Work day on Tuesday and some current events

I got an email from Jewely a few days ago asking when she could stop by the school to help out a bit.... so our first summer work day will be Tuesday, the 17th. I'd like to start around 9am so we'll have a little time before it's crazily hot, but I can work around your schedules. Email me if/when you can come. I'll bring some refreshments. If it's raining, we'll have to reschedule.

There's bell peppers, eggplant, onions, and maybe a few other things you can take home with you.


Some current events:

Up to 20% of the Midwest's corn crop maybe be lost do to the unending rains and flooding they've had to deal with. That means 6 months to a year from now, there could be a pretty big shortage. As you know from class, the price of corn has already more than doubled over the past few years, which has contributed to a world food crisis. And we learned from King Corn that corn is the main livestock feed, as well as an ingredient in almost all processed foods. So low corn harvest this year could contribute significantly to increasing food prices. Sadly, this is a sign that the food crisis will be getting worse.
http://talkradionews.com/2008/06/iowa-flood-the-katrina-of-the-midwest/

Some more bad news... Contaminated tomatoes have been causing a Salmonella outbreak (not in FL!) Florida and California tomatoes currently being harvest have been cleared for consumption, though. The FDA is still pinpointing the cause and source of the contamination. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gTdemzWcpeDQ9QFeEyMaHk5U20GQD918PH600


Some up beat news you might need to cheer you up after those articles...
Some plants have a social life! They can tell who their relatives are.... or which plants they can take advantage of... http://earthfriendlygardening.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/plants-social-life/

FL is now home to the largest biomass pellet factory. But for some reason they're shipping a lot of their output to Europe...? Alachua County may be building a new biomass power plant.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/worlds-largest-biomass-plant-fla.php

Take care!

Yay thunderstorms!

Well, yesterday I managed to cover crop the 1.5 acre future vegetable garden with sorghum. A few hours later, a thunderstorm started that flooded my garage. Bad for my garage, but great for the sorghum. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorghum to see what Sorghum is. Remember, the idea behind cover cropping is to prevent erosion, choke out weeds, improve soil texture and structure, and, most importantly, add organic matter.

There's a lot I'd like to accomplish here over the summer. I would like help from students - in addition to offering this opportunity for learning and doing 'the good work,' you can get volunteer hours and take home produce or plants as a bit of reward. So here's a quick list of goals so you can get an idea of what summer activities will be going on:

1. Clear, till, and cover crop more area around the 1.5 acre field and the nursery. (tractor driving!)
2. Find a way to use the 2" pipe near that field to irrigate cover crops when necessary.
3. Plant some things I didn't have time to plant before school ended (Jerusalem Thorn, Kumquats, some gingers / tropicals, alphonse karr bamboo...)
4. Harvest bell peppers, eggplant, cucumber, corn, and squash as they are ready.
5. Plant veggie crops that will be ready to harvest when school starts - that way we can continue local food Fridays the first week of school.
6. Plant seeds and propagate plants so we'll have a good stock to work with as soon as school starts in August.

New blog

I'm working on a myspace and blog which will eventually actually contain exciting and thought provoking information. Or at least it will say what's going on with the Academy.