Off to Farmer Training field day! Mulches!

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I'm off!  Today is my first farmer-training field day with CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training), which is organized by the non-profit Angelic Organics Learning Center.  Yes, for those in the know, this is the same famous Angelic Organics CSA which provides shares to the Chicago-area.  The Angelic Organics web site is: http://www.angelicorganics.com/ .

I joined CRAFT a month or two ago, but this is the first field day that has caught my eye.  There have been a couple of others, but since I have no livestock they really didn't apply to me.  So what is today's training session, you ask?

"Mulches Study on Vegetables: Switch Grass, Straw, and Black Plastic"

And, yes, before you ask... I am very excited about this one!  Why?  Well, when operating a large-scale organic garden for market (outside sales), weed control becomes a major issue.  This is why most large-scale commercial vegetable growers turned to chemical weed control.  It's very hard to keep on top of that many weeds.  Hence the use of mulches & black plastic!  You use these in your veggie rows to keep the weeds down.  I actually did some experimentation with this myself this year on our tomato patch.  Nearly 300 tomato plants, all tied up nicely, and I purchased local wheat straw which we spread amongst the tomatoes (over a layer of soy-based ink newspaper) when they were a foot tall (before we began trellising them).  It worked pretty well - I never needed to weed the tomato patch again all summer, but some weeds did get through, particularly in the walking path.  I needed more layers of newspaper as well as a thicker layer of straw, I think.

Since I'm running my farm garden pretty much on my own (my husband helps a few times a month or when I plead with tears in my eyes, lol), I need better weed control.  I just can't keep up without some sort of mulching system.

A mulching system is also better on the environment.  Why?  Less tilling = less soil disturbance = eco-system in the soil undisturbed.  Yep.  The wormies and buggies get left alone to live their lives & improve the soil.


This field day is thankfully not to far from my home, about an hour away, just over the border to my favorite state of Wisconsin and to the east a bit.  It's located in our local Amish country I love to visit and have blogged about before, where I visit Amish-run bulk foods and bent & dent grocery stores.  Yes, I'm hoping on visiting the Amish stores before the farmer training to stock up on my whole wheat flour, spices, and olive oil! Gotta make the most out of the trip, after all.

For those interested in learning more about CRAFT (http://www.csalearningcenter.org/what/training/craft) or finding a farmer-training alliance near you, the Angelic Organics Learning Center web site is: http://www.csalearningcenter.org/ .

Thanks for visiting Wishful Acres Organic Farm!

How to make a children's easy one-piece quilt

My oldest son recently turned 6. Here he is getting measured and marked in the door frame, our family tradition on each birthday.



I made him a pirate quilt for a gift. He saw some ominous-looking pirate fabric at the craft store and wanted a blanket. However, the fabric he picked out - however luxurious, soft, and fantastic it was - was $13 a yard. And did I mention it was menacing and ominous?
So we found a happier pirate fabric on sale for just over $1 a yard. Even the skull & crossbones are smiling.
I purchased 3 yards of the fabric. I folded it in half once. One piece will be the top of the quilt and the other piece will be the bottom. I cut along the fold.

Then I cut a piece of fleece the same size as the other 2 pieces.

I lay them together as I wanted them to be in the blanket.

Then I pinned them together every 6 inches along the edge as well as every 6-12 inches throughout the center of the blanket.
Next, I got some chalk (we have plenty of sidewalk chalk laying around, I used that). And a ruler.
I made a straight line from one long corner to the other. Then I marked every 6 inches from the main line and made another line. So the fabric was covered with lines crossing one direction every 6 inches.

Then I sewed along the lines, using a straight stitch and matching thread.

After the lines were sewn in one direction, I brought the blanket back to the floor and used the chalk & ruler again to make the lines in the other direction. Then I sewed those.

I ended up with a diamond pattern across the entire quilt top.

Then, to finish the edges you need to bind them. This just means taking another piece of fabric and sewing it to the edge. I used a matching fabric, and cut 4 pieces. I cut them 4 inches wide. Then I had to turn them into a binding or bias tape.
Unfortunately, my camera battery was dead when I did this, so I'll recreate it for you.

First, take your length of fabric. Mine is 4 inches wide. Ignore the fold marks, this one was leftover from the blanket and was already pressed (pressed just means ironed).


First, fold the piece in half lengthwise. Press (run the iron over it while pressing down).

After pressing in half, open it back up. You'll have a line down the middle. Use this line as your marker. You want to take the other halves and fold them in halfway to meet at the middle line. Do one at a time. Press after folding in.


Below is what you'll have after folding & pressing both sides in to meet at the middle line.

Then, fold again over the middle line.
You'll want to place this over the raw edge of your quilt (put the quilt on the inside where my finger is). Then pin into place and sew around the edge, catching the quilt and the binding.

You're finished!