Book Review - Woman Powered Farm

Woman Powered Farm
Audrey Levatino
The Countryman Press 2015

When a colleague sent me a link to this book and said she thought of me when she saw it, I had to learn more. I was intrigued knowing that there is a new trend now with women in farming and changing the face of agriculture and food. But I found that this book is much more; it is an actual how to guide for getting things done on the farm.

I was raised in a city and although my Mother always had a garden, I learned to garden from her, this was much different than farming. My father spent some time on a farm as a child and talked of his experiences, but still, that provided me with no practical experience. I basically bought land to farm with my husband with no real knowledge of farming.

I wish I had this book several year ago when we first started on the farm. Although extremely difficult, I find farm work to be quite satisfying. I love the physicality of the work and joke about the money it saves me on a gym membership. I love being close to the earth and the need to be completely aware of the weather. I love having the responsibility of caring for land and animals. I love being able to make a value added product from the herbs I grow on my farm.  (Colorado Aromatics Cultivated Skin Care products).

Women Powered Farm starts by discussing various ways of getting into farming; internships, apprentices, classes etc. In my case it was basically reading all I could and learning from failures. The book also addresses things to look for when buying a farm. We found it was important to look at county zoning and even neighborhood zoning and that even 35 acre plots may have restrictions.

Importantly, author Audrey Levatino talks about health on the farm; stretching to prevent muscle pulls and joint stress, and how to keep your energy and enthusiasm up and making priorities - because work on the farm is never, never finished. As women, we often rely on a man's strength, but she has tips for getting around that.

Other topics covered include;
how to pick out a pair of shoes
how to buy a tractor
what you need to know about burning wood
how to do basic country skills (like put up fencing)
how to use basic hand tools
making compost tea

The book includes a table for germination temperatures for various crops and how much seed is necessary to sow a field. I enjoyed reading the personal stories of women farmers; their struggles and joys.

This book will stay on my shelf as a constant reference source during the year when I need advice about how to do something or for when I need the encouragement and comfort of re-reading another woman's story on her farm. I highly recommend this book to anyone making that transition from gardening to farming.

Read more about our Farm and skin care, we call Farm to Skin.

The Importance of Farms

Farms are important for many reasons including preserving open space around a city, providing wildlife habitats, as well as the crops they produce. Most people are well aware that their food comes from a farm in the form of vegetables and meat. But are you aware of the other, non-food crops that come from a farm? Throughout time people have always had a rich relationship with plants and plants that were particularly useful then became cultivated. The study of this relationship is often called Economic Botany. 

Plants produce fiber, medicines (both traditional and modern), spices, herbs, perfumes, vegetable oils, waxes, latex, resins, poisons, psychoactive drugs, and alcoholic beverages.

Smaller farms might be especially important because they are more likely to have biodiversity on the farm than large corporate farms that are interested in a single crop.

Lets look for instance at some of the uses of plants that are grown on a farm.

Arts and crafts. Many plants can be used for arts and crafts. Various types of grasses have been used for making baskets, mats, and hats. People are even using pine needles and lavender stems to make baskets. One of my favorite crafts is the lavender wand.

Medicine. Herbs are important medicines used throughout the world. Some of the top medicinal herbs that can be grown in Colorado are Echinacea, Mint and Chamomile. 

Modern medicine has obtained many of their drugs from plants too. Some of these pharmaceutical crops include Yew grown for Paclitaxel, Camptotheca grown for camptothecin, and Galanthus woronowii grown for Galantamine (an Alzheimers drug). The active ingredients from these plants are extracted after harvest for preparation of the therapeutic substances . GlaxoSmithKline makes digoxin from foxglove that is grown in the Netherlands. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/83/8325/8325digoxin.html

Perfume. Scent is one of the most delightful things about herbs and this property also makes them important in sensory gardens. The most common way of obtaining scent or perfume from plants is by distillation to produce an essential oil. However, there are other ways that scent is extracted as well. Common plants used for perfume are lavender and rose. On our farm we distill aromatic herbs to obtain the aromatic water. We routinely distill lavender, rose, tulsi, cucumber, lemon balm, clary sage and mint.

Fiber. Fiber crops can be used for clothing, basketry or building materials. Common crops used for clothing are hemp, agave, cotton, and linen. Animal hairs are also common fibers used such as wool from sheep and mohair from angora goats.

Flavor. Culinary herbs provide the bulk of plants grown for flavor. Some of my favorites are Basil used in pesto, garlic used in a variety of dishes and sage.

Cosmetics and Beauty. This is the area that I am most familiar with since I grow herbs to use in Colorado Aromatics Skin Care. Herbs provide an abundant amount of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents; far more than what you could add to a product from other sources. Perhaps one of the most important herbs used in skin care is calendula, but the number is limitless due to the variety of benefits they provide. Growing these herbs allows us to produce a unique, highly functional, farm to skin brand and to be members of our local farmers market.

Fatty Oils that can be used for cooking and more including cosmetics. In Colorado sunflowers are grown for this purpose although most are used for the production of energy.

Alcohol. The most obvious plants grown for alcohol would be grapes for wine, barley for beer and other grains for distilled spirits. But many other herbs are grown for flavoring alcoholic beverages too. For instance, juniper for flavoring gin. Other herbs used in alcohol are coriander, anise, cardamom and licorice. At Colorado Aromatics, we grow lemon balm for flavoring Trinity Absinthe. 

The Society for Economic Botany is a professional society who's members study the relationship between plants and people. You can find them here.

http://www.econbot.org/

Transitioning into Winter

We had our last market yesterday; the Boulder County Farmers Market Holiday Market. I readily let out a big sigh of relief when markets end. Its hard work packing things up every Friday and then getting up early every Saturday to set up at Farmers Market. However. Even though we love getting to meet new people every week and show off our Colorado Aromatics products every Saturday, come December I am more than ready to call it quits and start to focus on my own family and our Christmas.

This week we will cut a tree down from our yard, bring up the boxes of decorations from the basement, put up outdoor lights if the weather permits. I'll need to think of Christmas gifts for my husband and two boys (any ideas?) and drop hints for what I want (which of course I don't know, I really just want to spend good time with my family relaxing). This year will be special as 3 of my siblings will be visiting. I wish they all could but its rare to get everyone together. I'll have fun coming up with things we can do around town and surrounding areas. Maybe we'll even go skiing for a day.

Since we had our major frost I haven't had a chance to roll up the drip tape in our field, nor have I cleaned out the goat pen. So although the work load may be lighter for growers in the winter, it never goes away. In the extra time I might find, I hope to formulate new products, read some books (both fiction and non-fiction), figure out an exercise routine, and maybe do some knitting.

I'm well stocked on herbs this year and might experiment with some nice herbal tea recipes. I'd like to use lemon balm more. I'm attracted to its gentle citrus taste/aroma. It is used as a nervine to renew and strengthen the nervous system. For me, its a good uplifting herb for this transition time into winter. This is the tea I am planning to make tonight:

Lemon Balm Tea
1 part lemon balm
1/4 part chamomile
1/8 part orange peel
1/8 part oatstraw
pinch of lavender

We are Certified!

I'm happy to announce that our farm has just become Certified Naturally Grown (CNG). I am excited about this program and you can read more about here http://www.naturallygrown.org/.  Its standards are similar to the USDA's Certified Organic program in that it does not allow synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or GMO seeds. It differs in that it is a small, private and grass roots organization not associated with the government and encourages collaboration, transparency and community involvement.

I've never been quite comfortable with the Certified Organic Program; its a government sponsored program that seems more tailored towards the larger sometimes corporate farms involved in monocropping. Not to mention their ownership of the word 'organic'. USDA COP farm inspectors are forbidden to make suggestions or help the farmers in any way while CNP farm inspectors are peers and volunteers that are encouraged to share information.  I look forward to my first farm inspection this spring by one of my peers who has volunteered to do so and I expect it to be a learning process. I've asked Darrell Cook of Ginger Cat Farm to do my inspection. CNP relies on volunteers like this which encourages community involvement and collaborations.

At Colorado Aromatics Herb Farm I grow things the way my Mother taught me and she learned from her Mother, the traditional way, long before there even were synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. I do have the benefit of having herbs and lavender as my main crop which are probably easier to grow than vegetable crops. But we fertilize our fields in the winter using manure produced by our horses, goats and chickens. Although we are still learning how to best control weeks; we pick by hand until our backs ache, we use weed cloth and we hoe (we also accept volunteers). We try to reduce the amount of gasoline we use on the farm too by doing most of the work by hand rather than by tractor (we don't own a tractor). Because of the way we farm, beneficial insects such as bees, ladybugs and praying mantis abound. When we do get damaging insects such as aphids our first choice is to take care of them with the garden hose.

I think growing my herbs with the Certified Naturally Grown seal partners well with the extracts I make from them for natural cosmetics. I'll soon be adding pictures and information to our profile at CNG http://www.naturallygrown.org/farms/3421.