside of Floyd, which also happens to have a farm on site.  Co-Director, Karen Day, and farmer, Jonathan Vandergrift, were also incredibly friendly hosts, greeting us with delicious soup straight from the farm, and a tour of the farm.

Plenty farmer, Jonathan Vandergrift and Co-Director, Karen Day.

We visited Spikenard Farm, whose mission is to promote sustainable and biodynamic beekeeping through education, experience-based research and a honeybee sanctuary and to help restore the health and vitality of the honeybee worldwide.  Alexander Tuchman gave us a tour of the grounds, which were beautiful—and teeming with bees.

Alexander Tuchman of Spikenard loves his bees!

As we are in the last two weeks of the apprenticeship, things are winding down for us here.  We wrapped up our community work and are all a bit struck by how quickly the last nine months went by.  Thanks to the Small Farm Unit manager, Marisa Benzle, Mark and Amanda at the Pasture-Based Beef Unit, Horticulture Technician, Kayla Clark, Research Specialist Evan Taylor, Community Foods Systems Outreach Coordinator, Shorlette Ammons, the SWARMers, and my fellow apprentices for making this experience a dynamic learning opportunity!

The Infamous Small Farm Unit Crew in Asheville, NC.

The heat of things has cooled down and we’ve planted many cool weather crops on the small farm unit. Most of the farm is in production for research and for our educational experience.

We’ve spent a lot time learning about research techniques and pest management in our Baker Creek and Carolina Farm Steward Association (CFSA) vegetable variety trials research projects. Our CFSA research project is a blind study broccoli variety trial. The only data that we have access are our border rows of Waltham and that there are 6 different types of broccoli in the trial. Each week, we collect data for size, quality, firmness, and marketability. In the end, we package the broccoli for ourselves or for our Young Families Connect cooking class with Wayne County Extension.

When we’re not collecting data for our variety trials, we are tending to our beautiful fall field. We’re growing lettuce, collards, kale, turnips, spring onions, carrots, and beets. Unwanted and unidentified visitors enjoy munching on our collards so we’re a bit annoyed by that. However, we still value the abundant harvest we get each week!

Most farmers spend all week on their farms but thanks to the awesome programming, we are encouraged to visit other farms as well as volunteer in the community. Since coming to CEFS, I learned so much about institutional research and land grant universities that I organized a personal field trip to visit the University of the District of Columbia’s 143 acre agricultural research station in Beltsville MD. The staff of the CAUSES College were very hospitable and took me and a few hometown friends on a tour of their farm.

Myeasha picking from a pear tree for the first time on Muirkirk Farm.

Prior to coming to CEFS,I was totally unaware that you could grow rice in America, North Carolina or Maryland. For the first time in my life, I planted and harvested rice. We grew Carolina Gold rice, a historically high commodity rice grown by slaves in South Carolina. Rice was of such high demand that in 1691 the South Carolina Assembly passed an act that allowed colonies to pay their taxes in rice.

Small Farm unit’s Carolina Gold Rice

Muirkirk Farm grew dryland rice to test feasibility of growing on small scale production with different. Our rice was in our home garden (a small demonstration garden where we experiment with growing ethnic variety crops and use bio-intensive methods). We planted our rice earlier this year and harvested in October.I learned that you don’t always need swampy water to grow rice. You can grow rice in a field with drip irrigation.  Also, we did not have any issues with pest.

USDA Rice Research Duborskian Grain

USDA Rice research Koshishikari Grain

Things are wrapping up here. We’ve just celebrated CEFS 20th Anniversary with the Soilbration!, concluding our community projects, and packing up our final CSA shares for our cooking classes. Goldsboro has been quite a treasure for me! I’m looking forward to continuing my journey in organic food production with all that I’ve learned here at CEFS! Thanks to all!

Beastmode Apprentices of 2014 (Angela, Myeasha, and Jordan) Big ups to our fourth apprentice Philip for holding down the local food market in DC.

For more information on UDC’s Muirkirk Farm: http://www.udc.edu/docs/causes/2013%20Muirkirk%20Farm.pdf and http://udc-causes.blogspot.com/2014/06/all-about-muirkirk-farm.html 

Carolina Gold Rice History: http://ricediversity.org/outreach/educatorscorner/documents/Carolina-Gold-Student-handout.pdf

Coming from Oakland, California, where the weather is always perfect—never any humidity, no temperatures beyond the 80s—I have to say I am thrilled that the summer months of North Carolina are behind us! I love Fall and am looking forward to having lettuce on the farm once again and being able to sit around a fire at night. We’ve had some late summer rains that have made it hard to keep up with weeding and field work, but the rains seems to be behind us for now, as well.

We’ve been working to build another high tunnel on the Small Farm Unit, which is something that has been in the works for awhile. It’s slow-moving work, with plenty of challenges, but fortunately, we’ve had a lot of help from staff from other other research stations in North Carolina, as well as from other units at Cherry Research Farm.

Putting up the end walls on the new high tunnel

Slowly but surely, the high tunnel comes together….

In other news, Melissa Bell has been hired as the new Research Specialist and we are happy to have her for a few days each week here at the Small Farm Unit. She worked for the Center for Environmental Farming Systems previously, and so is familiar with some of the people and projects here already.

Research to determine best planting dates for high tunnel vegetables continues, with Kayla Clark, the Horticulture Technician here, working hard to gather data on pepper, cucumber, tomato, and leafy greens production.

Fall high tunnel planting calendar research begins.

We’ve been busy getting the Fall field planted and weeded, and have also been keeping up with our variety trials, which mostly means doing a lot of pest and disease monitoring, weeding, and keeping data on germination rates. Fortunately, the deer and ground hogs have been cooperative so far and have left the trial field alone.

Broccoli variety trial conducted to determine what varieties are best for Eastern North Carolina farmers.

Fall field production is underway.

We’ve got just a month and a half left of the apprenticeship.  Time here has flown by. As the end draws near, we apprentices have our sights focused on finding work that will allow us to apply some of our new skills, insights and aspirations. Between the work on the farm, and the new task of finding a job, the days are passing even more quickly around here!

The month of August on the small farm unit brought a bounty of tomatoes, peppers, okra and flour corn. As mentioned in previous posts, the majority of this produce is donated to local soup kitchens, food pantries, and free CSA members. Some however is utilized by the staff and members of the community during cooking demonstrations and garden workdays.

Throughout the summer I worked with children at the WA Foster Community Center on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Most workdays had the kids outside working up an appetite so we often ended with a snack or meal that incorporated the garden or farm vegetables. This month we brought some of our garden produce to the farmers market and made enough money to purchase frozen pizza dough and cheese.

WA Foster Gardeners at the Goldsboro Farmers Market.

 We then used the extra peppers and tomatoes from the garden as toppings on our homemade pizzas to celebrate and reward ourselves for a summer of hard work.

Homemade Pizzas at WA Foster.

Kids enjoying their homegrown veggies.

We apprentices also take advantage of the excess vegetables. In fact, this week Myeasha and I took down some of our flour corn from its drying line and ground it to a corn meal powder.

Myeasha removing the kernels from the cob.

Me grinding the kernels into a powder.

We then used the corn meal, combined with onions and peppers, to make hushpuppies and fried green tomatoes. We think we did a pretty good job for a couple of northerners.

Hush puppies made from homegrown corn.

Finally, this week marks the official housewarming of our newly completed worm-bin. We have primarily been feeding the worms a combination of culled tomatoes, peppers and shredded newspaper.

Newly completed worm compost bin.

Worm’s first meal in their new home.

Check back soon for our next post!

Just as the summer internship wound to it’s end, we put an eye towards Fall.  We’ve been planning our Fall home garden and field plantings, as well as preparing for a couple seed variety trials we will be doing in partnership with the Baker Creek Seed Company and the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.  One anticipated goal of the variety trial is to determine what varieties of broccoli would  do well in this region, as North Carolina imports the bulk of this highly demanded vegetable from California.  So far, it’s meant a lot of seed counting and checking on germination rates.

Fall home garden and field seedlings emerge

Fall variety trials have begun.

We pulled up most of the remains of the home garden, anticipating planting for Fall soon.  However, the rice remains in the ground for now.

Home garden rice crop

We’ve also been busy preparing for the this year’s Sustainable Agriculture Education Association conference, in Raleigh this last week. The Small Farm Unit was on the tour schedule, so we’ve been cleaning, organizing and planning for that, and pitching in our efforts at the NC State Agroecology Student Farm, as well.  I was fortunate to attend the conference, and it was good to hear about all of the new Food Systems Studies and Sustainable Agriculture majors, minors and student farm projects growing across the country and to meet interesting, dedicated people doing work in this field.

Sustainable Agriculture Education Association attendees listen to a presentation about Sterling College’s Agriculture curricula.

Marisa, the Small Farm Unit Farm Manager, worked in bee keeping in The Gambia during her time in the Peace Corps, and takes a special interest in rearing bees for conservation on the farm.  This week she gave us an introductory lesson in bee keeping.

Marisa shows us the top bar bee hive.

Bees are amazing!

Jordan, an apprentice at the Small Farm Unit shows us the queen of the hive.

We’ve been very fortunate over to have fairly mild temperatures and overcast days for the past couple of weeks, which has come as a huge relief!  It’s meant less irrigation, less sweat, and more wrestling in the mud and rain.Stay tuned for what’s around the corner….

July has been a very busy month in Goldsboro; it almost feels like the hustle and bustle of D.C. Crazy shifting work schedules, diverse cultures of people, and lots of foot traffic but most of all a sense of community. We’ve had several visits on the farm ranging from children to educators from Cuttington University, the oldest university in Africa located in Liberia. Our guests from Cuttington U. seek to expand their agricultural science program. They visited the small farm unit at CEFS and Rutgers University where open dialogue was facilitated about research, the internship program, and the apprenticeship program.

Marisa explaining our lablab cover crop. Lablab is a tropical legume native to Africa

We’ve had quite the harvest too; lots of squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. Each week, Jordan and I work with Kayla, the horticulture technician/alumni apprentice/alum intern with collecting data for Dr. Sanjun Gu from NC A&T  University high tunnel calendar study. I enjoy working with the study because I like harvesting tomatoes, learning about identifying plant illnesses, and vertical trellising.Vertical growing seems pretty ideal especially for places where there isn’t much ground space.

When we’re not bustling on the farm, we each work on different community projects. I’ve worked with Shorlette, our community food systems outreach coordinator and the SWARMrs facilitating the Junior Master Gardener program at the Wayne County Library. Each week we covered different topics related to agriculture such as pest identification, classifying soil types, methods of planting and most recently how to make pizza from scratch using garden produce harvested from the small farm unit and the library garden.

Junior Master Gardeners harvesting oregano and thyme for the pizza sauce. All toppings are sourced locally.

Shorlette helping the kids redress their overloaded pizza. Too many toppings= too heavy to put in the oven.

Group Decision making with squash and zucchini toppings.

Aside from working with youth at the library garden, I partnered with Goldsboro Parks and Recreation Herman Park Center to do food demonstrations with adults with varying abilities. D’Leeshia Lee, the recreational therapist there has inspired me to say varying abilities instead of disabilities because “disabilities” don’t recognize the strengths of an individual. I work with two groups on a rotating biweekly schedule and we do hands on cooking demos using easy recipes for seasonal produce that we grow on the farm. We’ve made blueberry parfaits, zesty Italian dressing from scratch for a tomato and cucumber salad and a summer squash pasta salad. I enjoy doing the food demos because I get to interact with other people to compare and contrast different ways of preparing foods. The participants are always eager to try out the recipe. They also learn how to plant and take care of the crops we grow.

“A Healthier YOU” participant planting sweet potato slips donated to use by our awesome Food Corps member, Leslie Peck.

Each month the small farm unit embarks on a field trip where we explore careers in the food system. Most recently, we went to visit a former apprentice, Caroline Hamilton at the Octopus Garden in Ashville, the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center, and Sow True Seeds. Our first stop was the _ center where we loaded coach with plenty of feathermeal and potting soil. Feathermeal is a byproduct of grounded up chicken so it wasn’t the best fragrance to inhale as we ascended into the mountains. We visited the greenhouse at the mountain research station and learned about the different research projects on the farm. I was specifically interested in the way they trellised fruit trees using the “high density” method. This method allows for more convenient harvesting and the trees produce fruit in the third year.

High Density fruit trellising method

I’d like to give a special shout out to our old man Coach for making all our excursions possible. And farewell to Zion, SWARM alumni/short term apprentice/rising freshman at Arizona State University studying environmental engineering. Best of luck buddy!

The Infamous Small Farm Unit Crew  in Asheville. (left to right: Zion, Angela, Marisa, Myeasha, Jordan, and Kayla)

The primary purpose of the Small Farm Unit here at CEFS is to provide a demonstration of organic practices to small farmers in North Carolina. With this being our goal, rather than production for market, we are able to risk using untested growing methods in order to find out if they can benefit farmers in our area.

One of the relatively untested methods that we recently implemented is organic no-till agriculture. Conventional no-till agriculture utilizes herbicides to manage weeds and knock down cover crops. Since organic herbicides are very expensive and often less effective than their conventional counterpart, we decided to omit them from our demonstration. So far we have found the no-till field to be considerably more labor intensive than our tilled organic fields, as it requires us to mow and weed whack between the plants about once a week.

Organic no-till tomato rows

Using the lawn mower between no-till rows

As previously mentioned our main purpose is to demonstrate the farm to people in our area. This week we presented the farm to a group of over 100 minority landowners brought together by the USDA to discuss ways to maximize the value of their property. Many of the men and women on the tour were already farming their land and had been for years, so they contributed valuable information during the tour, but also gained exposure to some of our less common practices.

Loading up the trailers for the tour

The tour was broken up into three parts that we felt encapsulated the most important aspects of the farm:

1. Our high tunnel demonstration, which allows farmers to extend their growing season and have a competitive edge in local markets.

2. Our greenhouse, which is essential for propagating transplants in the early and late months.

3. Our production fields, which are an excellent example of a 6-year crop rotation with animal integration.

After the tour, we headed over to the equipment shed outside of the service building, which had been converted into a dining hall for a delicious catered lunch.  Our superintendent Andy Meier gave a brief history of the station and reminded the visitors that their tax dollars pay for the work that we do and therefore we work for them. This message is fundamental, because if the people of North Carolina are not benefiting from our research, then all of the work that we do is in vain.

Superintendent Andy Meier addresses the tour group

I will leave you with an image of the Passion Flower, a North Carolina native that I found growing in the woods that surround our farm.

It’s the height of the summer and we’re staying busy with the interns on the farm, as well as with occasional trips outside of Goldsboro.  We’ve been visiting various farms with the Sandhill Farm School over the course of the apprenticeship and a couple weeks ago we visited Vollner Farm to learn about Good Agricultural Practices (GAPS) certification and food safety on a small farm.  We also got to visit a couple peach orchards and a peach nursery in Bunn, NC.

I’ve been working the youth group, Students Working for a Revolutionary Agricultural Movement (SWARM) during my time here are the Small Farm Unit, helping to build upon their farming and gardening knowledge and skills, which are applied here on the farm and at various community garden sites in Goldsboro.   They also help lead Discover Ag, our on-farm school field trip program.  Lately, they’ve been doing quite a bit of pest scouting.

SWARMers busy with integrated pest management

Jordan and the SWARMers identifying pests on the farm

Insects are not the only pests on the farm.  Our summer fields and home garden are routinely visited by deer.  Below, Jordan strikes a pose as one of the wild pigs which have taken to tearing up our habitat garden.

The Small Farm Unit has a 19-year-old blueberry variety trial, which demonstrates which varieties do best in Eastern North Carolina.  The blueberries are in the height of production and we are all enjoying as many blueberries as we can possibly eat.

Endless blueberries

The Small Farm Unit blueberry variety trial

Cover crops play a huge role in the  management of our agricultural production on the farm, both in the fields and in the research high tunnels.  It’s interesting to see the landscape constantly changing, keeping an eye towards long-term sustainability.

Summer cover crops in the research high tunnel

A quick buckwheat cover crop

What was just grazing pasture is now planted in sorghum-Sudan grass summer cover crop.

The interns have been engaged in various work projects on the farm for the past few weeks.  Aside from doing day-to-day tasks on the farm, we apprentices have been working with them on developing plans for a large herb garden, on developing and managing habitat gardens, a vermicomposting system, and a flower variety trial.

Marisa, the SFU farm manager, leads the interns on Monday morning farm tour, planning our week’s work

Between the deer the weeds, it’s been a challenge to keep our experimental no-till summer crops alive.  It does look like we’ll have okra, squash, zucchini and tomatoes, but we lost our melons and peppers.

Interns and apprentices assessing crops in the experimental no-till summer field

Tomatoes growing in the no-till field

This weekend we are headed West to visit the Central Carolina Community College’s farm, an agricultural research station and small farm in the mountains.  Stay tuned!

It has been a great last few weeks out on the farm. As summer sets in and the weather starts to warm up, we have seen our spring crops growing almost faster than we can harvest. Which also means the insects have been trying to have feasts of their own, and some of our early season crops have seen their last harvests.

Our lovely red potato crops

are enjoyed by all, including the voracious Colorado Potato Beetle, shown here chomping away in its adult stage

No, we’re not growing Christmas trees, these are lettuces making a last ditch effort to go to seed.

One of our storage containers just got a lot smellier with the addition of our garlic harvest, which has been set out to dry.

The procession of the seasons also means we are hard at work getting ready for summer production…

Apprentice Jordan Tony transplants seedlings from open flats

And testing out different ways to combat weeds and pests…

This may look like a very unkempt row of squash, but actually we are utilizing a no-till method of farming to reduce weed pressure.

There have also been some new additions to the farm, including our very own chicken flock, which aside from egg production, also allows us to naturally fertilize next year’s Home Garden while getting rid of some pesky insects.

Egg-OK

A great group of college students and recent graduates have also joined the Small Farm Unit team as part of the CEFS Summer Internship Program.

Some of the interns help with a sugar pea harvest at the Washington Park Community Garden

The Small Farm Unit team enjoys a delicious potluck dinner in the office

We were also fortunate to welcome another group of elementary school students from the Discover Ag Program.

Kiddos learn the importance of proper irrigation in one of our high tunnels

as well as getting up close and personal with our young steers.

And, as always, the SWARMers have been lending a hand doing some of the dirty work.

Apprentice Angela Entzel leads the SWARMers in building a hot compost pile.

All the extra hands have really been a great help, and we’re definitely going to need it because even as the sun sets on a beautiful spring day over the Neuse, another is sure to come and bring with it new surprises and exciting adventures in agriculture.