Hi Folks,
We’ve got a fridge packed full of carrots, lettuce mix, various kinds of kale, rhubarb, spinach, new potatoes, brocolli
and eggs.  Stop on by, we”ll keep it stocked all weekend.

We’ve got a good full refrigerator of greens and salads making for your memorial weekend celebrations.

In the biggest protest Bend has seen since the days of Occupy, Jim kicked off the March Against Monsanto Rally speaking to the 300+ people crowd about the history of the Monsanto Corporation and the insidious chemicals they have developed, starting with saccharine.  He then spoke about how about how to get involved in the antidote to Monsanto’s disease, the local food movement.  After a talk by local dairy farmer, Billie Johnson, the crowd marched through and around downtown.  There were colorful signs and costumes.  Millions of people participated in Cites across the world, including a reported 6000 in Portland.  More info on the local event here and here is a youtube video. 
 

It what is shaping up to be the first significant local political rally since the days of Occupy and the Tea Party, protesters will gathering around the world and in Pioneer Park to March Against Monsanto.Jim and Windy Acres Dairy Farmer Billie Johnson will be addressing the crowd.The Schedule:
Pioneer Park, Bend Oregon
10:00am spray painting white t shirts. If you would like one painted please bring it with you.
10:30 Speakers, Jim and Billie Johnson.
10:50 gathering, preparing to march.
11:00am march from Pioneer Park, down wall, up Franklin, down 3rd and back to Pioneer.
After the march there will be a non GMO potluck in the park.
more info:
https://www.facebook.com/events/259209620892380/

We’ve recently found out we’ve lost one of our FarmtoWork drop sites so there are 5 more CSA shares available!  If you’ve thought about trying out the CSA model of buying your season’s worth of produce in the spring with a bag full of produce weekly, now’s the time.  Both large and small shares  are available to fit your needs.  Please see our website www.fieldsfarm.org for more specific info on CSA shares.  The farmstand is open daily with eggs and a variety of greens in the frig.  With this warm weather the crops are happy and growing rapidly.

The first lovely tender greens are harvested and in the frig.  Lettuce Mix, Spinach and Arugula are available for $4.00/bag.  The girls are continuing to lay plenty of eggs.
CSA shares are also available.  Let us know if you would like to pay by credit card here at the farm.  There’s a $5 service charge and we just have to know when you’re coming so we can have the appropriate electronic devises charged up in advance.
The C.O.C.C. Culinary class on sustainable agriculture was just here and we want to say a big THANK YOU for planting potatoes and spreading mulch.  Some hard work happened here today!

Spring is here and that means lots of activity on the farm.  Our first tunnel full of greens will be ready for harvest within two weeks!  Planting and field preparation are in full swing.   Our chickens are still laying buckets full of eggs and love the green shoots coming up.  Eggs are for sale everyday at the farmstand.  CSA shares, both Large($630.00) and Small($320.00) are for sale.  Call, email or come by, we make purchasing a share easy.
Jim always does some public speaking in the spring.  He will be talking at the Urban Agriculture Conference at C.O.C.C. tomorrow sponsored by the Central Oregon Food Policy Council.  Farm Kids field trips sponsored by Central Oregon Locavor are planned for May.   C.O.C.C. culinary students are coming in April to get a taste of growing the good food they are learning to prepare.  It all keeps us busy and enriches our lives.

This is a response Jim gave to a question regarding GMO foods or other products in our compost.  It maybe more information than you want :)GMO.  Genetically Modified Orgnaisms.  Yes our world is awash in them.  No my compost is not.  First it is good to know what has GMO content.  You can assume all corn Organic or not is contaminated to some degree with GMO genes.  It may not be as I have been saving an Open Pollinated corn here on the farm for 12 years or so and we shouldn’t have any GMO corn in our neighborhood.  Soybeans are mostly GMO.  The food waste we use is from an Organic soybean user so some of the waste will have tamari or tofu but it is organically sourced.  Horses don’t eat corn.  Horses eat hay.  The horse manure we receive is from a couple that have horses not children.  They are treated homeopathically for disease when it occurs.  They use natural wormers not Ivomectrin or the like.  Sugar beets are now all GMO, but I don’t see any sugar in the food waste.  Canola is almost all GMO and it is only used for oil and we sure don’t put oil into the compost pile.  The kale, caulifower, potatoes, rice, beans, peppers,lettuce, spinach and all the other human food waste that comes from the waste stream we feed the compost pile is NOT GMO.  By content the food waste makes up less than 10% of the pile.  The compost pile is a biological fire.  The micro-organisms are in a feeding frenzy cutting up,eating, digesting, and dying there way through the proteins, and carbohydrates that is the food we put out there for them to eat. In this process high temperatures are generated.  We try to keep the pile from going thermo-nuclear by adding water (we live in a desert so water is the limiting factor for our piles)  and turning the pile based on temperature and other characteristics.  We have been doing all of this for over 30 years and yes the world is changing around us with more corporate influence and the products they promote including those with GMO’s.  My family eats what I grow and i have fed thousands of people in Central Oregon for over 23 years.  They tell me I have the best Arugula they have ever tasted and the sweetest carrots best garlic and so on. Healthy soil is created by nature or can be helped by man with the inclusion of compost into the soil.  I like compost.  I have my hands in it all the time.

Farmer JimHead weeder

Central Oregon Sand.   What we have for topsoil here is officially called Deschutes Sandy Loam.  It is about 70% sand by the best soil test done on the farm.  To grow much I have always made compost and added as much as I could to the soil in the spring or fall as time allowed.  Over time this has increased our soil organic matter to around 5%. More than doubling the original number.  All the while tilling and growing for hundreds of people.  For compost ingredients we started with Horse manure.  Most easily found at riding stables where they look the other way while you hand fork it into what ever you brought to pickup with.  I have used mostly a pickup when I was hauling horse manure to the farm but I’ve seen mercedes wagons with carefully laid plastic sheets loading up all that they could hold (not much).  We found that by adding some hop waste from the local brewery the horse manure would start to compost faster.  And we like the smell of the hops and the guys making the beer were a good bunch too.  From my research it seemed that coffee grounds would be a good addition to the pile so we gathered them from a number of coffee roaster/shops.  They worked really well too.  A few years ago we had the oppportunity to compost food waste from a number of restaurants.  The food waste works well too but isn’t as pleasant as Beer or hops and coffee grounds.   I say all this in explanation for what do I do in the winter time when I can’t farm.  Well I am farming for the future by doing all this composting throught the year.  Hope your enjoying your winter too.Jim

Nothing like a few warm days and we think wahoo, time to farm.  So before we get busy we want to share some of the plans for the 2013 season.  For the past several years we have had the privilege to participate in the Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement Collabrative.  It is a collabaration between university rsearchers, seed producers and vegetable farmers to pick and grow varieties of vegetable with the most desirable characteristics for our growing conditions.  We recently attended the yearly review of last season’s vegetable trials and do we have new varieties to try.  We’ll be growing a new kale that everyone agreed had the best flavor, two corn varieties that have better cold tolerance and we will be growing several varieties of spinach looking for the best flavor, cold and heat tolerance.
Julie, who helped us out last year has a project growing sweet potatoes in barrels.  No guarentee of the results but it’s what keeps farming fun and interesting for a lifetime.  My special project is to continue to select a short season dry bean.
CSA shares are now on sale.   The price of a full share will remain the same as last year at $630.  This is a large grocery bag of produce available weekly from the 2nd or 3rd week in May(weather dependant) through the last week in October and a final bag of storage vegetables the week before Thanksgiving.  By peak season a full share will have 12 to 15 items per bag.  The pick up day at the farm will be Tuesday.
We will also offer a small share this year.  The cost will be $320 for a the midsized grocery bag from mid May to the end of October with the November storage bag.  A small share will have 5 to 7 items and the pick up day will be Thursday. 
To purchase a share we need your name, address,  phone number and email along with a check.  We do accept half payment to secure your share with the second payment due by June 1st.  As soon as I receive your check I will email confirmation of your share.