Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[miranda@tagoresmith.com]

No, Paul, I didn't think you had used the term "dirty hippie." I was using
it in a tongue-in-check manner, because that was what people thought of us
at the time.

As for the secret to our success: there were several, actually.
Personally, I was lucky in that I didn't have to go through much of a
learning curve--I grew up on a small nursery that my mother ran
organically. She had the foresight to understand that "if it'll kill a
bug, it'll kill a person." So I came into it with a good many skills and a
fair bit of knowledge. Plus, I am a stickler for quality. So it wasn't
hard to get accounts. If you sample a restaurant with really good stuff at
reasonable prices and then call them twice a week to give them
availabilities, you'll get the market unless they have acess to better
quality produce.

As for innovations--they are no longer innovations. But at the time, they
were. We really worked on the design of permanent biological islands in
fields to grow predators and parasites and then took that same concept
into the greenhouse. By playing with temperature and light in certain
spots in the greenhouse, we discovered how to keep our biological controls
going strong.

Best,

Miranda Smith

>
> Please keep in mind, "dirty hippies" were not my words, and I (carefully)
> included the words "the ones I knew" so as not to paint everybody as lazy
> jerks. Actually, Miranda, I'd like to hear more about how that worked with
> your market gardens supplying restaurants way back when. Esp any
> innovations you folks came up with. Again, I'm here to learn as much as
> anyone. Thanks.
>
> paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
> ---------------
> The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all
> our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to
> foster its renewal is our only hope.
>    - Wendell Berry
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>
> On 7/17/2006 at 5:58 PM miranda@tagoresmith.com wrote:
>
>>Given that I was one of those "dirty hippies" involved in the commune
>>movement, I just had to jump into this conversation.
>>
>>Please don't paint us with such a broad brush. Some of us worked hard and
>>created good market gardens. At one point, one farm where I lived
>> supplied
>>most of the upscale restaurants in Stowe, Vermont, as well as a number of
>>food coops in the state and even wholesaled truckloads of cool weather
>>vegetables to points south.
>>
>>We also developed some innovative organic systems and tools.
>>
>>And yes, there were the slackers, but there were also the workers.
>>
>>Best,
>>
>>Miranda Smith
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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