Canopy Roads of South Georgia

Protracted extreme drought: U.S. Drought Monitor, 2012-05-08

Acording to U.S. Drought Monitor, drought throughout south Georgia and surrounding areas is either extreme or exceptional, and has been for months.

Here you can see detail for Georgia:

Peas @ Okra Paradise Farms 2012-04-15

Pick 'em and shell 'em:

Picture by Gretchen Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms. Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 April 2012.

Picture by Gretchen Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 15 April 2012.

-jsq

Planting Pickles

Does the jar grow around them?

Here's the video:

Planting Pickles
Video by John S. Quarterman of Gretchen Quarterman planting cucumbers
at Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 16 April 2012.

-jsq

 

 

Valdosta Farm Days returns Saturday 21 April 2012

Returning for its second year, Valdosta Farm Days starts this Saturday:

When: 9AM-1PM Saturday 21 April 2012 Where: Historic Lowndes County Courthouse, 100 East Central Avenue, Valdosta, Georgia

There's a list of vendors on VFD's web page. See also their facebook page.

Support local agriculture and buy direct from area farmers while shopping at Downtown Valdosta Farm Days.

The market presents producers from the surrounding areas of Lowndes County offering fresh fruit, vegetables and so much more.

Come for the freshness and stay for the fun at Downtown Valdosta Farm Days!

At the market, you'll find locally-grown, locally-raised, locally-produced fruits and vegetables, plants, herbs, meats, farm-fresh eggs and dairy products, baked and prepared foods, snacks, and coffee. You'll also find a variety of artisan and natural value-added products including products made from recycled goods, birdhouses, handmade soaps and body products, candles, gift baskets, and honey products.

Oh, look! Potatoes from Okra Paradise Farms! OPF won't actually have those there this weekend (they only just bloomed last week), but stay tuned for later Valdosta Farm Days!

-jsq

Greed is Good for Poisoning the Food Supply?

For many years big agro has treated the world's health as an economic externality, a problem for somebody else that did not affect its own bottom line. That is starting to change, most recently in Argentina.

Anthony Gucciardi wrote for NaturalSociety 11 April 2012, Explosive: Monsanto ‘Knowingly Poisoned Workers’ Causing Devastating Birth Defects,

In a developing news piece just unleashed by a courthouse news wire, Monsanto is being brought to court by dozens of Argentinean tobacco farmers who say that the biotech giant knowingly poisoned them with herbicides and pesticides and subsequently caused ”devastating birth defects” in their children. The farmers are now suing not only Monsanto on behalf of their children, but many big tobacco giants as well. The birth defects that the farmers say occurred as a result are many, and include cerebral palsy, down syndrome, psychomotor retardation, missing fingers, and blindness.

This would be the same Monsanto that was convicted of chemical poisoning in France.

But this is once again far away in a small country of which we know nothing, right? Wrong:

The farmers come from small family-owned farms in Misiones Province and sell their tobacco to many United States distributors. The family farmers say that major tobacco companies like the Philip Morris company asked them to use Monsanto's herbicides and pesticides, assuring them that the products were safe. Through asserting that the toxic chemicals were safe, the farmers state in their claim that the tobacco companies ”wrongfully caused the parental and infant plaintiffs to be exposed to those chemicals and substances which they both knew, or should have known, would cause the infant offspring of the parental plaintiffs to be born with devastating birth defects.”

Still, it must be some obscure poison only sold in the third world, right?

Wrong:

The majority of the farmers in the area used Monsanto's Roundup, an herbicide with the active ingredient glyphosate that has shown to be killing human kidney cells. What's more, the farmers say that the tobacco companies pushed Monsanto's Roundup on the farmers despite a lack of protective equipment. In other words, these farmers — many in dire economic conditions — were being directly exposed to Roundup in large concentrations without any protective gear (or even experience or skills in handling the substance). Still, the farmers say the tobacco giants required the struggling farmers to ‘purchase excessive quantities of Roundup and other pesticides’.

That would be the same Roundup that farmers use around here all the time, without protective equipment. The Roundup we already knew was

Growing in the Garden

Potatoes red and white, peas, onions, turnips, collards, and radishes!

Here's a playlist:

Growing in the Garden
Gretchen Quarterman explains it all for you, assisted by Brown Dog and Yellow Dog.
Videos by John. S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 March 2012.

-jsq

 

 

Rye as a winter cover crop

High and higher:

Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 March 2012.
Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms

Closeup:

 

Planting taters at Okra Paradise Farms 2012 02 19

Terry Davis and Gretchen Quarterman cutting taters in half before planting. (Yes, that's my thumb.)

Here's a slideshow:

Sneaky Yellow Dog Sneaky Yellow Dog

What's that yellow dog up to?

Pictures of Gretchen Quarterman and Yellow Dog at Okra Paradise Farms
by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 February 2012.

Not digging, she hopes? We just planted potatoes there! Here's a slideshow:

Harrowing dogs

Yellow Dog and Brown Dog help jsq harrow the garden.

Dig, dogs, dig!

Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman at Okra Paradise Farms,
Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 February 2012.

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