Earlier this season we visited Cindy Conner at her home in Virginia. We were blessed to see the methods she uses in her video & class room teaching first hand and came away from her garden greatly inspired to try her techniques and tell the world. The World.. How could you possibly feed the world as we know it with the methods we learned from Cindy Conner?
Well we went to the Rodale institute http://rodaleinstitute.org/ in south eastern Pennsylvania to find out. We went there to participate in the "Cashing in on Soil Health Field Day" and what an education it was.
Many people from far and near who are organic farmers and gardeners (or want to be), folks from the organic food industry, equipment manufacturers, folks from the guvment and the and the many volunteers and staff at Rodale came together to for an extra special day of learning and fellowship
We had the privilege of meeting Tim Lasalle, the CEO of the Rodale Institute and hear some background information on global warming. (yes,.. it's real) We heard the facts surrounding global climate change and the neat thing is something can be done about it.
You see all those plants we use as cover crops for the purpose of building soil health and reducing erosion actually LIKE to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Whats more the folks at the Rodale Institute have developed a machine and a method for locking the carbon that those plants absorb from the atmosphere into the soil and improving soil health and fertility in the process. It gets even better than that. Dr. Tom O'Donnel of the Global Emissions Exchange http://www.globalemissionsexchange.com/shined a great big light on how farmers can actually help those who would like to offset their carbon output and how they can benefit from the sale of their carbon credits due to the fact that they though their wise growing practices have sequestered TONS of carbon dioxide while producing a superior crop to feed the worlds people and animals.
We got a pretty in depth instructional tour of the U.S.D.A. web soil survey site http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov from John Chibirka of the U.S.D.A. Natural Conservation Services entitled This ain't your daddy's soil survey! A Technological Jump into the 21st Century.
An awesome lunch was graciously served the the Rodale staff and we spent some time in conversation with some of the participants of the event from the Organic Valley family of farms http://www.organicvalley.coop/
After lunch we all climbed aboard the tractor drawn wagons and headed out onto the 300 acre research farm for an in depth tour conducted by a group of researchers from the Rodale Institute. There we got to see the techniques we were wondering about after we visited Cindy Conner's garden. There it was. Rather than tilling in the cover crops you instead use a devise first made by the Rodale Institute and now available from manufacturers such as I & J manufacturing http://www.croproller.com/croproller_development.html in Gap Pennsylvania called a roller crimper that does just that. It rolls and crimps the cover crop so that it becomes its own mulch layer. A second device on the back of the tractor simultaneously plants your next seasons crop right through the cover crop. You get the benefit of improved soil fertility, natural weed control, erosion control and moisture retention all in one pass. On top of that you are also doing your part to help reduce our nation's carbon output and profiting from it in the process.
Way Cool? We think so!
And now for some links we think you'll really like:
http://www.hero-farmers.org/
http://www.organicheros.org/
http://www.farmingwithhorses.com/contact.php
Up Coming Gardening Events at Rodale Institute:
* Wednesday, October 7 10am-12pm
Farm and Garden Equipment for the Novice
Jeff Moyer, Owen Maguire, Mark Scheetz
* Wednesday, November 4 10am-12pm
Pruning 101
April Johnson
* Wednesday, December 2 10am-12pm
Build Your Own Gardening Containers
April Johnson
Workshops are subject to change.
Fee: $20.00/person
Register by calling 610-683-6009 or email ribooks@fast.net.
(Pre-registration is required.)
