Please join us throughout this magical season and help keep our garden & programs growing strong.

This year we look forward to:

Growing veggies & herbs for the Ashram kitchen.
Planting flower gardens throughout the grounds
.Clearing/cleaning hiking trails & walking paths
Planting & maintaining the many beautiful fruit trees around the Ashram
Developing educational workshops for YOU to learn more about sustainable living & agriculture.

The exchange is minimal and the opportunity invaluable.

If you’d like to come and grow with us, please call the Ashram office at 845.782.5575 and tell them you’re with the Harvest.

You’ll make a reservation to stay in a dorm room, the Harvest cabin or bring a tent and pay a small donation of $35 for a dorm or $28 for cabin/tent (until June 15th).  We ask that you work on one of our projects for three hours each day and enjoy all the vegetarian food, yoga, meditation & nature your heart desires.

We guarantee you’ll leave feeling great and want to come back often.  If you have any questions you can email volunteer@anandaharvest.org and one of our Founding Farmers will be happy to connect with you.

Peace,
Ananda Harvest

Deklab Market Container Article

Urban Space presents ‘NOT JUST A CONTAINER’, a competition to uncover the most creative and innovative use for a shipping container to be located in a downtown Brooklyn retail location.

“of salvaged shipping containers, will bring together Brooklyn’s creative entrepreneurs in a community setting that will include an incubator farm, food market, events and performance venue, and a collection of eateries and work-sell spaces.

The goal of the competition is to support the growth of Brooklyn’s creative community by helping a local entrepreneur realize his or her dream of opening a bricks and mortar location and to raise awareness of the Dekalb Market.”

SUBMISSION. To be eligible, each submission must strictly read and comply with all the criteria and rules of the contest.Online entry using our online submission form is the quickest and easiest way to submit your work. Urban Space is not responsible for electronic transmission errors resulting in omission, interruption, deletion, delay in transmission.

Large cargo containers are great for storing and transporting furniture, of course, but turning these containers into homes is becoming an alternative for affordable housing. There are many uses for cargo homes, from temporary housing for disaster relief to college dorm housing. Cargo homes are becoming more and more popular because they are inexpensive and so easy to build.

How To Make A Home with Cargo

Here is a hometown favorite Roberta’s who uses there shipping container for a Radio Show and Rooftop GreenHouse

See more examples here: 12 more

I came across this today and found it quite interesting.    The Farmer Landowner Match program,

I have land but don’t have time to farm it,  You want to farm but don’t have the land

Let’s make a match.  See below for more benefits.

http://clctrust.org/match.php

This could be yours!

SUPPORT LOCAL FARMS

• Many landowners are interested in promoting agriculture and taking advantage of financial benefits.
• Many farmers are searching for more land to work, yet the price of land is a major hurdle
• CLC values farming because it provides open space, wildlife habitat, protects the
  environment, and conserves the rural character of the county.

LANDOWNER BENEFITS

“If you are a landowner, you should really consider leasing to a farmer. Aside from the tax benefits, it’s a terrific sense of accomplishments that you are doing something to preserve good farmland.“

-Dwayne Powell, leases 46 acres to Threshold Farms

If you have open farmland that you do not use, having a farmer lease your land may benefit you, the farmer, and the community. A successful farmer match may provide:

• Lower taxes due to the Agricultural Property Tax Assessment
• Free or low cost upkeep of your lands
• Improved soil quality
• Rental income
• A share of the produce from your land
• Good care of your land, and putting it to good use

FARMER BENEFITS

“As a young business, we are
putting any available capital
into growing livestock.”

–Owen O’Connor, Awesome Farms

Leasing land enables Awesome Farms in Claverack to focus on farming and meeting the increasing demands for local food without the additional burden of mortgage payments.

If you are looking for land to start or expand a farm operation, CLC may be able to help. A successful lease may enable you to:

• Find affordable land
• Expand your operation, or establish yourself in the farming community
• Lower your capital investment for startup and operating expenses
• Share the risk and profit of farming with the landowner
• Gain experience running a farm before purchasing one

LEASES

Once the match has been made, CLC will provide model leases to the parties. The farmer and landowner will work out the specific provisions of the lease together. We will identify important issues to be addressed such as:

• Form of payment
• Long term vs. short term leases
• Type of farming
• Expenses
• Termination agreement

The Masters of Mycelium
A third-generation of mushroom men farms the Hudson Valley.

…..early 1980s, the farmed fungus sector had all but collapsed. Large commercial mushroom operations that had popped up in Pennsylvania, cheap imported caps from China and rising fuel prices worldwide helped put nearly all of New York’s family-run mushroom farms out of business. And while a handful of tiny independent businesses are still at work, most of the older operations have turned from farming to distribution.

All except for the Bulichs, who today operate the last fully functioning mushroom farm in the state-thanks in part to Frank Bulich’s foresight in the 1980s, when the second-generation mushroom grower, unlike his fellow farmers, noted a coming demand for varieties other than standard white buttons.

http://www.ediblemanhattan.com/march-april-2010/the-foodshed.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/garden/15mushrooms.html?scp=1&sq=mushroom%20stamets&st=cse

Note: If you would be interested in a workshop on Mushroom Cultivations please  leave a reply comment

black dirt

RICH SOIL The black earth in Orange County, N.Y., grows some of the best cooking onions.

THROUGH an odd twist of geological fate, some of North America’s most fertile soil lies an hour’s drive from Manhattan pavement, in the 22 square miles of Orange County, N.Y., known as the “Black Dirt” region.

So what do farmers grow in this miracle earth? For about a century, the area has been known for onions, producing some of the spiciest alliums available, thanks to the soil’s high sulfur content, which boosts pyruvic acid, that irritating and delicious compound that makes eyes well up at the cutting board.

A visit to a New York City Greenmarket bears out that legacy: at the stands of Paffenroth Gardens, from Warwick, and S. & S.O. Produce Farms from Goshen, the onions on display ­ bunches of slender, magenta-colored scallions to shallots the size and hue of hazelnuts ­ seem to make up a full third of each farm’s offerings.

The vast majority of onions grown in the Black Dirt ­ or “muck soil,” as it’s known locally ­ are nevertheless those plain-Jane yellow storage onions, about the size of a baseball (and just as hard) with a coppery paper skin, the kind sold in East Coast grocery stores in two-, three- and five-pound mesh bags. They’re virtually anonymous in the marketplace; you’ll know they were grown in the Black Dirt towns of Warwick, Goshen, Florida and Pine Island only if you read the fine print, or spy the jet-black soil that occasionally still clings to their roots.Black Dirt

Excerpt from Justin West’s masters dissertation

‘Unlawning what we have lawned’

Lawns are to me an embodiment of the confusion which we as a society are experiencing. Lawns reflect our desire, conscious or unconscious, to control our surroundings and separate ourselves. Lawns (urban parks aside) are actually rarely used in the recreational activities for which they are well designed. They are a leftover from the 17th and 18th century European gentry when landowners were few and labour was cheap. They have continued to act as status symbols, and have spread extensively, particularly in the US following the suburban sprawl of post- WWII. In a NASA sponsored study lawns in the US were estimated to cover 32 million acres.

It is the most extensive irrigated crop in the country (about three times that of corn). 50-70% of residential water is used for irrigation. The collective maintenance budget of this ‘crop’ was in the range of 29 billion dollars in 2002, or roughly 1,200 dollars/using household. That something so wasteful can be a sign of wealth is understandable, but how something so lacking in health and diversity can be a sign of wealth is a reflection upon the dearth of ecological education in our society.

The lawn, it seems, separates us like a moat from the untidiness of our surroundings-be they the neighbour’s property, or a stretch of unmanaged woodland. Neighbours come and go, the woodland grows denser and more entangled, but the lawn-moat remains, an embodiment of a seemingly timeless order. This form of tidiness is in actuality, as Bill Mollison says, ‘maintained disorder.’ Lawns are spatially extended without regard for temporality. The striving forward into complexity and diversity is stunted by each pass of the whirring blades. Our abilities to perceive life’s movements juxtaposed with its durational qualities are rendered virtually obsolete in wastelands of ‘lawnliness.’

Due to their very design forest gardens have high potential for replacing unnecessary and unused residential lawns. They are complex and diverse, which means they are not well suited for large scale mechanized operations. However, they are very low maintenance, but require frequent periodic human participation, mostly in the form of harvesting abundant food crops. And…

…they are beautiful.

Click Here for Video on This Topic

Practice Natural Lawn Care

It’s easy to save time and money by putting these steps to work for a beautiful yard.

Mow higher, mow regularly and leave the clippings.

Mow more frequently when grass is actively growing so that you are only cutting no more than one-third of the height of the grass. This practice minimizes the amount of grass clippings. The desired height of grass varies depending on climate. Contact your local Cooperative Extension office for local recommendations. “Grasscycling,” or leaving the clippings on the lawn, doesn’t cause thatch build up—but it does make lawns healthier. Soil organisms recycle the clippings into free fertilizer, and you save all the work of bagging. Modern mulching lawn mowers make “grasscycling” even easier and homeowners can reduce their mowing time by 30 to 40 percent by not having to bag clippings.

Honey, I Shrunk the Lawn!

• Grass grows best on level, well-drained soil in full sun or part shade.
• Consider alternatives to grass on steep slopes, shady areas or near streams and lakes.
• In these areas, it takes a lot of extra work (and sometimes chemicals) to maintain grass.
• Look for other plants, such as ground covers, better suited to soggy soil, slopes or heavy shade.
• Leave or plant a “buffer” of dense native vegetation along streams and lakes to filter and slow run-off, shade and cool the water, provide homes for wildlife and prevent bank erosion.

Lawns need only about one inch of rain a week in summer to stay green. Or you can let areas of lawn that don’t get heavy wear go brown and dormant— they’ll bounce back in the fall.

Overseeding can improve the quality of your lawn.

• Core aerate in the fall to improve root development and water penetration.
• Follow by overseeding thin areas of lawn with grass seed blends recommended for your area.
• Then “top-dress” by raking in quarter- to half-inch of compost to cover the seed and improve the soil.
• Repeat these steps annually as needed to improve poor lawns.

How  Grass  Grows

In this basic beekeeping workshop we will cover:

• Mechanics of a hive
• Necessary tools
• Elements of site selection
• Gain an understanding of the naturalist approach to keeping honeybees
• Honeybee health and disease management
• Seasonal management and methods of organic treatment
• This hands-on workshop, which includes assembling a wooden hive, will provide the beginner honey beekeeper with practical knowledge and resources for continued study.
• We will also speak about the value and importance this integral insect holds in holistic farm and garden systems, especially in biodynamics.

Instructor: Jack Daly – Jack is a natural beekeeper who learned the craft six years ago from Gunther Hauk, world-renowned beekeeper, star and author of “Queen of the Sun”, “Vanishing of the Bees” and “Toward Saving the Honey Bee”, respectively. After numerous trainings and practice, Jack has given bee related presentations and led organic beekeeping workshops and classes throughout the local area. “Honeybees are in severe decline and billions are dying off each year as a result of pathogens, parasites and numerous stressors.” His interest is breeding mite resistant honeybees.

Program Fee: $75.00 per individual, $150.00 per family

Location: Cornell Cooperative Extension, 10 Patriot Hills Drive, Stony Point, NY 10980

Shabazz

Last week at Ananda, the name Shabazz came up and it stuck with me for a couple reasons, one

my friend knows his daughter who owns a local Brooklyn eatery.  But the main reason his name stuck with me was because, he has been working in the area of compost for many years now, and uses a system called Zero Waste…  He has been able to divert garbage from Marist College, and Vassar and the local neighborhoods in Orange County and create a successful composting facility that has been capturing carbon, providing farmers with great compost, and regenerating “brown field” sites.

Keep up the great work Shabazz….

Shabazz

Shabazz Jackson belongs to a group of rare people–those who have maintained their idealism throughout the evolution of their careers. Rarer still, he’s managed to put his ideas into practice with meaningful results. For nearly 35 years, this Beacon native has been acting on a single mission–how to deal with the consequences of waste from our over-packaged, over-producing and overly consuming culture. Jackson has led his own non-profit, worked for local government and run his own business. He was a trailblazer of the early recycling movement and,later,found a niche remediating environmental contamination in the Hudson Valley.

The Valley Table

Ikea Background

See the link below some great Urban Farming Shots….

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/05/07/dining/0507-URBAN_2.html

I recently watched a documentary by Josh Fox, a Pennsylvania state resident who received a letter from Haliburton, offering him around $100k to lease his land to “frack” for natural gas.
Well Josh before signing that lease decided to take a look into this hidden but serious threat that is occurring all over the US  by the natural gas companies.  Guess what this may be coming to a county near you.  The upstate watershed, the largest clean water watershed in the country.  The economy upstate is making this a very hard thing to say hell no.  Hey why are we even considering this?

Take a look at the trailerGas Land Trailer

Brooklyn Farmers Market

Vertical gardens — which began as an experiment in 1988 by Patrick Blanc, a French botanist intent on creating a garden without dirt — are becoming increasingly popular at home. Avid and aspiring gardeners, frustrated with little outdoor space, are taking another look at their walls and noticing something new: more space. And a number of companies are selling ready-made systems and all-in-one kits for gardeners like Mr. Riley who want to do it themselves. (For those who prefer to leave it to the professionals, landscape designers can build vertical gardens for a hefty fee.)

In the last few years, companies that sell green wall supplies have seen a jump in sales. ELT, an Ontario company that specializes in green roofs, began selling living wall systems a little over three years ago and is now one of the biggest suppliers to the United States. Greg Garner, the company’s president, said that its green-wall sales have increased 300 percent since 2008. Four months ago, the company introduced a cheaper, lighter kit to make living walls accessible to the average gardener; prices start at about $40 for a one-square-foot panel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/garden/06vertical.html?ref=garden

fresh carrots from a compnay garden

The trend has caught on at more-traditional companies, too. At the headquarters for the Kohl’s department stores near Milwaukee, the organic gardens provide vegetables for a local food bank and a place for children at the company child care center to play. Abundant crops of pumpkins and tomatoes grow at the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Ky.

A National Gardening Association survey done in conjunction with Harris shows that 41 million Americans grew fruits and vegetables in 2009. That’s about 13 percent more than the year before.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/dining/12gardens.html?8dpc

Thank You!!!

]]> http://blog.anandaharvest.org/2010/02/805/feed/ 0 http://blog.anandaharvest.org/2010/02/snow-load/ http://blog.anandaharvest.org/2010/02/snow-load/#comments Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:59:36 +0000 admin http://blog.anandaharvest.org/2010/02/snow-load/

Winter’s a good time for indoor games as we rest up and get ready for spring planting.  And with Valentine’s day around the corner, we figured, why not play ping pong and show some love for your farmer instead of buy lots of stuffed teddies?

So we’re hosting a Ping Pong Fundraiser this Friday at New York’s only private ping pong club and we’d love you to stop by!

It’s a final push for our kickstarter cabin fundraiser – there are only 6 days to go so if you haven’t donated, do it now! If you’ve already donated, we thank you from the bottom of our harvest baskets. All tickets from the Love Thy Farmer event will go toward the Ananda Harvest Cabin Project. Either way, you should come out, have some fun and learn to love your farmer!

The event will include everything from a doubles ping-pong tournament to DJs, and more!

Won’t you be our Valentine?

TICKETS: Advance Ticket Donation on kickstarter of $20 or more!) Door price ( $25.00) http://lovethyfarmer.eventbrite.com/

WHEN: February 12th, 2009 8pm- 11:30pm

WHERE: SPiN New York 48 East 23rd Street New York, NY 10010

MORE INFO: http://lovethyfarmer.eventbrite.com/

Some videos of the method:

Feb 4 in the Village. See below:

http://www.thehoneybeeconservancy.org/Events.html

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=248125679489&index=1

Bring  your friends!

Astyk makes the excellent point regarding the destruction of community through overwork and the herding of women out of the home and into the workplace. Women can’t just be (unless they are rich) — they have to have an occupation, and the default occupation — “homemaker” — carries a bit of a stigma. Women have always been the backbone of any community, and the regimentation of women’s lives was a brilliant move in the direction of totalitarian consumerism, because it allowed relationships even within the family, such as child-rearing, to be commercialized. Once all social interaction is centered around consumption patterns, community as a notion becomes little more than an advertising gimmick, and self-organizing properties of society become restricted to pursuing the latest commercial fashion.

If you fancy, do read the full article at ClubOrlov here.

Don’t Be a Bum

A socially conscious venture where 50% of the proceeds of her pillows go to a different non-profit each month.

See her interview below with two fellow farmers  Farming Your Mind, Thanks Emma!  Keep up the great work….

by Emma

I recently read that delving into 8 minutes of deep meditation daily can increase ones brain size. Although 8 minutes may seem like an easy feat, meditation is one of the hardest exercises to conquer… for me at least.

For those of us still struggling to ignore our overly stimulated minds and reach a sense of heightened relaxation, The Ananda Ashram, located in Monroe, NY, offers a perfect balance of yoga, meditation and now FARMING!

If your mind resembles an erratic maze, with your thoughts running amuck, chances are, silencing those thoughts will prove to be like a maze with no end.

Some yogis use chanting as a way to focus ones energy on repetitive mantras in order to calm the mind.  These yogis use farming.

I was introduced to The Ananda Harvest by one of the founders of the farm, David Gottlieb. Gottlieb with fellow founding farmer Jerri Chou, among others, saw an opportunity to start a farm, escape from the city, and help decrease the amount of money the Ashram was spending on food.

I got a chance to chat with the two Brooklynites and here’s what they said:

Why did you decide to start the Ananda Harvest Project?
We didn’t even know we WERE starting it at first. It all started when a group of us started visiting Ananda. It was this amazingly peaceful place on such beautiful land. We started wondering why it wasn’t being used to produce anything and got to thinking how great it would be to start a farm and grow veggies on the land! We started building the idea and then began the actual garden with friends. It’s been a beautiful exercise, not only in body, but community, and personal growth.

Who is involved?
There’s a group of us (mostly creative, eco/socially conscious people from the city). We’re programmers, communicators, designers, etc. But it would never have been possible if not for the original farmer of the land, Dave Washburn, and his son, Matt, who have been holding down the fort up there!

What can we expect to see in 2010?
There’s a lot coming. There’s been so much excitement! We’re planning on building an additional cabin for people to stay in and holding a workshop on how to build that cabin! We’ll be planting in the spring and expanding our growing to more areas of the Ashram. We’re also looking to host all sorts of courses including permaculture, beekeeping, etc. It’s going to be a jam packed season of growing!

Is there any synergy between the farm and the yogis that visit the Ashram? If not, do you plan on creating any?
Definitely. The whole concept is based on meditating with your hands. So many of us need a place of peace and where we can create something tangible. That’s what this farm is for us, a meditation. Not to mention that all yogis are welcome to pick up a pick and help dig and we’ll be encouraging those who visit to partake in the amazing and extensive series of courses at Ananda.

How can we help?
We’re always looking for help, supporters, or just visitors. For more information you can check out anandaharvest.org and sign up for our newsletter. Or feel free to send us an email at hello@anandaharvest.org.

Answer’s Contributed by David Gottlieb and Jerri Chou
Founding Farmers at Ananda Harvest
www.anandaharvest.org <http://www.anandaharvest.org>

While plenty of city schools, from elementary to secondary, teach students about environmental issues like endangered species or global warming, places like the Green School put an overwhelming emphasis on civic involvement.

The students are encouraged to delve into local issues that may affect them and their families, like contamination in waterways like the Gowanus Canal, water quality or the razing of low-scale housing.

“You can’t have a kid in a violent neighborhood and say, ‘Let’s talk about the polar bear,’ ” said Karali Pitzele, one of the school’s two co-directors.

Across the nation, the range of green schools form a fledgling network, with some of them benefiting from state grants and mandates to incorporate environmental education into the curriculum.

Click here to read the article at The New York Times

Ananda Harvest Summit from Seema Shah on Vimeo.

Please note that I did not capture the educational sessions that were taking place during the weekend. I can share with you the relaxing and beautiful moments from the weekend with my first time video editing skillz off of iMovie.

USDA TO LAUNCH HIGH TUNNEL PILOT STUDY TO INCREASE AVAILABILITY OF LOCALLY GROWN FOODS

3-Year Project To Verify Effectiveness Of High Tunnels In Natural Resource Conservation

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2009 – Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan today announced a new pilot project under the ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ initiative for farmers to establish high tunnels – also known as hoop houses – to increase the availability of locally grown produce in a conservation-friendly way. Merrigan and other Obama administration officials highlighted opportunities available for producers in a video posted on USDA’s YouTube channel, which shows high tunnels recently installed in the White House garden.

Perhaps this might add validity for some of you to the notion of setting up quick hoops. Me, I’m starting to reconsidor. I wonder if Michelle Obama had to fight as hard to bury the EMT hoops in the ground. This shit is driving me bananas. I’m starting to think cold frames was a better idea. Anyone know where we can get old sliding glass doors from? That would be an ideal size pane to use for a coldframe. How bout 3/4″ to 1″ diameter footing pins 3 ‘ or more? The wider diameter footing pins might make it easier to bury the 3/4″ EMT. Currently I’m using 1/2″ to 3/4″ pins, pounded in to the ground, and then yanked out to create the hole.