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Subject: Market Farming

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  • From: "Andrews, Shirley F." <SAndrews AT AcademicBookServices.com>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] New Member Intro
  • Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 15:10:31 -0400

Hi, I am Shirley Andrews, backyard gardener totally organic.  I live in the deep South and try my best to turn Georgia red clay into black gold.  I have very limited space and also lots of shade trees so I grow a lot of herbs which I incorporate into my diet.  I especially like to juice fresh spearmint with apples for a wonderfully refreshing drink.  I like herbs like spearmint, sage, thyme, rosemary because they grow with very little care in relatively poor soil but are great to use in cooking.

 

I also love to plant flowers and have them intermingled with the vegetables.  I am a member of American Herbal Guild.  Since I don’t grow much I purchase most things from friends who are members of Georgia Organics and sell through local farmers markets.  I am interested in learning all I can hoping that one day I will have more space to farm.

 

I operate a whole grain bakery as a part-time business and would be interested in hearing from grain farmers.  I have lots of clients with wheat allergies and use a lot of spelt and kamut grains in baking.

 

I am a vegetarian and eating lots of fruits and vegetables affords me plenty of compost matter.  Most of the year I just dig holes in the garden and bury the waste.  What happens in the Spring is that everything sprouts and comes up from avocadoes to potatoes.  I just let it grow, I know this may not be the proper way of gardening but it works for me.  I have small hills of potatoes all over the yard, garlic blooming, and nice looking avocado plants that I will dig up in the fall to save from the frost.  By burying the compost this way I have been able to convert the red clay into good gardening soil.  It generally takes about 3 years to complete.  I am always amazed at how quickly everything decays and how quickly the worm population expands (great for fishermen).

 

At my last residence I watched over a 3-year period as my city backyard was transformed into its own ecosystem.  Each year the number of birds, butterflies, and insects multiplied.  This was brought to my attention by the neighbor’s daughter who said she always had to come to my yard to play because all the lightening bugs were in my yard and there were none in hers.  I contributed this to the lack of pesticides and the addition of organic matter.




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