The Magic of Time-Keeping Bees

I just thought this article was oddly interesting...

http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/guest-column-lets-hear-it-for-the-bees/?em

Out of the Wild, SF Weekly

This article is about collecting and selling wild edibles by creating a CSF -- community supported foraging boxes. The Bay Area is rich with edibles such as miners lettuce, sour grass, and mushrooms, and you'd probably be looking for a different set out around StL. Horrah for gathering, a basic human skill.

http://sfweekly.com/2009-03-18/news/out-of-the-wild/

Frontrunners

The Kumquat was featured in the Spring 2009 issue of the Washington University Magazine.

The State of our Fellow Farmers

The February release of the 2007 USDA Agricultural Census has some tasty little statistics about the state of food and farming in American agriculture. Here are some of the highlights from the data.


Some cheerful trends in U.S. agriculture show:

• There was a net increase of in the number of small farms from 2002 - 2007 and new (young) farmers too.
  
• There was a 17% increase in the number of direct to consumer sales and a 335% increase in organic sales in the country since 2002. (Like the Kumquat!)
• Both the ethnic and gender diversity of farmers has increased significantly. 30% more women now act as primary farm operators, compared to 2002.

On the flip side:

• U.S. lost 16.2 million acres of farmland during this period.
• The concentration of agriculture increased during the years in question. Whereas farms with net sales of more than $1 million in annual sales accounted for 47 percent of U.S. agricultural production in 2002, farms in this sales class were responsible for 59 percent all production in 2007.

If you want more than this taste, the full census results can be found here.

-Lucy

More rights for funny-looking carrots!

Europe Relaxes Rules on Sale of Ugly Fruits and Vegetables

(they've got the right idea)

p.s. if you haven't seen "The Gleaners and I" (or "Les glane

urs et la glaneuse) by Agnes Varda, you should.  It's amazing, and includes heart-shaped potatoes

Hello from San Francisco

a city full of greenies, bikes, cars, fog, and me.

i've come across some cool things here i wanted to share with the kumquat. i've been volunteering at the deomonstration victory garden at the civic center. it was put up for slow food nation and has donated all its produce to the food bank. it will be disassembled this month and the soil will be used for new neighborhood garden projects: (http://www.sfvictorygardens.org/about.html#). tourists come by, there's night security, its organic: (http://slowfoodnation.org/events/the-main-event/victory-garden/)


Some youngins like us started a business of installing permaculture gardens in backyards. They get paid to maintain the garden and provide a CSA basket to participants: (myfarmsf.com)
(http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/grow-your-own/?scp=4&sq=%22my%20farm%22&st=cse)

meanwhile, my roommates and i have tested our backyard soil (pure sand), turned the pumpkin guts into the compost, ordered cover crop seed, and begun digging up the nasty crabgrass. surely, by spring, there will be some pictures to share.

btw, (OregonTilth.org) has for all sorts of organic farming resources and links.

love to you all, the vegetable beds, and autumn.
kacie erin smith

"I was initially intrigued by the fact that I didn't know a lot about food, like what it even looked like growing."

The River Front Times (RFT for you hip kids) wrote an article about us! A prose glimpse of our basil kingdom.