Over the weekend, I read a chapter from the book Deep Economy by Bill McKibben. It was titled, “The Year of eating Locally,” and was very similar to Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” and Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon’s book, “Plenty,” in approach. What the three authors have in common is that they went for a good period of time without purchasing any food that was grown outside of the 100/150-mile-radius of their home. While McKibben did this only for one winter (the other authors went for an entire year,) it should be recognized that winter is the most difficult time to procure local foods, at least of the sort we are used to seeing in grocery stores. The difference in McKibben’s analysis is his economic and historical prowess, which gives it an interesting edge over the plethora of books which have come out lately, but have focused more on environmental issues than economic issues. I only began to understand the economic practicality involved in strengthening the local food economy this quarter, and think the view McKibben gives will appeal not only to environmentalists, but to those who worry about the U.S. economy and the food security issues we have seen in the news lately. I will be referring to his words a lot in my paper.

I also read Amy Cloud’s Business Plan for her farm and CSA, which was originally given to banks in an attempt to be given a loan for solar panels on the farm. That hasn’t worked out quite yet, but the plan itself is a wonderful guide to how a CSA works.

This week on the farm, we have mostly focused on weeding. I found out I’m better at using a hand hoe than a stirrup hoe, so Amy and I worked a lot with that to weed the beds of mixed greens. Before Segue cultivated them, the rows basically looked like mini golf fields with all the grass that was sprouting in-between the crops. CSA members are going to have to wait an extra week to pick up their first load of produce, thanks to the crazy weather we’ve had this spring. It has been raining a lot this week, so Wednesday was spent in the greenhouse transplanting tomatoes and seeding watermelon into flats. Thursday it rained again, and Amy didn’t have more work for us to do inside, so we had the day off. Earlier this week we were anticipating the arrival of a few pigs from a local pig farm, but at the last minute the owner decided they weren’t ready yet. Hopefully they will come in soon and we can get started on the pig fence. Segue and Amy are very excited for the new arrival.

Last week Amy and I fertilized with dry meal, but on Tuesday I got to use the liquid stuff. Fish emulsion, to be exact. Luckily I couldn’t really smell it as I sprayed it in small amounts onto the leaves and roots of our strawberry plants, which are coming up quite nicely and have nice white flowers.
On Saturday I am going to the Tower Grove Farmer’s Market, the first day of the season, where Amy will be selling bedding plants and making connections. She said that if it rains, she can expect 50% less profit than she would have made otherwise. Apparently people in St. Louis don’t like to be out when it’s raining. I am looking forward to interviewing Patrick Horine, the owner of the market and a health food store called Local Harvest. I found an article about him in the RiverFront Times that speaks of the different farmer’s markets in St. Louis; you can check it out here.

At the farm, the garlic is basically the best-looking crop around, and they have been able to get a lot planted this past week, with special thanks to all of Amy’s CSA members and the Principia students who came out to help on Saturday. A lot of students at Prin are interested in helping out at the farm, which is really exciting! Hopefully this will help people know their options for fresh produce when they graduate :) .

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