Green Eats

Orren Fox is officially the coolest kid in school. I learned about him, his chickens and bees, and his advocacy through an article that he wrote for Civil Eats. I won’t rehash the article here, but suffice it to say this kid rocks. In a world full of Happy Meals and Lucky Charms, it is incredibly refreshing to find a young person who takes the time to think about where food comes from.

Check out Orren’s blog, Happy Chickens Lay Healthy Eggs, and follow him on Twitter: @happychickens & @happyhoneybees.

Photo by Libby DeLana

There are thousands of us out there, I know it. Frustrated, would-be gardeners who live in urban areas without yards, or rent and cannot start a garden. Container gardening only scratches that itch for a while, but eventually you need your own piece of earth to rip up and bring to life. Enter Hyperlocavore, A Yardsharing Community. This online group connects those with extra land to those with a green-thumb and a desire to garden. You can search the group for local yards to share, post your own yard, join in discussions, and more. Take a minute and check it out! (If you decide to join Hyperlocavore, please check out my Triangle Region Yardshare group – I’d love to start developing an active yardshare community here in the Triangle!)

Literally and figuratively. This past Saturday three intrepid South Estes Farmers’ Market customers gathered to put their culinary skills to the test in an Iron Chef-style battle for the ultimate prize, a professional Wusthof knife set donated by Kitchenworks. I put together the event in my capacity as a member of the Friends of the Market Committee and the Community Representative on the Board of Directors, with LOTS of help from SEFM Market Manager Andrea Wood. I’ve done lots of events in my life, but this was my first time doing a cooking competition and needless to say I was a little stressed! Luckily everything worked out wonderfully, and I’m happy to say that SEFM customer Jennie Heck wowed the judges and walked away with the grand prize! Click through for the photos and a link to the winning recipe.

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Civil Eats has posted a great interview with Jennifer Curtis, principal of Curtis Consulting and Project Director for CEFS NC Choices program. Jennifer has been an integral part of North Carolina’s local food movement since the 1980s, and most recently has begun working on the issue of getting sustainable meat into larger markets.

Read the interview here.

Sustainable agriculture’s number one cheerleader, author Michael Pollan, has launched a new website that serves as a one-stop clearinghouse for all of his books, articles, interviews, and more. The site is definitely the place to go for all things Pollan, but what I enjoy most is the “Today’s Link” section, a blog-like forum where he shares a link to various stories and happenings in the world of sustainable agriculture. Head on over and check it out – www.michaelpollan.com

Central Carolina Community College, nationally recognized for its Sustainable Agriculture program (in which I am currently enrolled), will be offering two new programs this fall – the Natural Chef culinary program and the Sustainable Technology program. Both programs will be housed in the college’s new, LEED-certified Sustainable Technologies Center, along with the current Sustainable Agriculture, Biofuels, Ecotourism, and Green Building programs. The addition of these two new programs puts CCCC in the forefront of sustainable education in the United States, a claim that few other colleges or universities can make. Check out the college’s Sustainable Technologies website for more information on the various programs.

Renowned farmer and sustainable agriculture advocate Joel Salatin (of Food, Inc. and The Omnivore’s Dilemma fame) will be giving a seminar at Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro on June 30th. The seminar, entitled “Local Food to the Rescue”, will be hosted by CCCC’s Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Chef programs along with the NC Tobacco Trust Fund and the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. This free event will begin with a tour of the CCCC student farm at 5:30pm and refreshments at 6:30pm (the farm has a brick pizza oven!); Salatin’s seminar will begin at 7pm. I plan on being there to support my program and to meet Joel Salatin, and I hope that you will be able to join me!

Central Carolina Community College is located at 764 West Street in Pittsboro, about a mile west of the traffic circle.

Hat tip to Carrie & David of Crumb for the heads up, via the Western Wake Farmers’ Market website.

Photo courtesy of the Eno River Farmers Market

In what they say is a first for the Triangle, the Eno River Farmers’ Market in Hillsborough has started an online ordering site. Customers can “shop the market” online from Saturday to Monday and then pick up their orders at the Public Market House on E. Margaret Street in Hillsborough on Wednesdays.

I tested the system myself this past week – on Sunday I ordered potatoes and ground pork from Fickle Creek Farm and carrots from Two Chicks Farm. Wednesday afternoon I headed to historic downtown Hillsborough to pick up my order at the market pavilion on E. Margaret Street. Leila, the Eno River Farmers’ Market manager, told me that they had five orders for the inaugural run, which is more than they expected. I had to pick up my orders from the Fickle Creek and Two Chicks tables, but in the future Leila hopes to be able to have vendors drop off their goods beforehand. Customers would then pick up their orders intact from Leila or a volunteer. The benefits are two-fold – customers on a tight schedule are able to get in and out relatively quickly, and vendors that otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend the Wednesday market are able to have another selling day without having to man a table.

I’m excited about this latest innovation from the Eno River Farmers’ Market, and I plan on ordering pretty regularly. I’m interested in seeing how other customers approach this new way of accessing local food, and if other area markets follow suit.

Eno River Farmers’ Market Online Ordering Site

This past Friday Leland decided to build a cold-frame to help protect some seeds and transplants he’s been nursing along as part of his foray into bonsai. The results were great, and you can read his post on how he built the cold frame for more information. I’m hoping he’ll let me use it next year to get a head start on spring planting!

Leland’s Bonsai blog – Tiny Tree

When someone asks me for an example of a multi-platform, sustainable farm I always reference Fickle Creek Farm. Ben Bergmann and Noah Ranells have built something that most people struggle to attain, a pasture-based, rotational system that incorporates sustainable farming (both with livestock and produce) with agroforestry and permaculture practices while virtually eliminating the need for conventional inputs. I visited Fickle Creek recently and was very impressed with what I saw. Here are some photos:

Ben Bergmann explains the basics behind one of Fickle Creek's chicken tractors

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