spring is sproinging part 2

Alright, back to the computer to play catch-up.  Picking up where i left off:
    Onward to Plow Forward:

       Georgia Organics was awesome enough to award Backyard Beddie's a scholarship to their 2012 conference in Columbus, for which i am extremely grateful.  Here's a quick recap of what I learned and it's relevance:

• at the Urban Agriculture workshop we learned some of the basics of growing in the city, which easily transfers to growing in the 'burbs, including working with local government, growing food over concrete, and making sure your soil is safe.
• Successful CSA Strategies, taught by Joe Reynolds of Love is Love Farm & Paige Witherington of Serenbe Farms, was amazingly informative.  If you're not familiar with CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) it's basically a system where community members purchase shares of the harvest in advance and get a variety of produce each week from the farm.  While this will be my first season growing for market, I plan to employ several of these strategies throughout the year so I'm versed enough to start a small CSA next spring
• In Post-Harvest Handling and Packaging Alex Rilko from Whole Foods explained the practices of getting wholesale produce to market, which doesn't apply to me that much right now, but then Eric Wagoner from Athens Locally Grown described his tactics for small-scale growers.  He had lots of low-cost, low-tech tips for getting produce to market.  If any of you are interested in this, e-mail me and i'll explain further.
• I dipped out of the Grower 1 Educational track to attend Grow Your Own Small Fruits taught by Jerry Larson ( a living legend, come to find out).  This session was so packed they had to move it into the main hall where all the meals were served, so sadly he didn't have time to get into blueberry production, but my brain was full to bursting with information about figs, muscadines, strawberries and blackberries.
• My last education session was Making the Most Out of Small Spaces with Brennan Washington from Phoenix Gardens.  They've grossed $30k/yr with 3000 square feet of growing space. Holy Moley.  He was full of ideas about small-scale market gardening, including container gardening which is very exciting.

    It truly was a blast. In addition to the workshop & education sessions, I also got to take a tour Bemastan Worm Farm which was pretty awesome.  I met some great people and got to reconnect with some of the folks who were in my Organic Growing Class @ Cane Creek Farm.  Will Allen, one of the keynote speakers and one of the fountainheads of the urban agriculture movement,  helped fuel my fire to pin my livelihood to the production of good, chemical-free food with this:

"When you start a project, everything's not gonna be perfect.  But get something started."

I came back all revved up to plant plant plant.  And I got started planting and working and potting up tomato and pepper seedlings and not sleeping, knowing i had to get it all done in a few days because we were on our way to TAPROOT FARMMMMMM!

                           3 days of peace & quiet in West Virginia, tending the sheep, chickens and dogs while    Beth & Tim attended the W.VA Small Farms Conference.  Super-fantastic.  Want some photos? click here.  So nice to unwind on the farm.

Anyhoo, my lunch break is about over...so next time it's onto hugelkultur beds, making straw from strawberries, first-wave plantings, itsy-bitsy cover cropping, and business time....