Board member and tonight's emcee Phoebe Barnard welcomed 18 people to our Zoom Gathering at 7 pm on March 30, 2021. She shared a brief history and the purpose of Transition Fidalgo & Friends.
Board Update
Evelyn Adams brought a Board report, reminding us that the “Fidalgo Grows” blog is coming out every Monday again for the year. Posted by Peter Heffelfinger, it highlights gardening tips appropriate for our island and the present time of year. This year we have added Julia’s Garden, lively gardening blog posts on Thursdays written by Julia Frisbie. And visit us at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday, April 10, from 9 to 2. We will have one of our produce stands there full of kale, lettuce, and spinach starts that are free for the taking, along with the new book by Henning Sehmsdorf, our speaker for tonight. Another big focus for this year will be seed saving. Join up if you wish; we’ll have information at our booth to help you get started. And finally, the stands will be out in May at the same locations as last year. Share your abundance at the stands so others can have fresh food.
Next month's meeting:
Phoebe highlighted our upcoming June 29 Gathering which will be “Magnificent Mycelium”, presented by Taylor Fairbrother. She is a mycorrhizae specialist with a focus on gardening. She will take a deeper look into the symbiotic relationship between plants and fungi. They have been allies for years! Learn about the fascinating world between them and how to harness this symbiosis to enrich green landscapes at any scale.
Our Presentation:
She then introduced Henning Sehmsdorf, a purveyor of incredible wisdom about sustainable agriculture. He taught at the University of Washington, where is a professor emeritus, and is still actively teaching at Washington State University. Congratulations on the release of his book, co-written by Henning and his wife Elizabeth Simpson. Together they have lived on their Lopez farm for fifty years, putting into practice the knowledge we will hear about tonight.
Henning has been pleased with the response to the publication of his book. The 500 copies that were printed are down to just 60 now. The ideas are resonating not just in the San Juans but across the Salish Sea. He is hopeful there will be lots of discussion in the future about sustainable agriculture to allow us to eat locally and seasonally, and hopefully we can have in-person discussions soon.
He wants to talk about food for the body, heart, and soul, and a reliable food system. Farming is not only sunshine and warm soil, it’s also mud, helping ewes give birth at any hour, etc., and he’s been doing this for fifty years not – and still not tired of it.
After these two videos, there was a meaningful discussion time.
Phoebe: I’ve heard leaders in the agricultural feed say there is no way to reduce carbon emissions, that net zero is just not possible. What are your thoughts?
Henning: I’ve heard that. I told annual research symposiums that we don’t farm for profit but for health. Land Grant universities have been come large-scale industrial agriculture training grounds. That’s where the money is. Without that money from big agriculture the research wouldn’t happen. The Dean of the school will say that net zero is not possible, but he doesn’t believe it. He has to say that to be the Dean. My farm assures me every day that we have some valuable lessons here. For a treat I go into my farm and eat something off a tree or a plant that is amazingly delicious. Food in a store doesn’t take like that. And we have net zero emissions. I had to go to John Deere for a part. While we were waiting in line, Elizabeth and I ate home-baked bread from grain we grew, fermented butter we made, homemade salami, dried fruit from the summer, and corn salad. A couple next to us asked where we got that food, because they were going to Costco to get something to eat. Where could they get that kind of food? Costco was the only solution they knew, or Amazon. We live where we can bring about real change. We have to show the way in our communities.
Paul: question about biochar. Is it really beneficial?
Henning: we spread biochar on our soil surface. If it’s prepared properly it is carbon beneficial. We mix it with a cover crop, and also add it to our compost. This year our cover crop was mostly winter rye, which builds the root system and biomass. We also grow peas and vetch for nitrogen, which also leaves a cover matte on the surface. We also put compost on our fields – an inch. We make compost teas from nettles which we ferment in barrels. Also comfrey. Pond water is better than piped water which has additional calcium. We do other biodynamic preparations also. See our website for more details.
Don’t forget that our book is available at numerous bookstores around the area, including Watermark in Anacortes. It is also available by contacting Transition Fidalgo & Friends at info@TransitionFidalgo.org
A review came out today in the paper and it was a glowing review.
Question about the size of his farm.
Henning: we are retiring, slowly. We are devolving the size and work load of the farm. We are not having interns anymore. We settled two families on the farm who produce the food, earning equity toward the land and houses they occupy. We are doing daily animal care. They do the heavy lifting of farm work. We intend to turn the farm over to the community when we are done.
Phoebe shared an image that shows that in Skagit County, the acreage of micro farms (< 10 acres) grew slightly, large farms stayed stable, but small and medium sized farms shrunk by 25% or more in number.
Henning: Large farms are economically viable but are they ecologically? He takes soil samples from healthy farms and soil-poor farms to his students. The only way bad soil can grow crops is with heavy fertilizer and chemical use, and then the product has little in the way of nutrients.
Ande: thanks to Transition Fidalgo & Friends for making this presentation possible, and for its individual members financially supporting the publication of the book. They made it possible.
