Market Farming

["John M. Moser" <joma AT direcpc.com>]

One of the things that I've found that I like to do is not only grow things but to read about other folks experiences in growing things. Now my family thinks that flies in the face of tradition, after all if it was good enough for Great-Grandad Israel Moser why isn't it good enough for you.

 

Well despite their opinions I still like to read. I've picked up a little bit of agricultural reading material for the cooler months.

 

The first new item on my bookshelf is "Beekeeping for Dummies". The author obviously had me in mind when titleing the book. I haven't sat down and read this book from cover to cover yet (or the other two books on my list for that matter) but it seems to be typical of the dummies series of books that I have seen. A decent, if not in depth, coverage of a given subject presented in a straightforward manner. In recent years in my area we've seen fewer and fewer signs of feral honeybee activity. I think that this is at least partially responsible for lower yields in our fruit and vegetable crops and I'm doing a bit of research with the idea of putting in a couple of hives in the spring.

 

Next on the bookshelf is "Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties" by Carol Deppe. As a disclaimer this deals with cross-pollination and genetic modification. So all you folks with your cursor over the reply button can just settle back down for a bit. I picked this book up because of my frustrations in trying to find some varieties of seeds back in the spring. Specifically Manapal tomato seeds. I finally tracked some down in Australia, but that didn't help to much. At any rate what I was looking for in this book was info on cross-pollination that might help the variety I was trying to grow and likewise things to avoid. I'll report back after Thanksgiving.

 

Last on the list for now is "Root Cellaring" by Mike and Nancy Bubel. This was at one time a pretty common practice for most farm families, now however it doesn't seem to be nearly as common. This book has some good basic information as well as a few case studies.

 

Now that I've managed to bore you for a bit I can only say --- It's your turn. What's on your bookshelf.

 

Almost forgot - Every other month "The Growing Edge", great magazine.

 

John Moser

Fleetwood, NC