Tigers for Community Agriculture is now official!

Tigers for Community Agriculture is now official! Now, pause for the next breath, then onward to the next hurdle.

Those who have believed and helped we thank you for your patience, help, and most of all...work. We are grateful to you.

Andrew

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From: MU STUDENT LIFE StudentOrgs
Subject: Congratulations!

Dear New Organizations,

Congratulations! Your new organization has been approved and is now fully recognized by the University of Missouri.

Cheers,

Saturday Planting Day with Pictures!

Well, Saturday we had a planting day. It was great day for us. We got quite a bit planted. We had some miscommunications, but it will be o.k., but due to this we ended up with the following being planted.

• 800 Row feet of peas (1 variety)

• 400 row feet of cucumbers on 12” centers (4 varieties)

• 1000 row feet of pole green beans (2 varieties)

• 2800 row feet of bush beans (5 varieties)

• 1 – 4x16 raised bed of carrots (3 varieties)

• 52-75 tomato plants (various varieties of heirloom and some hybrids)

• Peppers (I still don’t know how many were planted but we didn’t get to them all)

The good news is that with the different varieties we planted we will have veg. always coming in at different times. So, not every green bean will be ready at the same time.

We still have more to plant this week and get irrigation in ASAP! We had Shakespeare Pizza afterwards. Pictures are to follow in the next few days.

We wish to express our immense gratitude to all who came and help to give us life! We couldn’t have done it without you! Now the rain has come on Monday I am reminded of this quote,

“Man—despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments—owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.” Unknown

Peas

Adam Saunders planting Cucumbers.

Adam again with helper.

Whitney making soil blocks for late season TP.


Laying out the grid for the tomatoes, Dr. Blevins & helper.


Watering the tomatoes in hoop house #4, Whitney & Abby


Finishing the layout in hoop house #5


Hoop house #2 -- cool season veg. is growing nicely!

The Challenges of a Start-Up

When I took the entrepreneurship class last semester, we discussed the issues and “hurdles” of starting a new venture. I didn’t know at that time how valuable those discussions would be.

A lot has happened since my last communication. While it was happening, it would probably have been more confusing than enlightening for me to try to explain what was going on. Now that we are mostly through it, I will attempt to summarize and bring all up to speed.

While our project has received much publicity and many think it a worthwhile endeavor, we hit our first big hurdle….well, more like a wall. But, being naive about University policy we did not realize at the time that we had hit a wall. I speak of the hiring freeze that occurred here at MU.

The hiring freeze eliminated the way we had planned to hire 1-2 full time students to help with the CSA. With no income from the CSA, and still needing to make rent, our help had to find other employment. We began the struggle for life, started to fall behind our planting schedule…, and had to pare back our goals. But, we have pulled together as a group and have plants growing in three hoop houses. We have work days scheduled for both this weekend and next weekend….and much additional planting will take place over the next 10 days.

We have benefited from the counsel of Dr. Garton, Lisa Wimmenauer, Tim Reinbott, and others. With their help we have made several changes.

1. We are becoming a student group. The name will be Students for Community Agriculture.
2. Once club status is granted on April 28, we can receive a waiver from the hiring freeze, and hire if we still want/need to do so.
3. We will probably not operate a CSA model this year.
a. We CAN sell crops we grow at Olivet; the “How” is still under discussion.
b. Members of Olivet Church can work in the fields with us students, if there is interest on their part….pending a couple of legal issues.
c. Donations of food to the Food Bank are still permissible and encouraged.

We sincerely appreciate the support we have received as we “slogged” through a number of unanticipated issues. We value the extracurricular learning this project is giving us (most of the time). But, I must admit there are times it felt like the hurdles were pretty high.

More later,

Andrew

Pepper & Friends

Well we were on Pepper & Friends.
Here is the video. It's around 4:50 minutes.

Seedlings are poking thru, excitment in the air!

Lots of soil blocks, 50 per tray. They are all 2''x 2''

G-Mail

We now have a G-mail account for contacting us. It is bradfordfarmcsa@gmail.com Please feel free to drop us a line.

Busy, Busy, Busy

This week I have had to meet with a new member of the team, write a survey, get IRB Certified, plant seeds, work out problems with the hiring freeze, and fix a problem with our media used to plant the seed. That is the short version.

The longer version, I met with Sarah Ratermann about the possibility of the surveys we need done working for her Master's Program. We think it will, just not this semester. So, that puts the onus on me to write a survey. As this progressed I found out I need to be IRB certified. I still have paper work to fill out to be a student group, and for an EBT machine grant so we can take food stamps.

Sally, Brad, and I planted seeds on Monday afternoon. We are using soil blocks. This is relatively new to people here. Nobody seems to have heard of it. The problem we discovered was that the media we were using was for bedding plants, not germination. Yes, lots of LOL. It's either that or cry. So, Friday I went to Morgan County Seed and got the right stuff. I made the fertilizer mix for the soil block mix on Saturday. Green sand was the limiting reagent.

Also this week, went and talked to some people who could help me understand the hiring freeze. It is negatively affecting this student project. I went to schedule an appointment with Bryan Garton, the Interim Associate Dean and Director of CAFNR, and got right in and talked with him. I am grateful he took the time for us. I hope he can help the way he thinks he might be able to help.

This next week I have to have a rough draft of the survey to the board by Monday night and, finish the paperwork for the grant. When it comes to the paperwork for the student group, I am wondering if maybe we shouldn’t join Sustain Mizzou. Maybe that would be the best for all. I don’t know yet. I will be thinking much on this topic as I fill out the paperwork. I will still need to help plant seed this week, on Monday and Friday. Oh and then there is school and all the work that goes with it. I have a test and a paper due. I also have to have my graduation plan done before I see Dr. Spain on Wednesday morning.

Busy, Busy, Busy,

Andrew

Olivet Christian Church

Today I went and gave a very fast presentation to the members of Olivet Christian Church on what exactly is a CSA and their part in it. I had less than 30 minutes to tell them all and answer questions. I had quite a few say afterwards that the presentation was just what they were looking for. I hope so. I like the atmosphere of their church, it is very friendly. Now, I just need to get a rough draft of the survey to them by the 23rd so they can approve it. No pressure...lol Oh well, it will work out. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that I don't have to have all the answers all the time, if I am patient, they will usually show themselves. Here's hoping I don't have a blind spot this week.

Andrew

Germination Mats & Starting to Bloom

Well yesterday I went down with my wife to Morgan County Seeds and purchased some germination mats and 28 different varieties of tomato seeds. They were out of four others that Tim wanted, but maybe next time. These seeds will help plant the tomatoes for the Tomato Festival at Bradford Farm. Personally, we bought a pH meter that you have to just stick in the soil, no wet kit. I hope it's reliable.

Sunday I will make a presentation at Olivet Christan Church at 10:30, I hope it goes well.

Sally and I talked about planting dates and it looks like we are getting started on Monday February 16th, 2009 from 1-5 p.m. We will be making soil blocks and planting seed.

We've been working on trying to solve our labor problems, especially for the summer. I was talking to Adam Saunders at the Sustainable Ag Breakfast at Cafe Berlin and he mentioned he had contacts who might be willing to help with the CSA.

I meet with a graduate student in Rural Sociology this week to see if we can work together on some survey's that need to be done. We need to get a survey out around the 1st of March!!

That's all for now, more as it comes.

Andrew

New Leadership Team Member

Well, we have added another person to our team. Her name is Jena Thompson. She is an Ag-J major emphasizing in web communications. She will be running the weekly newsletter for our customers. We talked strategy and she has some great ideas to solve some of our problems. She will be taking over this blog and our Facebook group of Bradford Farm CSA . Hopefully, communications will improve, as this area is not my strong suit.

Seeds Bought

We just bought our first order of seed, from Johnny's Selected Seed. I know they can be more expensive, but they gave such great service that it helped make this first order easier. This is only the first of cool season vegetables, but it's a start.

Also, bought some soil block makers. I'm so excited!

Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference Day 3

Today I went to a class on Organic Potato Production. My potatoes this year got some kind of fungus and all died leaving me nothing but little baby potatoes. I went next to a class on Organic IPM. It was fine, wish there had been more resources that we could look up on our own. They only gave this lady 1/2 hour, not nearly enough time. It was packed.

Next, I went to Record Keeping. It too was something I needed to better improve myself. The Emergency Planning I wanted to go to next was canceled. I then went to a classes on Solar Powered Irrigation Systems, Energy Saving Practices on the Farm, and No-till Using Organic Production. These were interesting, but the last two for me were kind of a let down. Maybe I was expecting too much? I did still learn so much today. I hope I can remember it all and implement it all as well.

I took a wrong turn on the freeway there in KC and boy what an adventure, as we had to go to KS before we could get turned around. I hate driving in KC! I can't say that enough. I hate driving in KC! Anyway, we finally made it back to Bradford around 7:30 p.m. What a day! What a trip! I look forward to going again.

Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference Day 2

Today I attended classes on specific vegetables such as tomatoes varieties, controlling disease in cucurbits, and how to 'squash' insect/pest problems. I also attended a class on Weed the Soil not the Crop, it gave a lot of food for thought. Last I went to a class about Sustainable Greenhouse Practices, this guy didn't seem to know what he was talking about and used some terms pretty loosely for some of us in the audience. I picked up a lot of catalogs and literature, look forward to reading and browsing. We had a meeting tonight called the Grower Innovation Meeting or something like that. It was great! Lots of great ideas, a good MC helped keeping going and the skit at the end by two Mennonite guys really stole the show.

More tomorrow.

Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference Day 1

CSA Mini-school

Well I came with Tim Reinbott to the Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference in St. Joseph and I attended the CSA mini-school on today. Tim went to the High Tunnel workshop. I learned quite a bit today. I came with the attitude that if I learned at least one good thing that helped me I had made the right choice. Two pages, front a back, later I say I got my money's worth of helpful information.

I have always considered doing a CSA where the shares are preboxed. In New England they have moved away from that and now do it where people get choices at the place of pick up. This yields higher customer satisfaction and retention.

I learned a lot more but this is all I will write tonight. I am so excited and grateful to be here!

CAFNR website update!

Well the CAFNR website was just updated with our story. I have got to go on a diet. To all you lurkers, who don't post, do you have any questions I could answer?

Odds & Year ends

Well first off I was invited to a Christmas party of people interested and involved in sustainable agriculture. It was great, my wife and I enjoyed ourselves. Next, I received a Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog in the mail and decided to call them. They have been very helpful so far. I hope this relationship blossoms. I think they can help out quite a bit. This week I am going to the Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference in St. Joseph MO. I look forward to what I can learn and hopefully apply in this venture. I will post after I get back.