Tag: training

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Microbes Are Microscopic

For the most part, the soil is a mystery. Based on the rate of discovery it is estimated that only 5% of bacteria and 10% of fungi have even been identified. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.”

What we do know is that soil is alive with, not just the animals and arthropods that we can see, but trillions upon trillions of microscopic organisms with names like fungi, bacteria, actinomycete, protozoa, and nematode.

Think of microbes as the plankton of the soil. They are the base of the “soil food web”, working to recycle the waste of the world into plant food. They make compost, and beer, cheese, kombucha, bread, mushrooms, and so much more.  

There is another universe in the soil that is completely out of sight without a microscope. Here are some statistics:

  • Up to 500,000 bacteria can fit in the period of the exclamation point at the end of this sentence!
  • There are literally billions of microbes and miles of fungal hyphae in a couple tablespoons of good compost.
  • A teaspoon of colloidal humus has the surface area of a football field!
  • The average bacterial cell is 1/25,000 of an inch in length and even smaller in diameter. In other words, one could place 25,000 bacteria cells, side by side, on an inch-long line.
  • By contrast, if 25,000 people were lined up shoulder to shoulder, they would make a line over 18 miles long.
  • Microbes are everywhere, there are more microbial cells in and on a human not taking antibiotics than there are human cells.
  • The book Secrets of the Soil says that a single microbe reaching maturity and dividing within less than half an hour, can, in the course of a day, grow into 300 million more; and in another day, to more than the number of human beings that have ever lived.
  • According to the book Microcosmos, bacteria, in four days of unlimited growth, could outnumber all the protons and even the quarks estimated to exist within the universe.
  • A typical bacteria would be something like 0.003 mm long and it would weigh only 0.000000000001 grams.
  • Recently nanobacteria called archaea a hundred times smaller than common bacteria, have been found.  
  • At the other end of the scale, giant bacteria are known.  One, Epulopiscium fishelsoni is 0.06 mm long and 0.008 mm wide.
  • True diversity cannot be understood in a lab or with a microscope. It can only be established through DNA testing. Even then, how do we even know what we’re looking for?
  • The best indication of diversity is whether the inoculant was created in a natural setting, preferably a farm, and in the how well the product performs when growing plants.  
  • Lab-based inoculants lack the strength of microbes from Nature. Microbes from Nature have more life experience.

BioEnergetic farming is soil-centered. Feed the soil, not the plant. Organic fertilizers are the baking ingredients, and compost tea is like the yeast that makes the bread. Conventional farming is drowning, “organic” farming is treading water, and BioEnergetic farming is swimming where you want to go.   

The last 50 years in agronomy has been dominated by a mineral, and mostly artificial, approach to agriculture. Big Ag is a result of the misguided business model of large corporations selling artificial chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, etc. that value profit over farming and work to kill soil microbes. The soil is no more than an inert sponge.   

It doesn’t take much to turn dirt into soil. And it starts with soil microbes.


 

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Do you have the courage to walk out your door and rip up your lawn? Make a plan!

Just because you are on this website is evidence enough that you’ve got what it takes to grow you’re own food.

It’s a smart brave move on your part to take control of your food and where it comes from.  To know that it’s safe and truly nutritious.

Join the ranks of the grassroots garden renegades that are popping up everywhere!  When we grow food, we are making an impact on our health, the community, the environment and helping to localize our food system for food security. AND yard farming can be a real income generator.

If you are serious about growing food, this is the place!  It pays to get started learning everything you can so that you can have the success you’re looking for sooner than later.

WARNING….once you get started you’ll be hooked.

Record numbers of people are growing food in pots in the window, on the patio, plots in the backyard, front yard, curb sites, public parks, schools, businesses…food can grow almost anywhere!

Where do you want to grow?

Here’s what you need first:  Make a Plan and Get Organized

  • Evaluate your life and what time you can make available for the project.
  • Plan for the size garden you can realistically manage.
  • Assess your growing space options.  Make sure you consider:
    • Do you have permission to use the space? Short or Long Term?
    • Does the area have at least 6-8 hrs. of sunlight daily? Make a sun map (google “sun mapping”)
    • Does it have a safe, convenient  water source?
    • Will it need fencing to minimized wild life distrubance?
    • Get a calendar to use just for the garden to schedule your plan.
    • Get a folder or large manila envelope so you can attach receipts for all your garden seed, tools, investments. You can record and date each oneon the outside of the envelope.  Data is important and will help you get the most from your garden adventure with less waste and cost.  Attach pages that keep track of garden notes, like: Garden map plan, yields, pest problems, budget…

    Equipped with the right information you can get to your goal much faster than most.  This planning can help you save money too!

    We’re with you every step of the way, so get on the Farm-A-Yard email list so that you don’t miss the announcement of our next FREE course. (check your spam folder too to make sure out emails are not getting lost!)

    Click Here to Subscribe

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A Personal Food Revolution

plant-grow-eat-signWe at Farm-A-Yard invite you to take action for a personal food revolution.

So what does a personal food revolution look like?

For some people it means becoming a more conscience mindful eater. Learning to listen to their body and noting how different foods affect their energy, positively or negatively and whether they get bloated or have joint pain, etc. They take note of the kind of relationship they have with food and if that is working for them.

For others it’s about making mindful choices of where their food comes from. Is good food accessible to everyone in their community?  How was it was grown or raised?  Mindfulness like this along with a desire to support a local economy and local farmers who are fair and mindful also of good working conditions for their farm workers.

The ultimate personal revolution for me, is learning to grow my own food, getting back in touch with the vibrant life force of the earth and learn from the quiet, invisible, dynamic wisdom under my feet.

It’s important to me to learn how to best grow my own chemical free food in a way that nurtures and supports the earth that is feeding me.

So why else is this so important?

Our nation’s health crisis is not joke.  We’re the top country in the world for chronic diseases, obesity and diabetes.

So, what is the reason?  It is widely accepted that it has everything to do what we are eating and drinking, the drugs people are taking and generally the soup of environmental toxins surrounding us, not to mention the impact of other life stressors and anxieties.

Our healthcare system today is more accurately described as being focused on the management of “sick care”, not “healthcare”.  We spend billions of dollars to try and find “cures” (and the crisis has only worsened),  but we continue to lack getting to the “root” of the problem and only treat sympthoms.

We have to trace it back to our management of our soil and water, on which our very existence depends.  If we don’t get that right, then all our other efforts, though they are vitally important to the overall solution, all will be in vain because without healthy soil, nothing can be sustainable.

That is why I made the decision, as an urban farmer, to grow BioEnergetically/Biodynamically.  Though I have grown without pesticides and herbicides, and chemical fertilizers, it’s not enough for the poor lifeless dirt that is the norm in America. The soil organisms need to be fed.

Biodynamic farming actually farms the soil, the air and even people.  The Biodynamic preparations are food for the microbes in the soil and the whole eco environment.  The human gut and inner ecosystem is a mirror of the soil web. Our life depends on the health of the invisible microbota of the earth and our connection to it.

So, this is what takes our educational webinars to another level.  Get on our mailing list for more information, you’ll be glad you did.

 

 

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Linda Borghi Speaks at Cultivating Profits in Small Scale Farming Conference

Raise your hand if you plan to dig up some of your lawn and

grow yourself some food.

Linda Borghi was challenging all the attendees at the Cultivating Profits in Small Scale Farming Conference at Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, NC,  to do just that!

Linda and I believe that the good food movement needs to be fun and like many things also needs a jingle and so at the end of the presentation Linda and Marsha, with ukulele in hand, shared the Farm-A-Yard song for a sing-along with the attendees!  And a one and a two…..

Farm-A-Yard Song

Tune: Battle Hymn of the Republic

Farm-A-Yard it’s a movement

Have ya heard, have ya heard?

Turning lawns into food

Spread the word, spread the word

Make some cash

Ditch the grass

Feed yourself, feed the world

Farm-A-Yard it’s a movement

Have ya heard, have ya heard?

Yard to table

We are able

It’s the food that needs no label

Be a Farmer in your own backyard

Start today it’s a movement

Have ya heard, have ya heard?

Farm-A-Yard is a movement to equip folks to grow food to feed their families and even show you how to make an income part-time or full time. Our nation has a bad habit of wasting resources on the 48 million acres of lawn in this country which is depleting our precious water resources and adding tons of toxic chemicals that are polluting the environment…and for what?  

We’re out to change that in a big way!

Farm-A-Yard is localizing our food system one yard at a time.

Farm-A-Yard it’s a movement, have ya heard?  Join the movement, spread the word!

In the New Year, Farm-a-Yard will continue to bring its educational webinars that lay out the step by step basic skills necessary to Farm-a-Yard Biodynamically with a proven business model that shows you how to cultivate sustainable profits and so much more!  

You don’t even have to own land.

Linda Borghi and Evan Folds make a truly Biodynamic team to bring all the pieces together for anyone looking to be successful in growing food for their family or to generate a viable, sustainable income.

Do you want to learn how to transform your soil for results that will blow your mind?  All life hinges on the health of our soil.

We’ve got the “dirt cure” that takes the guesswork out

of how to regenerate the soil.  

This information is revolutionary!  

You’ll never look at the soil in the same way again!  

You can check out some amazing info at www.microbemakers.com.

Get on our email list to learn more 

www.farm-a-yard.com

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Linda Borghi- “Women Who Farm” Interview 2016

Linda Borghi- “Women Who Farm” Interview 2016

What was your earliest memory of taking part in the local food system?

My earliest memory of taking part in the local food system was in 1978 in Bogota New Jersey which is located 5 miles from Midtown Manhattan.

I was a newlywed and we purchased a home that had 67 stairs to the front door, no driveway or garage but the front of that house look like a farm to me. I even grew some corn. At that point Burpee must have thought I had a palatial mansion because every square inch of that property that was capable of growing, was.

Please explain your project and work.

Years later I established Abundant Life Farm, located in the state of New York and I grew bio-dynamically in two locations for 12 years. I practiced an urban farming model called SPIN farming (small plot intensive) which I discovered while combing the internet. It was the only business model that I could find for someone who was growing on small plots of land like myself. I have a business background so I was looking for how to make small scale farming profitable.

Over the years I have taught this model in Africa and Australia and throughout the US. Last season I realized that I could not continue to farm well and teach well at the same time so this grandmother decided to take it on the road. My project is a movement and it’s called Farm-A-Yard. With 40 and a half million acres of lawn in our country that’s consuming 40% of the drinking water on the East Coast, we need to change our ways and that’s what I’m determined to help accomplish.

Through online webinars, I teach, encourage and empower others to convert lawns into food production areas

How has your life changed since you started growing food?

I’ve been growing food for 34 years I can’t even imagine how it was before I grew food. Now that I am not farming I’ve relocated to Beaufort South Carolina in a residential area. The first thing I did was cut out 500 square feet of the lawn to get some food in. I felt very jittery without having food outside my kitchen door.

What has your largest challenge been?  Have you found a way to overcome it? If so, how? 

My largest challenge has been getting others to pay attention. Because I’ve seen so many changes in the past 35 years, right before my very eyes, I feel a responsibility as a 61 year old grandmother to share with others the knowledge that I have. The way I have found to overcome it is to teach, in person, universities, online. That’s my plan.

How can men be allies to women farmers? 

Men can be allies to women farmers through participation, collaboration and taking action.

What made you want to take up this way of life? And how did you get started? 

This way of life was gifted to me from my grandmothers, both my father’s mother and my mother’s mother. They made such an impression on me from such a young age.

I can remember when I was at the tender age of seven saying to myself (about my father’s mother) when I grow up I’m going to be just like you Nonna. Getting started just came naturally.

What has farming/growing food taught you? And how has it changed you? 

Farming and growing food has taught me the art of observation. The most important of all of the skills farming has given me is the skill of observation. Because it’s one of the skills that I’ve honed in on I’m able to apply it in all of the aspects of my life. It’s been quite a blessing!

What is your ten-year vision for yourself? 

My 10 year vision would be at the ripe age of 71 I would be able to drive down suburban neighborhoods and see zucchini growing and lettuce growing and food growing that is my ultimate vision.

What skills have you learned? Can you explain and teach some of those skills to our readers?

I have learned how to make “value added products from growing garlic.  Also how to ferment and  how to grow amazing tomatoes. From growing food and earning money right down to talking about the microbes, I stay on top of the cutting edge information for my students.

What does permaculture mean to you and how does it work in your farm/garden? 

I find permaculture extremely interesting. I’ve taken some course work online in reference to permaculture and what I realized is that it was exactly the way I have been in relationship with the land.

Are you a mother that farms? Can you share your story and experience? 

I’m a grandmother who farms and it’s my intention to reach all of the mothers out there so that they can have true food security.

Are you a first generation farmer, or has farming been in your blood for generations? Please explain the difficulties and victories of whichever perspective applies to you.

I am the oldest of eight in a family of fine art dealers. I had no background in farming within my family.  It’s disturbing that my family would rather I introduced myself as a gardener then as a farmer.

Linda Borghi
Linda@farm-a-yard.com   www.Farm-A-Yard.com   It’s a Movement, Have You Heard?

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The Mowing of the Lawn

The Mowing of the Lawn- by Linda Borghi

Very interesting that I have now had the experience of mowing the lawn three times in the past month and a half and before then, never.  I am here to report that I made it through the dreadful experience all three times although there were moments during the last go around that I thought I would have to throw in the towel.

Lawns and I have never seen eye to eye to begin with but now having to personally interact was a bit over the top for me. You see, we have forty and a half million acres of lawn in our country, a terrible habit we brought over from England. We have had plenty of time now to have become independent thinkers when it comes to this unworthy entity but alas….we have yet to do so.

Did you know that it takes 40% of the drinking water on the east coast to satisfy the needs of this fossil fuel, chemical and time robbing beast. Now the flip side, the benefit, where and what is it? I am far from an experienced lawn mower but thus far for me I see no b
enefit  other than the color……I don’t get it.

Instead of mowing we shoud be eating, we should ditch the grass and feed our families, I swear it would take about the same time and we’d get to eat. Isn’t that true food security?  Besides food security we are given the opportunity to reconnect with the awe inspiring energy that only working with the Earth can give you. There is only one Earth, stop mowing her and start dining with her.  Bon Appétit!

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