Photos From Last Sunday’s Workshop

Jen’s workshop on using permaculture techniques to create a backyard food forest was a success. About 70 people turned out for the event held at La Placita Gardens in Albuquerque’s South Valley. A big thanks to Zoe Wilcox-Edrington of Mother Nature Gardens and Jesse Daves of Garden’s Edge for their assistance with the hands-on demonstrations. Also, thanks to my brother John McElhinney for helping me direct parking. -Tree

Here are some photos:

Jen leads a discussion on using permaculture techniques to create an urban food forest.

About 70 people turned out for the event which included a lecture followed by hands-on gardening.

Lots of mulch!

Planting an apple tree.

Call for Artists: Logo Design for Rio Grande Valley Farmers Guild

The Rio Grande Valley Farmers Guild seeks an artist to create its logo. Guidelines are available here. If you are a logo artist, we’d love to see your work. – Jen (Treasurer of RGVFG)

About the Rio Grande Valley Farmers Guild
A new cooperative of family farms located in New Mexico’s fertile Rio Grande Valley. Our members are farms concentrated in Albuquerque’s historically agricultural South Valley, extending as far south as Socorro and north to Bernalillo.

One of our first projects as a cooperative is the Cereal Grains Project, making local and naturally cultivated whole grains and flours available to local markets, restaurants and direct to the families of New Mexico.

Beyond the “Organic” Label

Organic junk food is still junk food. Flying in organic salmon from Chile does nothing to reduce the size of our carbon footprint. And, most importantly (for me), the USDA’s organic certification does nothing to ensure that animals are treated humanely and permitted to exercise normal behavior patterns. For example, “organically” raised animals in the US must have access to the outdoors, which could be, and often is, a small door in the side of a great broiler barn that leads to a 100-square-foot concrete yard.

Here is an article from the NY Times that is a must read for those who are trying to eat better but perhaps are unaware of the fact that food labeled organic is not necessarily better for you. -Tree

Eating Food That’s Better for You, Organic or Not
by Marc Bittman
March 21, 2009

In the six-and-one-half years since the federal government began certifying food as “organic,” Americans have taken to the idea with considerable enthusiasm. Sales have at least doubled, and three-quarters of the nation’s grocery stores now carry at least some organic food. A Harris poll in October 2007 found that about 30 percent of Americans buy organic food at least on occasion, and most think it is safer, better for the environment and healthier.

So I discovered on a recent book tour around the United States and Canada.

No matter how carefully I avoided using the word “organic” when I spoke to groups of food enthusiasts about how to eat better, someone in the audience would inevitably ask, “What if I can’t afford to buy organic food?” It seems to have become the magic cure-all, synonymous with eating well, healthfully, sanely, even ethically.

But eating “organic” offers no guarantee of any of that. And the truth is that most Americans eat so badly — we get 7 percent of our calories from soft drinks, more than we do from vegetables; the top food group by caloric intake is “sweets”; and one-third of nation’s adults are now obese — that the organic question is a secondary one. It’s not unimportant, but it’s not the primary issue in the way Americans eat.

Read the rest of the article here.

Another Reason to Know Where Your Food is Coming From and How It Was Raised

Nicholas Kristof ’s op-ed piece in today’s NY Times is a wake-up call to anyone who consumes animal products. From the article:

Five out of 90 samples of retail pork in Louisiana tested positive for MRSA — an antibiotic-resistant staph infection — according to a peer-reviewed study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology last year. And a recent study of retail meats in the Washington, D.C., area found MRSA in one pork sample, out of 300…

… Yet the central problem here isn’t pigs, it’s humans. Unlike Europe and even South Korea, the United States still bows to agribusiness interests by permitting the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal feed. That’s unconscionable.

The peer-reviewed Medical Clinics of North America concluded last year that antibiotics in livestock feed were “a major component” in the rise in antibiotic resistance. The article said that more antibiotics were fed to animals in North Carolina alone than were administered to the nation’s entire human population.

Read the entire piece here.

Free Workshop – Creating an Urban Food Forest

Creating an Urban Food Forest: March 22 , 12 - 4pm

Interested in urban homesteading? Permaculture garden design? Growing your own food?

Join Jen on Sunday, March 22 for a free hands-on workshop on creating a food forest at the Garden’s Edge plot at La Placita Gardens. Learn Permaculture garden design techniques while we create an abundant garden that you can replicate at home. This workshop will cover an overview of Permaculture, garden preparation and plant selection for creating a food forest and much more!

By learning from successful patterns found in nature, we can co-create healthy communities grounded in a sustainable land ethic. Don’t forget your hat, garden gloves if you have them and water.

• What: Creating an Urban Food Forest: Permaculture Techniques for the Home Garden
• Where: La Placita Gardens at the Historic Sanchez Farm, Albuquerque’s South Valley
• When: Sunday, March 22, 12pm-4pm
• Why: As part of the Aldo Leopold Centennial Celebration honoring Leopold’s legacy in New Mexico
• Who: Jen Prosser, Herbalist, urban farmer and owner of Sunstone Herbs
• Cost: Free

RSVP & Contact Info: Please RSVP by contacting Colleen Langan at calangan@bernco.gov or 505- 314 -0398

Garden’s Edge is a 501 (c)3 non-profit corporation that works in New Mexico and Guatemala to revitalize local culture and economy through projects in sustainable agriculture and environmental education.

La Placita Gardens is a community farm project of La Plazita Institute.

Directions: From I-25 South, exit at Cesar Chavez/Bridge Blvd and head west. Left on Isleta Blvd. Left on Lopez Drive. Right on Arenal. Enter the farm through the western gates.