10 Reasons to Buy Local Produce 1. Locally grown food tastes better. Food grown in your own community was probably picked within the past day or two. It’s crisp, sweet and loaded with flavor. Produce flown or trucked in from California, Florida, Chile or Holland is, quite understandably, much older. Several studies have shown that […]
10 reasons to buy local produce Read More »
For most of us, this is an exciting time of year. Frost has come and our outdoor growing has definitely slowed down. We can breathe a little and take stock of our successes and challenges in the past growing season. Meals are once again sit-down and on time. We have the leisure to actually talk
Recommended new veggie varieties Read More »
Gary Weeks was at the highest point of the scaffolding, sighting down the roof ridge after the rafters went up. “ Not too bad for a bunch of volunteer country folk.” he said to Frank. Gary is an understated man, but this was the understatement of the day. The barn was perfect, and he had
An old-fashioned barn raising Read More »
As all cut flower growers know, finding something new is important in this business. Customers are magnetically attracted to the unfamiliar, and we growers feel the urge to keep expanding our knowledge base. For those reasons, some strange species have made their way into the cut flower business lately. The prime example: Gomphocarpus, the bladder-like
Coleus as a cut flower? Read More »
The Cornucopia Institute has filed a formal legal complaint with the USDA asking it to investigate allegations of illegal organic food distribution by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Cornucopia says it has documented cases of nonorganic food products being sold as organic in Wal-Mart’s grocery departments. “We first noticed that Wal-Mart was using in-store signage to misidentify
Wal-Mart and organics Read More »
Long-term population trends for some North American pollinators are “demonstrably downward,” says a new report from the National Research Council. However, there is little or no population data for many pollinators, which prompted the committee that wrote the report to call for stepped-up efforts to monitor these creatures and improve understanding of their basic ecology.
Pollinators decline Read More »
If Oklahoma residents spent just 5 percent of their food budgets on local food, the effect on the state’s agricultural economy would be dramatic. Individual farmers could see their revenue increase anywhere from a few hundred dollars per year to as much as $41,564 per year. That’s according to a report from The Kerr Center
I’m thankful that we planted lettuce and spinach in our hoophouse in September. Now we have a supply of greens that will take us into the darkest days of winter, so our family won’t be deprived of these favorite foods. Last year, we didn’t get our greens planted in time and we had to eat
Letter from the Editor: Food Safety Read More »
Using outdoor wood-fired heaters to heat a greenhouse or home is an idea that deserves praise, as using locally gathered and renewable materials (like wood!) to meet our heating needs is certainly a direction in which we should all be headed. However, the notion that such wood-burning furnaces are efficient and ecological is only partially
Wood-fired boilers Read More »
In his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan uses the supermarket chain Whole Foods Market as the springboard for several of his critiques of the industrial food system. With 184 stores nationwide, Whole Foods Market has become one of the 500 largest corporations in America. Yet, Pollan says, shopping there is “a literary experience” that
Whole Foods Market and local farms Read More »
