New, first of its kind in New England! Must have 50 members by March 26Join Massachusetts' First Veganic CSA!
Veganic (Organic) CSA Opportunity
What is veganic produce? Crops that are grown without the use of any animal products. Most organic farms utilize fertilizer containing blood and bone meal or fish emulsion and animal manure on their land. To learn more about the widespread use of animal products on Massachusetts organic farms, check out the March Viewpoint article, Sacred Ground, at
http://salemvegan.org/viewpoint.htm
Heavens Harvest, a certified organic farm, in New Braintree, Massachusetts, has agreed to farm their CSA (Community Shares Agriculture) crops veganically, without the use of any animal products, for a group of at least 50 interested members The cost would be $575 for 15 weeks, for a full share and $350 for a half share. Members may also join as a team, buying a half or full share together, and dividing the produce and cost up themselves.
Payment options: Lisa Bouley, CSA organizer and owner of Vej Natural Market and Café (opening in late spring in Lynn), will have an information table at our WRNEC March 25 event. Bring your check-book.
Drop offs:
ˇ Produce will be dropped off at Harvest Coop in Cambridge, on Thursdays with a member pick up time between 3:30 and 6:30 pm (as produce should not sit out longer than that amount of time).
ˇ Additional drop offs will be possible at TJ Scallywag's, in Allston, Back to Balance Acupuncture Center, 5 High Street, Suite B3, Medford, and at Vej Natural Market and Café, 87 Lynnway, in Lynn, if at least 20 members request these additional locations. We need at least 40 more interested members to sign up by March 26 for this produce to be veganic!
ˇ We just need 20 interested members to request a specific drop off point, in any Boston area community, including but not limited to Medford, Malden, Cambridge, Somerville, Jamaica Plain. Drop off points can be someone's home or place of business and must have a space, such as a garage, or indoor area on the ground floor, out of the sun, with room to stack the members' share boxes upon arrival. After produce pick up, there must be room to store the broken down share boxes for pick up the following week. Thursday is the likely drop off day for all Boston area communities. Each member would pick up their produce once a week, at the drop off point, a bushel and 1/9 size box for each member. Each member will be required to bring their own boxes or bags, to which they will transfer their produce delivery, so as to save their original share boxes for the farmer to reuse.
A typical box in mid June might include one herb plant, such as basil. sage, or thyme, 1 bunch collards, 1 bunch kale, 1 bunch scallions, 1 bunch of radishes, 3 different varieties of lettuce, at least 2 Asian greens such as bok choy or mei quing or chinese cabbage, a broccoli rabe, a Swiss chard or spinach or beet greens, and snow peas or sugar snap peas.
In late July, a weekly share might include all of the above plus summer squash, zucchini, coosa squash, pattipan squash, many varieties of tomatoes, 4-6 regular tomatoes and plum tomatoes, many varieties of cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, peas, green, purple, and yellow snap beans, culinary herbs, and mesclun mix, and as the season progresses, melons and a variety of colored peppers will be added by August. The growing season is usually at least 15 weeks.
And the Heavens Harvest Farmer can arrange to grow purslane and lambs quarters! If at least 50 people join, with an interest in receiving lambs quarters and purslane, the farmer can arrange to grow such greens! For 50 new members from this community, the farmer has agreed to tailor the produce grown to your specific raw food needs! Where else is this an option?
This is a fabulous opportunity. For this CSA to happen, we must get a minimum of 50 paid members by the end of March! If interested in joining this CSA (Community Shares Agriculture), please contact Lisa@vejnaturals.com or call her at 617-605-7031.
Why not just buy organic produce from local farmers and our local natural markets?
Organic Farming - What comes from the land is considered vegan. What goes into it often is not. Most organic farmers use fertilizer, containing a variety of animal based ingredients including feathers, blood, bone meal, and fish emulsion, on their fields, as well as manure. This comes as a shock to many vegetarians and vegans. Do these animal products need to be from organically-raised animals, so as to be appropriate for use on organic farms? They do not. The animal ingredients in "organic fertilizers" are a by product of the meat industry, a commercial use for the "renderings" from slaughterhouses. This comes as an additional shock to most natural food shoppers who make the assumption that manure and fertilizer used on organic farms must include only ingredients that were themselves produced and farmed organically. This is not the case.
The possibility of residues from antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, and genetically-modified ingredients, from the commercially raised animals' feed making their way into the ground on organic farms becomes a plausible reality and one for which the soil is not currently tested, but for which the soil should be regularly tested, on all certified organic fields.
Though most farmers feel it is necessary to use the above mentioned animal products in an effort to increase the mineral content, and in particular nitrogen (blood and fish considered two of the best sources) in the soil, more and more farmers around the world are utilizing "veganic" methods of nourishing the soil and their plants, maximizing plant nutrition and nutrient density, through the use of rock dust
http://remineralize.org (for minerals) and good bacteria with which one "inoculates" the earth, helping to balance the soil microbial life, creating a balance in which the plants and soil organisms live symbiotically. Nitrogen-fixing fungi and bacteria have a relationship with legumes, such as beans, peas, and clover. Legumes have nitrogen-fixing nodules in their roots, designed to feed sugar to the bacteria that draw nitrogen from the air and put it into the soil, thus feeding the legumes in a mutually beneficial relationship. The plants achieve the appropriate balance of minerals and are resistant to pests, all without the use of animal products.
Farmers who choose to nourish their gardens and fields without animal products, may also choose from a variety of vegan alternatives for adding nutrients to their fields. Seaweed, rich in many micronutrients is often incorporated into vegan fertilizer mixes. Chondrus crispus, which is harvested in New England, is an example of a variety of seaweed which is high in nitrogen. It was used in the past as a fertilizer and can make a great veganic fertilizer for most crops except for beans. Cottonseed meal fertilizer is second to blood meal in nitrogen. However, one needs to add extra lime because cottonseed meal is an acidifier. Nine pounds of lime is needed to neutralize the acidity caused by 100 pounds of cottonseed meal. (But consumer beware, cottonseed is commonly genetically modified.) An informative site on veganic gardening that lists veganic fertilizer options is the Vegan Organic section on The Vegetarian Site. Neem cakes, from the neem seed, are rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Alfalfa is another relatively high nitrogen vegan alternative to animal product containing fertilizer mixes. Soy meal is another relatively good source of nitrogen, but is another commonly genetically modified crop. GMO soy is allowed as an ingredient in "organic" fertilizers. As explained by Don Franczyk, executive director of Baystate Organic Certifiers, "If the genetically modified part of the plant is expressed in the plant residue, then it's not allowed for use in organic production. If the genetically modified part of the plant is not expressed in the final product then it is allowed." According to Don, in the case of soy, the GMO part of the plant is not "expressed" in the meal, whereas in corn or cottonseed it is.
According to Dan Kittredge, a Massachusetts farmer utilizing the principles of remineralizing the soil with rock dust and inoculating the soil with the proper microbial life, the soil's mineral balance determines what bacteria and fungi can exist in the soil. So if the mineral balance is not correct, you have to add nitrogen to the soil. Thus farmers who need these high nitrogen sources in their fertilizer have less than ideally mineralized and colonized soil.
He suggested that the first step for a farmer who wishes to farm veganically is to have the soil tested, by a company such as International Ag Labs. For $25, Ag Labs will test the soil, and for an additional $25, they'll suggest what to use on your soil, though not necessarily organic or vegan products. However, if the farmer specifies that he or she is farming organically and does not want to use animal derived ingredients, the recommendations provided will meet vegan and organic standards.
If an organism - plant, animal, human, or other - is demineralized, not getting the ideal mineral balance for health, then it likely is not functioning in the ideal manner. So theoretically, pesticide, hormone, antibiotic, and GMO residues may still be present in manure and the soil, as the digestive tract of an animal may not fully break down such products.. How this could potentially affect the plants growing in the soils, and ultimately us is the fuel for future research.
More information on current organic farming practices and veganic alternatives can be found in the March viewpoint article on the Salem Vegan Society's web page http://salemvegan.org/viewpoint.htm
For more information, or to join a Boston/Cambridge/Northshore area veganic CSA, contact Lisa Bouley at Lisa@vejnaturals.com or call her at 617- 605-7031. Lisa and her husband, Bob, are owners of Vej Natural Market and an organic Café serving raw and cooked entrees opening in Lynn at 87 Lynnway with a planned opening date of April 2008.
Note: Betsy Bragg is interested in sharing a half a share. Bonus of the full half share for the six weeks she is at Hippocrates.
March 25 Waltham Raw Food
