Rachael's Café

You are cordially invited to attend the City – County Residents’ Breakfast this Friday, May 18 2012, at 7:30am at Rachael’s Cafe (300 E. 3rd Street – between Grant and Lincoln).  Special guests this month are Jodee Ellett and Megan Huchison from the Local Growers Guild.

Tomato "Caviar" from Jodee Ellett's Gener8 Farm

Co-hosts Dorothy Granger, of the Bloomington City Council, and Julie Thomas, of the Monroe County Council, continue the tradition of bringing city – county issues to the breakfast table. Together, we will explore the issue of local food—from city garden plots to bringing area agriculture to restaurants and residents of the community.

Please join us to learn about this important aspect of promoting local food production (and more nutritious eating habits in our community)! Questions and comments are encouraged.

Contact Julie Thomas and Dorothy Granger if you have questions or suggestions for future topics.

Ready, Set, Grow!

Come learn from the experts: you’ll find demos on seed starting and transplanting, composting, container gardening and garden layout. For those who feel particularly ambitious, come learn about beekeeping!

Jonathan Jenner, board president of the Local Growers’ Guild and owner of Minifundia, will be there—stop by and say hello to him!

The 4-H Poultry Club will be on hand to talk with you about keeping chickens. Whether you are an experienced gardener or a novice, you will also find numerous ways to volunteer in gardens around town growing food for our community, learning a lot in the process.

All this will be happening on the Showers Plaza from 10 to noon on Saturday, May 19, 2012.

Ready, Set, Grow! is sponsored by the Bloomington Food Policy Council and the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability.

If she lives nearby, bring your mom to the Garden Gala and Plant Sale at T.C. Steele State Historic Site on Saturday, May 12, 2012, from 10 am – 4 pm. You can enjoy a day of workshops together, or just look around the beautiful gardens. She can pick out the perfect plant right on-site.

All the proceeds from the plant sale will go toward the restoration and maintenance of the historic gardens at the site.

There will be a selection of perennials, natives, herbs and annuals, as well as free presentations on interesting topics:

11 am •  Beekeeping with Steve Grubbs, Brown County Beekeeper for over 30 years

1 pm  • Backyard Chickens with Anne Foley, Ph.D. Food Science, University of Wisconsin

3 pm • Basic Pruning with Ben Edmonds, Monroe County Master Gardener

Artist-in-Residence John Bradley will be present, helping the T.C. Steele State Historic Site celebrate the art of garden design. Check out a new addition to the gardens that Bradley designed as a part of his residency.

Bradley will also hold a public demonstration at the site’s 13^th annual Festival of Flowers Paint Out on May 19, 2012. And he is offering a workshop called Painting Nature: Watercolor and the Creative Process on May 20, 2012. Learn more about John Christopher Bradley here.

For more information about T.C. Steele or the Garden Gala and Plant Sale, contact the site at tcsteeleshs[at]indianamuseum[dot]org or 812-988-2785.

T.C. Steele State Historic Site is located on Hwy 46 just west of Nashville in the heart of artistic Brown County. Part of the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, the site is “where nature’s beauty meets the artist’s canvas.” The home, studio and gardens of this noted Hoosier artist still provide inspiration today through site tours, outdoor painting competitions and artist-in-residence programs.

Middle Way House Rooftop Garden Initiative

There’s a garden going up on the roof of the Bloomingfoods Food Works Commissary Kitchen at Middle Way House! Community-powered and built by volunteer interns, the MWH rooftop garden will be maintained by people with an interest in gardening, vermiculture, sustainability, urban agriculture, bookkeeping, site and demonstration design, construction, children’s education, photography, and journalism. Anyone with a desire to learn about this project, and about rooftop gardening in general, is encouraged to get involved.

Here’s a photo from the first day of set-up on the roof. More photos are archived at the Bloomingfoods flickr site, too.

Summer interns will work on the project from May 7 to August 27. Please contact Garden Coordinator Ricca Macklin, by email at richmack[at]indana[dot]edu to learn more about this project.

Renaissance Farm is operated by Keith Johnson and Peter Bane, of Permaculture Activist magazine. Salem Willard and Jonas Carpenter of Bread and Roses are also contributing plants to this sale.

The location is 5421 E Kings Rd (1/4 mi. East of Long’s Landing Furniture) on 46 East, near Bloomington, Ind.

At the sale: 2-year old purple passion asparagus roots, 5/$8, 10/$15, or 20/$28. One of the tastiest varieties—much sweeter than common green types. Spears turn green when cooked and have a mild, nutty flavor. Click here for good instructions about planting asparagus. Here’s a photo of purple asparagus growing in Orange County.

Many more plants available, including Fall Gold Raspberries, Echinacea Raspberry Truffle, Stenophyllus, and varieties of Crocosmia, Clematis, and Peony.

Contact Keith Johnson at 812-3350-383 for more information.

Improving Kids' Environment

Former US Under Secretary of Agriculture Gus Schumacher will give the keynote address at the 2012 IKE Summit on Urban and Local Foods in Indianapolis on Friday, May 4 from 9am to 3pm, at the IUPUI Campus Center in Indianapolis.

Mr. Schumacher co-founded a non-profit, Wholesome Wave, that works to bring fresh, local food to underserved communities. He served as Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1997 to 2001 and was a member of the 21st Century Sustainable Agricultural Task Force of the National Academy of Sciences.

Schumacher also assisted in overseeing the preparation of the Chicago Council of Global Affairs report titled “Modernizing America’s Food and Farm Policy: Vision for a New Direction.”

$20 registration fee includes lunch. Click here for more information and registration. 

The full title of the Summit is Breaking Barriers and Protecting Health. This event is organized by Improving Kids’ Environment, a group that works to reduce environmental threats to children’s health.

Meet Jodee Ellett and Megan Hutchison at Green Drinks Bloomington on Wednesday, April 24, between 5:30 and 7:30 pm. They will discuss the new LGG local food distribution project.

On Wednesday, April 25th, at 6pm at Upland’s Banquet Facility, LGG board member Jodee Ellett and guild manager Megan Hutchison will give a presentation called “Establishing a Local Food Hub in Bloomington.”

For many reasons, access to quality local food is on of the most important issues communities will need to solve in the coming years. For an individual consumer in Bloomington access is excellent, but what is the long-term goal for a sustainable food distribution program?  What are the obstacles toward reaching this goal and how can we overcome them?  The Local Growers Guild has studied these questions in depth and has now begun work on a grassroots distribution project.

Green Drinks Bloomington takes place from 5:30pm to 7:30pm on the 4th Wednesday of the month, with a short presentation at 6pm each time.

Remember when we told you just a few weeks ago that the 2012 Farm Bill was on its way?

Well, the first draft is here—and it doesn’t do nearly as much as it should for beginning farmers and ranchers. We’ve got to keep up the pressure to achieve real reform—and we need your help. It’s not too late to get a better food and farm bill through Congress—if we act quickly! 

Beginning Farmers and Ranchers  –  The future of American agriculture depends on the next generation of farmers and ranchers. Congress needs to hear from you today that support for beginning farmers and ranchers must be part of the 2012 Farm Bill.

Tomorrow the Senate agriculture committee will vote on several amendments to the draft farm bill including the Brown-AGI amendment and The Leahy Agricultural Land Easements for Beginning Farmers Amendment. Both amendments support and fund beginning farmer programs.

For a drilldown about what has happened so far, and how it concerns beginning farmers, click here.

One important way to take action is to call or email your Senator today. We have only a one-day window—these amendments were filed the day before yesterday and will be voted on tomorrow, so our Senators need to hear from us as soon as possible.

If you live in Indiana, please consider calling Senator Richard Lugar today:

Evansville - (812) 465-6313

Fort Wayne - (260) 422-1505

Indianapolis - (317) 226-5555

Valparaiso - (219) 548-8035

Washington, D.C. - (202) 224-4814

When you call, simply ask for the staffer who works on agriculture, and deliver this message:  “I support sensible farm policy and programs that help beginning farmers and ranchers succeed. Please support the Leahy Agricultural Land Easements for Beginning Farmers and the Brown-Nelson AGI amendment.” 

Stay tuned for more opportunities for action—it’s going to take all of us speaking out loud and clear in the weeks to come.

Thank you for all that you do,

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition grassroots team

P.S.  When you call, tell us how it went!

Looking for more details? Find them here.

"Digest This" panelists

Food controversies are part of an ongoing, oftentimes heated, conversation these days—over the kitchen table, at Farmers’ Markets, on college campuses, in social media, and on the radio.

Harvest Public Media — along with partner station KBIA — produced a live webcast called “Digest This: The Messages and Motives Behind Farm and Food Controversies” last March 16, 2012.

The talk show, moderated by KBIA’s Reuben Stern, the host of the station’s local TV show “Intersection,” was held in a Columbia, Missouri., restaurant in front of a standing room only crowd.  It focused on how Americans talk about food production and farming, and (more pointedly), how special interests try to steer the conversation.

You can watch the show by clicking on the play button at the Harvest Public Media website. Listen to the recorded live online chat, too, by hitting the Replay button on the box on the right at the website.

The show’s panelists were:

•  Wes Jamison, an associate professor of communication at Palm Beach Atlantic University. His research involves political communication and public relations as it relates to food, agriculture, and science politics, and corporate communications.

• Mike Adams, host of AgriTalk, a syndicated radio talk show featuring discussions about issues and ideas important to rural America.

• Chris Chinn, a hog producer and fifth-generation farmer and former chair of the national AFBF Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee.

•  Bruce Friedrich, senior director for strategic initiatives at Farm Sanctuary, a farm animal protection organization. He is the co-author of the “The Animal Activist’s Handbook.”

The producers say: “Unfortunately, we were only able to skim the surface in this hourlong session. And we recognize that there are many more sides and nuances that need to be explored. (Click here to read Peggy Lowe’s blog post about the event.) We welcome your input as we make plans to digest as much as possible in future talk shows.”

The show drew this criticism from Melinda Hemmelgarn, a registered dietitian and journalist who blogs at Food Sleuth: ”Clearly missing from the panel: an organic farmer to describe truly sustainable agriculture — as concluded by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization. ‘… organic agriculture has the potential to secure a global food supply, just as conventional agriculture is today, but with reduced environmental impact.’”

“Digest This” was presented by Harvest Public Media, KBIA and the Reynolds Journalism Institute.

Harvest Public Media is currently looking for a few good reporters, too, to continue to cover the news—and the controversies—involving farms, fields, fuel, and food.

Join Purdue Extension for a High Tunnel Crop Talk on Monday, April 23, from 12:30-1:30 EST/11:30-12:30 Central.

High Tunnel Crop Talks are regularly scheduled discussions of crop progress and of current issues for food crops in high tunnels and in greenhouses.

There’s one this Monday, April 23, from 12:30-1:30 Eastern/11:30-12:30 Central, and additional Crop Talks every other week through June 18, during the 2012 growing season.

Participants include growers, Purdue Extension educators and specialists, students, NRCS Staff, and other people interested in the topic.

To join the Crop Talk, dial 1-866-492-6283 (for audio). Or, from a high speed internet connection, point your browser to this link. Login as a ‘guest’ by entering your name. When the meeting room window opens on your computer, follow the instructions on the screen to have the automated system call your phone number; you’ll then be able to answer the call, listen, and be heard. If you participate over the internet you will be able to see images and other resources that may be shared during the call.

These bi-weekly discussions, hosted by Purdue University staff, will include time for reports on the progress of high tunnel or greenhouse crops, and questions and answers about current production issues.

Do you have pictures of a crop or tunnel for discussion?

Email them to emaynard[at]purdue[dot]edu by 8pm Sunday, April 22, 2012, with HTCT in the subject line of the message. During the discussion, photos and other visuals will be viewable in an Adobe Connect meeting room accessible via high-speed internet.

A summary of each discussion is posted on the Indiana High Tunnels blog.

Future High Tunnel Crop Talks will take place on these dates: April 23, May 7, May 21, June 4, and June 18.

To receive reminder emails about High Tunnel Crop Talks, sign up for Purdue’s Fruit and Vegetable email list. Click on ‘Subscribe/Unsubscribe to the Commercial Fruit and Vegetable Crops mail list!’, enter your email address, and click ‘subscribe.’

These events are sponsored by the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Purdue University, with assistance from USDA/SARE Indiana PDP Program.

For more information, contact Liz Maynard, emaynard[at]purdue[dot]edu or 219-531-4200, ext. 4206.

At  The Purdue Extension Education Store you can order a Midwest Vegetable Production Guide for Commercial Growers 2012 (ID-56). To order by phone, call toll free (888) EXT-INFO.

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