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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 9, 2011 13:45:34 GMT -5
Okay, When was the last time anyone called someone to order seed? Who saves all the seed catalogs and empty seed packages? What about those pesky records for harvesting your own seed? I get a seed, I put it in "organic" potting soil. I water it with diluted endomycorrhizae. I follow up with plain water and occasionally a shot of fish emulsion. I plant it. I hope the gophers don't eat it, the birds don't pull it up, the slugs/bugs don't munch it and if I'm lucky I get some seed. I harvest and hope the mice/weevils don't find it before it's sufficiently dry to put away. Gee for years I have cleaned the seed, stored them in mason jars, in the fridge and replanted them when I need them. Occasionally I even have sent seed to folks in farout places like Missouri, or B.C. Someone take the folks who made these rules outside and slap them silly. Attachments:
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Post by steev on Jun 10, 2011 1:03:12 GMT -5
Actually, I save most of the good catalogs, and I put the uncommon, interesting seed packets in an album. I may outgrow this packrattery if I live long enough. I tell myself I'm going to start a file of varieties I grow and save, but it hasn't happened yet. Eventually, everything I have will be "grown in my family as long as I can remember", a
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Post by steev on Jun 10, 2011 1:05:47 GMT -5
Ooops. Hit the wrong thing.
To continue: and it will be entirely true.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 10, 2011 16:18:52 GMT -5
Steev I think you should let me send you some seeds. That way I know where they are.
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Post by steev on Jun 11, 2011 8:52:37 GMT -5
If you do, most of the time neither of us will know where they are. My random-access memory gets more random every day.
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 20, 2011 20:10:13 GMT -5
So, the inspection folks called today to say that I am in non-compliance.
I failed to use organic seed or keep records of my search to find organic seed. So, there are no Monaco Muiru Nusso seeds in the United States, I know this because I know that they are only grown on 3 farms in Italy, and if they fail, they will be extinct...but I failed to document my search for these seeds. I don't have phone records of calling seed companies to ask for these seeds in organic farm. I didn't ask the researcher who kindly sent them to me from Italy as to whether or not they are organic. So I failed.
I also failed to turn my compost or record that I turned my compost
I also failed to weigh every tomato that came out of the field and keep a record of them.
I also failed to document how many seeds I harvested.
I failed to record that the okra made 9 pods and count each seed.
I am a miserable failure as an organic farmer. I guess I didn't realize that being organic had nothing to do with how you farm, just how you record that you farm. Maybe I should have started a "Sim" organic farm. That way I'd be in compliance.
It's been an absolutely abominable day. I'm going to go feed my chickens, and open a beer, or 4.
The inspector says he's going to make me sign to all these faults. It is the State's intention to pull my organic registration. Leo wants to know if we can have our $35 back.
I am absolutely disgusted.
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Post by spacecase0 on Oct 20, 2011 21:38:03 GMT -5
the word organic seems to be owned by our government so I quit using it,
I tell people how I grow what I am growing,
the phrase "grown with no chemical fertilizers or pesticides and grown the old fashioned way"
seems to work better anyway.
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 20, 2011 22:22:10 GMT -5
As I said before, the folks who just shut me out are:
Coleman Meat
Safeway
Horizon Dairy
And a few others.
These folks are not organic, they're corpse corp. They wouldn't know a farm if it rose up and threw soil at them. They told me on the phone that they had no experience with any organic farms that did not grow only one item. (As my mother-in-law used to say, imbecile! idiot!) She was Belgium-French and said a lot more than that when she got going.
And to make maters worse, there's no beer, my son just called from the road with a broken down motorcycle and Leo was in the middle of putting a new angle stop on the toilet. Some fool woman was cleaning and bumped the thing and it started spraying all over. Now there's no water. Arghh...
What a miserable day.
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Post by spacecase0 on Oct 20, 2011 23:01:55 GMT -5
so I have been thinking,
if you re document the search for organic seeds,
and there are none, then you are fine, right ?
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Post by steev on Oct 21, 2011 1:24:46 GMT -5
I regret you had to deal with a toilet malfunction when you had such crap to put up with.
As I have often noted, only the good die young, and I expect/intend/plan to live a very long time.
On occasion, when faced with the necessity of such self-reported documentation, I have risen above ( slid under? ) the regs by writing the records in a marathon session, rather than the bit-by-bit quotidian manner in which it is expected. Is not creativity one of the hallmarks of humanity? Any insect can behave as it is hard-wired to do. So many law-breakers cannot remember what was done, while I have written it exactly as I did it, to my best recollection. If I don't specifically remember a particular detail, it's all there, in my notes, so that must be when I did what and how, since it is consistent with my habit and practice.
Realizing that for the inspector to think I am less than ploddingly obedient to regulation must be stressful for him, I feel it only considerate to assuage any doubts he may have. Frequently changing the pen with which I write ( different size point, different color of ink, etc ) seems to provide a comforting sense of the passage of time between entries.
This is not to be taken as incitement to lie, but to extend one's life, and that of others, by reducing some of the stress of modern life on all concerned. Be well.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Oct 21, 2011 5:23:58 GMT -5
Is there only one certifier in California? Cause is sounds like the one you are using is really not a good fit for your kind of farm. Here in NY there are several different certifiers available. And none of them would be as sticky on the regs they were failing you on except for maybe the compost. And most of the farmers around here that use un-temped compost just treat it like raw manure and apply in the fall so they can harvest after the manure window.
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Post by ottawagardener on Feb 14, 2012 8:03:18 GMT -5
Is it really an organic requirement that you have to turn your compost? Sorry you are dealing with this.
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Post by 12540dumont on Feb 14, 2012 12:31:12 GMT -5
Really and truly, and so I gave up my registration this year. It was a hard decision, but hopefully the right one. I've only lost one customer because of it. As I wrote in my farm blog, now I have time to do farming, instead of paperwork.
I could have turned the compost, but what irked me is that then I have to go in the office, aka living room and write down that I've turned the compost.
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Post by steev on Feb 15, 2012 0:27:26 GMT -5
One good turn deserves another. Anybody who's bought from you certified, but won't uncertified, deserves veggies from a factory, not a farm.
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Post by richardw on Mar 7, 2012 14:40:21 GMT -5
After reading this thread it makes me appreciate the fact that we (Koanga growers) decided as a group not to go down the road of organic certification,even though there are some growers that are certified there's a few of us that thought that many of the rules and regeneration were just a whole heap of @#* .
For me i would have to had change my compost system completely because i don't turn my compost at all,its cold composting instead of hot,i believe hot composting is not natural,as it doesn't happen in nature that way.
Instead we agreed as a group that we would indicate to our customers that all our seed is as spacecase0 put it "grown with no chemical fertilizers or pesticides and grown the old fashioned way".
The organic industry here in NZ is going no where because of such unnecessary and overly restrictive rules that are as a result is scaring many away from considering organic certification.Ive always said that the rule book be chucked out and that all that needs to be done is soil and product testing,any residues show up in the test and you loose your organic certification,simple.
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