Why Organic Certification is not necessarily the answer to ensure good quality food.

Organic certification implies that food grown under this label is grown without the use of chemical fertilizers and agricultural poisons but it doesn't automatically allow you to assume that it is necessarily nutrient-rich or of high quality. The organic industry is based on building up the soil by increasing humus levels and nutrient levels. The nutrients we are talking about aren't just the major ones like phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen, but the much larger range of nutrients such as selenium, boron, molybdenum and silicon. There are more than 70 trace elements that are essential for good plant health and these need to be added to the soil regularly and monitored as well. When applying for certification, organic growers need to do a soil test but no one checks whether, once certification is given, nutrient deficiencies in the soil are rectified or if there is regular input of nutrients to replace those that are taken up by the vegetables and trees that are grown in the soil. There is no on-going monitoring of the mineral levels, vitamins and amino acids in organic food in spite of the fact that these are really important in maintaining human health. We have never applied for organic certification because we have always been aware of the deficiencies in the organic certification process. We know our food is of extremely high standard because we monitor soil nutrient levels by doing soil tests regularly. Our soil organic levels are over 14% which is quite exceptional. Because our buyers respect the quality of the food we produce, know that it is freshly picked and full of nutrients when they buy it, we sell everything we grow on our Community Farm. Our only problem is that we can't grow enough to meet demand. Written by Bev Buckley For more information goto http://www.growinghealthyorganicfood.com/course1

How to increase the profit from your garden or small farm

How to increase the profit from your garden or small farm NOW! (growing vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries or herbs).
As the world population escalates, food prices will rise. This trend will be reinforced by rising oil & gas prices (mainstream agriculture is dependent on oil & gas for transport, fertilizers, herbicides & pesticides). Therefore there is a great business opportunity in growing food. Over the past 18 months, I have been doing a study that takes over 100 of the main food crops and assesses and compares their profitability. This is a brief discussion paper giving you a preview. Clearly more money will be made growing the most profitable crops and this study provides you with over 100 crops ranked in terms of profitability. The crops are also categorized according to their climate suitability, so you can find for example which are the most profitable crops in the tropics, temperate or cold climates. What then are the key factors that affect profitability when growing crops? Clearly your choice of crops is fundamental to your financial success. The other factor you have to evaluate is the market demand for the crops you select and your ability to reach that market. You then need to be able to grow the crops. This subject and an overview of over 140 popular crops is covered in my book called “Growing Healthy” subtitled “How to make over $100,000 p.a. on five acres growing fruit and vegetables organically”. This book is available from the website www.growinghealthyorganicfood.com (see book 1) . For even more detail on growing effectively we have 12 monthly lessons on nature’s twelve universal principles of organic food growing. See course 1 at www.growinghealthyorganicfood.com . The other key topic in assessing profitability is cost. There are capital items like land & equipment & buildings. There are the variable costs of seeds, seedlings, fertilizers, watering, pruning & weeding, soil preparation, planting & harvesting, cleaning & packing, transport & marketing. In most of these there is a labour component and this is generally the big cost. Labour costs vary hugely around the world, where the lesser developed countries such as China & India have a big cost advantage and in the western world USA is generally much lower than say the UK or Australia. These factors and others are assessed crop by crop in my study. But for now here are some quick effective ways to improve your profitability immediately: 1. Temperature has a major impact on growth—too hot or too cold stops growth dead in its tracks for most plants. So if you are in an area that gets extreme hot temperatures (over 30 degrees C) you can improve production by using a shadehouse in the summer. Depending on the size of the area you grow in this can be a small homemade device with cloth draped over wood or plastic poles or a large walk in shadehouse with sprinklers. If you live in cold climates that get frosts or snow, then you can improve productivity and lengthen your growing season by using a greenhouse in the winter. 2. Another key factor that impacts profitability is the length of time from planting to maturity and harvesting. Fruit & nut trees for example typically take 3 years or even longer to bear a crop and then it is often then only a small crop and may take 4 to 7 years before full production is achieved. And then you get only one crop a year from most fruit trees. Fruits & nuts payoff is good longer term as the labour component is lower than for vegetables & herbs. 3. However, if you want a quick return on your investment forget fruit & nut trees. You need to focus on vegetables, herbs and berries. The typical vegetable takes 3 months to maturity. Time and cashflow are major factors in profitability, so how about these:months to grow and many of them can be grown several times a year (depending on the length of your growing season). Some vegetables you can pick many times from the one plant---it just keeps producing! 4. Let’s get specific: (a) Rhubarb is a magic crop to grow. I can pick up to 8 times in a year off the one plant. We have of course a particularly long growing season of 10 to 12 months a year, but even in a shorter growing season area you can pick every 5 to 6 weeks once the plant is mature. (b) There are some other crops that you can pick up to five times from the one plant—namely zucchini, kale and silver beet or swiss chard. (c) The other recommendation is to go for crops with the shortest time from planting Zucchini 7 weeks Radish 7 weeks Silver beet 8 weeks Lettuce 9 weeks Broccoli 10 weeks Carrots 11 weeks The exact time will vary slightly with different varieties and the weather. Conclusion: If you try some of the above recommendations you cannot help but improve your return from your activities on your garden or small farm. At least they will make it easier to cut down on your food bills by selling your excess produce nore readily! However this brief free report cannot cover all the details of growing and marketing your crops. If you want more I have recently produced a short 12 week program that does all this. It is now available as course 2 on the home page of our website: go to http://www.growinghealthyorganicfood.com/course2. This program provides a comparative analysis of the profitability of over 100 crops including helping you set up a step by step business plan to maximize the return on your land size and specific climate. This training program also gives you the use of a profitability calculator where you can input your own figures to calculate the specific profitability of a crop you grow in your climate, with your local pricing and local cost of labour and the growing time of the particular variety that you have chosen. Best wishes, Geoff Buckley.

What are the most important minerals?

Creating and maintaining a healthy balanced soil is crucial to success in growing crops organically. The father of soil science is Professor William Albrecht who studied soils all around the world all his life. He demonstrated that in terms of volume the major elements are calcium, magnesium and potassium. Nitrogen, phophorus and silcon are also significant.
Later research shows that volume is not the only important factor. Individual elements whilst small in quantity can be essential catalysts to the many chemical/biological processes that take place in plants such as photosynthesis. There is a heirarchy of elements needed for these processes to work in plants and this might also apply in humans. (I have added the most common natural food source for us in brackets).
Sulphur is necessary as a catalyst for all the reactions that begin with boron and end with potassium. This is apparently the biochemical sequence of nutrition in plants. The 8 elements in sequence are:
1.Boron (lettuce)
2.Silica (brazil nuts)
3.Calcium (broad beans & watercress)
4.Nitrogen (cucumber)
5.Magnesium (Beans, poppyseed & spinach)
6.Phosphorus (Beetroot)
7.Carbon (vitamin C)
8. Potassium (Lettuce)
There are 92 elements that make up the earth and the human body and not a lot is known about all the minor trace elements. I believe they all play a role and as an example who has heard of yttrium? This element created a three-fold increase in the lifespan of test animals!! Yttrium is found in cabbage, lettuce and tomatoes (if grown in soils that contain yttrium). Lettuce should contain many of the above important minerals and has become one of my favourite foods!!
Geoff Buckley Click here for more information on creating a healthy balanced soil.

Growing peas

Three varieties of peas can be grown. Garden peas are the variety that you shell and take out the peas inside and throw away the outer shell. The grow into untidy sprawling plants.
Snow peas grow on trellises and can reach up to 2 metre tall. Sugar snap peas were developed in Holland in 1970 by crossing garden peas and snow peas.
Peas are a winter crop. On Tamborine Mountain we start planting peas in March and harvest from May to October.
Peas are a very valuable crop to grow for three reasons.
The first reason is that peas are legumes. Peas add valuable nitrogen, which is freely available in the air and make it plant available via the rhizobia that live in the nodules that grow on the roots of the plant.
The second reason is that peas are an excellent food because they are supercharged with minerals including manganese, phosphorous, magnesium, copper, iron, zinc and potassium.
They also contain vitamins, A, B1, B2, B3, B6, C and K as well as folate and tryptophan.
The combination of folic acid and B6 helps reduce build up of homosysteine, which can
obstruct collagen cross-linking, which causes osteoporosis. Folic acid is so important for cardiovascular function that a major 1995 study concluded that 400 milligrams of folic acid per day help prevent death from cardiovascular disease.
Vitamin K activates osteocalan, the major non-collagen protein in bone. Osteocalan anchors calcium molecules inside our bones. Vitamin K is also vital to the body's healthy blood clotting ability.
The third reason to grow peas is if you want to make money by selling them. In 2011 we planted snow peas along 5 trellises each 6 metres long, two rows of garden peas each 10 metres long, and 6 rows each 10 metres long were planted with sugar snap peas. In total we picked over 100 kg of peas which we sold at prices between $14 and $25 per kilogram. Sugar snap peas fetched the highest price.
The one drawback in growing peas is that they are very labour intensive when it comes time to pick them.
Bev Buckley For more information learn more

How to measure the quality of your soil.
By Geoff Buckley
The most common measure of soil quality is the pH and this is a good general indicator but does not tell you what to do if the pH is too low or too high. Soil pH can also vary during the crop cycle by as much as a whole point. To find out what to do to correct the health and balance of your soil you really need a soil test that identifies the mineral deficiencies and excesses. There are 92 elements that make up the earth (and the human body) and plants cannot create them if they are not in the soil, so your fruit, vegetables and herbs will lack nutrients that are not in the soil they are grown in. Ideally you need to do a soil test once a year because different plants take out different amounts of each nutrient and the rain and watering can leach out some minerals.
There are two other measures of the quality of your soil that are worth knowing and a good soil test will provide you with these. The first is the level of organic matter in the soil. Historically this used to average 5% but with the advent of the so-called “green revolution” after world war 2, the soils in both the USA & Australia have been degraded and now are commonly only 1.5%. The reason for this degradation is the heavy use of herbicides, pesticides and man-made chemicals which has destroyed the soil’s organic matter. With commercial monoculture systems there is little use of mulch and compost which build the level of organic matter. With regular use of mulch and compost matter you can build up the organic matter in your soil; for example my soil measures over 10% organic matter.
One of our major banks decided they needed a good indicator of whether to make a safe loan to farmers. After much research they came up with the fact that the best measure was the level of organic matter in the farm’s soil !
The other less well known measure of the quality of soil is the CEC or Cation Exchange Capacity. This measure tells you the capacity of the soil to store nutrients. Sandy soil typically has a CEC of only 2 to 4. Heavy clay soils can be as high as 40 to 60. To improve your CEC there are two quick and easy ways. By adding humus or humates or humic acid you can raise the CEC level because humus has a CEC of 250 and humic acid has a CECof 450. The other way is to use fulvic acid which has a CEC of 1400!! I put fulvic acid in all my liquid fertilizers and in all my foliar sprays.
With all these numbers how do you know what a healthy balanced soil looks like? Professor Albrecht spent his life studying and analyzing soils from all round the world and he came up with the standard which shows that calcium, magnesium and potassium are the most significant elements in terms of quantity. Other elements such as silica, boron and phosphorus are critical but are needed in very small amounts. This is a surprise to many as NPK (nitrogen. phosphorus and potassium) is the most common fertilizer.
Under optimal conditions, soil organic levels are high and there is a large varied population of soil micro-organisms. Nitrogen is a very important element but under these conditions plants use the nitrogen that is freely available in large quantities from the air (which is 70% nitrogen) but which has to be converted to plant available form by soil organisms. There is no need to add nitrogen.
Conclusion: building and maintaining a healthy, balanced soil is an ongoing process, and you really need an annual soil test which should provide all three of the above measures i.e. pH, CEC and the level of organic matter.For more information visit Growing Healthy