September 2007 - Happy Birthday !
May - Big Bear Farms - Plant City
March - Seedway and Marie Peters
December 2006 - Covered Dish and Farmer's Market
November 2006 - Kitchen Compost Containers
September 2006 - Our first meeting
September article in The Polk Voice..
In the beginning, because we had no other way to obtain the food we want, we learned to make compost in a mini workshop titled "The Art of Cold Composting -- Let the Worms do the Work." By composting one can easily obtain "black gold" within two to three weeks without any real effort. Someone said that if you grow your soil, the plants will come.
So at the next meeting our workshop was "Barefoot Gardeners do it in Raised Beds" and we produced a complete, ready-to-plant garden for our host family.
On Nov. 5 at our meeting in Bartow at 2 p.m., we will have a mini farmer's market complete with bundles of bedding plants for a cool-weather garden and some small potted veggies and herbs suitable for planting now. There may also be free-range chicken eggs and whatever ready-to-eat produce is brought in by members to sell. We also expect cuttings and seeds to share. The bringer of each item will give a short description of the plant and its care in the garden, especially in raised beds as that is the most efficient way to garden in small areas.
We welcome anyone who wants to join us and obtain synthetic-free organic produce that is grown within a few miles of your home -- or in your own garden. The dynamic board of directors is continually seeking new avenues to sample. One of our members has a well-stocked fish pond where we will go fishing for our dinner soon.
We are interested in creating display edible gardens for our local communities. We will do the work when the community supplies the needed materials including land and water - but not plants.
We encourage kids to join in the fun and learn along with us and find out that their favorite foods do not actually grow at the grocery store, but perhaps in their own garden.
Contributed by Patti McGauley
http://visitors.polkvoice.com/default.asp?item=237391
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070413/NEWS/704130335/1326
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You know what they say about the country, "You can take the kid out of the country but you can't take the country out of the kid." I guess that is pretty much right as far as I am concerned. And it does explain how Barefoot Gardener organic gardening club got started with its Farmer's Markets at monthly meetings and its online Yahoo Group.
All that country in me was just hollering to get out and get some good fresh food again like I remember from when I was a kid on the farm, going down to the big kitchen garden to pick a mess of pretty yellow crookneck squash or some nice fat pole beans and maybe a few big funny looking tomatoes of all colors and shapes, and probably a few big sweet onions, to run back up to the back porch well to rinse off everything before lugging my haul into that wonderful kitchen with its pie safe loaded up with the last meal's left overs, maybe seeing a cousin taking her churning off to the front porch to churn the fresh raw milk into the sweetest butter while she eyed the handsome new neighbor who kept coming over in the evenings.
I'd always take time to admire the stove of many wonders. It had lots of round plates, some of which had fire burning beneath to produce the most mouth watering food I have ever eaten. The biscuits and cornbread coming out of the ovens are still in my memory like it was just yesterday their steamy goodness melted in my mouth while the cane syrup got sopped up so as not to miss a drop. This stove also made the best hot chocolate ever to delight my taste buds to this very day, an extraordinary beverage that almost made winter tolerable.
Gathering the eggs took courage when I was quite small. The chickens seemed to know I was somewhat scared of them as they sat on their nests and seemed to delight in my misery. I would gently pass my hand under a feathered breast only to be frequently pecked for my trouble even though I usually came out with a warm, freshly laid egg. Then they were off and out around the yard again, chasing bugs and scratching worms and telling their rooster where to find me to chase me back up on the nearest porch. These were deeply colored, almost orange yolked eggs, some white and some brown shelled, all tasty. Many were double yolked, the real prizes.
Now the hams and sausage and bacon seemed to just grow in the smoke house with its tiny smoke puffs emitting a smell not to be duplicated. Can you smell it?
I mentioned the well on the back porch. Don't think I told you it had sweet, ice cold water to reward you for lowering the bucket. Sometimes you could hear a frog croak from its dark deep interior. To this day, tepid room temperature water has been something to maybe wash my hands in but definitely not to drink.
Oh the memories of the food and drink of my childhood in the country are flooding back. I can still feel, see and taste the peas and beans we shelled by the bushel on the porch while we rocked and talked. Some were for dinner, some were for "putting up" by canning them. This was before the electric freezer came into our lives. Those veggies had real, unforgettable taste!
Often when the mules had come in from work plowing the fields and fertilizing them naturally, we would get to ride them bareback through the orchard of peach and pear trees. My favorite, Charley Horse, would walk slowly around until she was tired of the kids on her back, then gently head for the big branch that meant the ride was over. She would lower her head to get under the branch which just cleared her back, gently scraping off the excess kids she was carrying, who just slowly slid down her tail, landing quite safely and without harm, always laughing and vowing to repeat tomorrow.
Are you getting the picture? I grew up with really fresh just picked fruits and veggies that had all the good taste possible in heirloom plants that were totally without synthetic chemicals, only the natural manures of many farm animals composted into the soil. I want this again. Now I know I can't turn back the clock and be a kid on the farm again, but I can be a grown up and grow a bit in my city yard and buy from fellow club members when we meet on first Sunday afternoons. Shucks, I can even call up a farmer or two and go by to pick up something between meetings like I did this past week.
All we have to do is continue to grow Barefoot Gardener's membership with farmers and ranchers who now have an eager customer base, while we continue to learn organic methods of growing our little raised beds so we have a few greens to help us through the coming cold weather. We plant neem trees to naturally repel mosquitos, some of us raise a few chickens, some of us raise a rabbit or two, mostly for their poop, we use neem oil and Wonder Grow and fish emulsion and Green Cure and compost so we can grow without noxious pests and/or diseases, and our food tastes really good! Wanna join us?
At this point I am able to eat local organic stuff every day, if not at each meal, the ultimate goal.
If you want to join us or would like more information, just holler at me at 863-646-1130 in Lakeland or email at patti.mcgauley@verizon.net.
Submitted by Patti McGauley, Moderator
December 21, 2006
http://blogs.polkvoice.com/search/default.asp?item=525577
BAREFOOT GARDENER Organic Gardening and Sustainable Living Club and Yahoo group
PROGRAM: Vicki Parsons, aka the Neem Tree Lady proprietor of Neem Tree Farms in Brandon and the Yucatan has volunteered to be our own April Fool speaker, describing neem and the many uses of this possibly most valuable tree on the planet, and introducing some neem products available. Vicki will be fielding questions, an art at which she is quite adept, being an expert in her subject. By request, a short re-do of "The Art of Cold Composting - Let the Worms do the Work" otherwise known as organic gardening 101, mini-workshop will be given by Patti.
FARMER'S MARKET: Open before and after each meeting. Fresh organic, locally grown produce, free-range eggs and natural, homemade products for green living ranging from soap to jewelry, and organic gardening aids all presented by members who invite you to patronize their wares.
COST: $1 sign-in fee per family.
BRING: A folding chair or blanket to sit on, shopping bags, yummy snacks and/or drinks to share, cash to patronize our vendors, any extra fruit or veggies, herbs, cuttings, seeds, and a big friendly grin.
GOAL: To obtain fresh locally grown organic produce and meats for our tables, by growing or buying from other members.
WHEN: April Fool's Day, Sunday April 1. Setup for Farmer's Market begins at 1 p.m., meeting begins at 2 p.m., open board meeting begins at 4 p.m. (The market is open before and after meeting.)
WHERE: The beautiful nonsmoking yard of Eunice and Richard Urbany, 5304 Plantation Vista Way, Lakeland 33813, just off Clubhouse Road in South Lakeland.
September Workshop Recap:
Here's our first mini workshop condensed -- just the basics, ma'am.
In seven words here it is: throw stuff on the ground, cover, repeat. That's it down to a science beyond art. If directions are followed exactly you will have finished black gold within two to three weeks of your last covering. Your return is well over 90%, a great improvement on other methods of composting. This is what works for me here in central Florida.
CONTAINER: For the "ground" place directly on open dirt/ground the largest container you can find that already has holes in the bottom (or make some holes) then cover the bottom of the container with a layer of dirt. The worms will enter through the holes; water will drain out the same way. In my experience a black container seems to produce compost somewhat faster than any color, but any will work. The hard sides of the container make retrieval of the finished product easier, less likely to be filled with roots of neighboring plants, which tends to happen without the use of a container.
COMPOSTING STUFF: All your kitchen scraps -- veggie and/or fruit peels and trimmings, egg shells (dried and crushed), coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, etc. Save hair from hair cuts. Try your salon or barber shop? Barefoot Gardener David haunts Starbucks for their coffee grounds, and his school lunchroom for their lunch trash. If you have access to birds, feathers are great to compost, as is their poo. The list is almost endless. So long as the stuff is carbon based. When my big dog brings me a "present" such as the body of a 'possum, it is added, covered deeply until there is no odor and no flies. But only one per compost container. I start another container when another critter is donated. After the worm factory has been at it for 2-3 weeks, I don't even find any bones. Suggested also -- the leftovers from cleaning fish, you fishermen. Just cover them WELL. I recycle my potting soil in this fashion.
Two or three days is about long enough to store your scraps before adding them to the container. Much longer and they will develop a sharp smell that seems to be offensive to the worms.
So, to reiterate, layers of DIRT -- STUFF -- DIRT repeating until container is full, or until you have a definite need for finished compost by a calendar date, just stop adding layers at least two weeks prior to this date.
If your yard is so dry you must water (like now), be sure to sprinkle your compost too. Other than that there is no more work to be done. The worms will be busily chomping away at all that good food and aerating the container out of your vision. There will be a gradual visible change, and if you just poke lightly into a spot of your compost factory, you will find worms wiggling all over the place. They are doing the work for you of turning just plain old dirt and scraps into black gold in jig time.
Save most of your weeds and yard trimmings for the other, or hot compost bin, another thing entirely. Too much green stuff heats up the container and cooks your worms or at least runs them off. The dirt and scraps are known as "browns" and do not heat up as the "greens" do, making them perfect for vermicomposting, a technical name for cold composting, thanks to Anne's article.
Hope this helps. Now get busy, recycle your scraps into black gold!
Luv, Pat
