AdAgrA 2015: Restoring the Waste Places

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Short Course: Beginning Market Farming

Pamela Dysinger

John Dysinger

Nick Knecht

Kirsten Knecht

Fred Perlee

Lilia Perlee

Beginning Market Farming- Part 1

So when we were off, we were really off, and that was great, and where are all my pictures?

Anyway, that experience was eye-opening for us in this way.

We saw the results of parents giving themselves for the gospel and the broader field of the world and neglecting what Mrs.

White calls the garden right outside your door.

And so beyond all of those things that John that I shared, John in his heart was so committed to young people that he was in the dorm 2 nights a week counseling.

That was in addition by the desire of his heart.

The stories, the things that he heard in those private sessions with young people would make you heart sick, as it did ours.

And we started saying, phew, you know, what are we gonna do?

This isn't, you know, God doesn't want us to judge, but he wants us to look at the fruit.

You know, in the garden, if we want to have good fruit to take to the market, there are certain things that we have to do.

And if we see that we've got bad fruit coming out of our garden and we just say, oh well, it'll go better next time, It'll go, no, that's not wisdom in farming and that's not wisdom in parenting.

And so the Lord really laid on our hearts that we couldn't continue what everyone else was doing and think we were going to get a different result.

Yes, there was good fruit here and there and we mind those young people, what did your parents do?

And So yes, we said to ourselves, well, we could stay in this line of work, we can give ourselves to these young people, and we might be able to make it with our own family, but statistically, No, we couldn't.

And the Lord started really laying on our hearts.

And So at the end of those 6 years, we determined to go back and well before that, and this is what I was going to show you and I can't believe that my pictures are gone.

Those are the pictures that were there to begin with.

They were both born while we were in Kenya.

We came as a family of 2 to Africa and we went home as a family of 4.

And I've lost all the pictures from those years.

But we left there and we went to Andrews University so my husband could get a master's degree in education.

We had no clue of what was coming down the pipeline.

But I can tell you that that year, that 10 months, was like an amazing oasis for our family.

We were so burned out and we didn't even realize it.

You know, you're just going, going and when you get out of it, you remove yourself.

All of a sudden you start seeing, wow, you know, Here's the foundation of our marriage.

I'm telling you, we were headed right towards the result of other fractured family groups.

It was, our marriage had suffered, our family was suffering.

Kirsten was 2 and Jonathan was 10 months.

And even though they're little, children at that young age reap the results of parents not investing all that they should.

And so that was a wonderful year where we just enjoyed being a family.

We didn't have to look to see if there was any, if every young person was there.

No responsibilities for anybody but us and our kids.

And I can remember saying, I feel like a bird that has been let out of the cage.

God knew what we needed and that was a wonderful oasis.

And the Lord opened up for us to teach at 1 room Adventist school.

I have a degree in elementary education and my husband in secondary and so they hired us as the teaching team knowing that I had the experience with elementary and so John taught 4 days a week and I came in 1 day a week to just sort of help him and give him a break and it gave him a day with the kids.

But during that time I was pregnant with that big tall guy.

We were building a house and my husband was in a career that was totally out of his comfort zone.

My husband's a very focused man and he was now teaching 3 grades.

The second year he was teaching 6 grades with 13 students and we were not meeting our goals.

So did I say that when we were called to Tennessee, this is where my in-laws were?

So this is our farm, and that's my tall Joshua with Grandpa.

We moved to the farm with grandma and grandpa and tried every way to buy a house far from the farm and close to school, which was about a half hour.

And so we built a small cabin on the farm and that's where we started.

But as I said, 2 years into it, John was not, I mean we weren't meeting our goals.

He would leave before the kids got up in the morning and he would come home just as they were going to bed and we're saying, wait a minute, we were trying by going to elementary to regain for ourselves some time with our family and it just wasn't happening.

And so the Lord slowly started calling to our hearts and we made that leap of faith and we left employment.

And I want to tell you the difference between faith and presumption is whose idea is the step.

It was, and I can't even go into how, but it was undeniable.

We knew that we had to make a change, And so we did.

So we moved to the farm and when John left teaching, mind you, the Lord did not tell us what we were gonna do.

We had some ideas and I think that God gave us those ideas to comfort us and to help us to know it was going to be okay.

But no, those ideas, the door started closing, closing.

We have a mortgage and my husband has left his employment and we have Nothing.

We didn't have like this huge thing to fall back on.

The Lord just took us down to being totally dependent on him.

And it's a very scary but very gratifying place to be.

And you just have to learn to trust the Lord.

So it took 18 months, and in those 18 months, we were led to farm.

And that's a long story, but the Lord, again, made it clear.

And I'll say this, I didn't want to farm.

I did not want to farm and I knew the Lord was calling my husband to it, and I was dragging my feet and saying, no way, Lord, I don't.

I knew what it was gonna cost me personally.

I knew that it was going to be over the top, and I would be in the garden and not in the home, right?

And I hadn't really embraced the calling then.

I can talk to moms today with so much more confidence because of what God has done in our family and for our family.

So, but at that time I had a lot of fear.

Beginning Market Farming- Part 2

Okay, we're gonna go ahead and get started here.

We want to use our time as wisely as possible Did anyone not get this resource list from First thing this morning recommended resources.

Hang on to that as I said, that's that's really got the most valuable information on it, I believe.

Okay, Julia, I think we're ready to roll.

Lord, as we continue on this journey of learning, I pray that you will go with us.

I pray that you will quicken my mind and help me to think of the right things to say.

Pray that those listening can learn and grow.

And may it all be for your honor and glory we pray in Jesus name, amen.

Okay, we're going to talk about the market gardening model here, making a living on a small piece of land.

Now, I will just say that when people think of farming in our country, what comes to your mind when you hear somebody's a farmer or they're farming?

Most conventional farms are thousand plus acres.

And all kinds of very, very expensive equipment.

Well, that's not the kind of farming we're talking about.

I think you understand that, And that's not the kind of farming that Ad Agra's all about.

And I want to make it clear, we're not against that kind of farming per se.

Now there are things that a lot of those farmers are doing that we don't agree with, but just because you're big doesn't mean you're bad.

But we're talking, in here I want to give you a picture of a market gardening model that I'm really excited about because, well, I think we're going to find out here and see if you get excited about it too.

So, and of course there's no dictionary definition.

These definitions are a little vague, but I would say it's less than 3 acres of cultivated land.

And many of the most successful market gardens are actually an acre and a half or less.

So that's exciting to me because most people could afford a few acres in the country.

You know, that's a big barrier to all these people who are convicted on country living.

I think most people could come up with that.

And if you don't have the resources for 5 acres, God will open the way.

If he's calling you to do it, I mean, we've heard amazing stories of God's leading on that.

So, less than 3 acres, they're going to be characterized by intensive beds and multiple crops per bed per year.

This is, that's what makes it profitable, is the intensity of the growing.

You know, this is not tractor farming where your rows are 345 feet apart, whatever.

You know, you kind of have to base your layout on the wheels of your tractor and all that kind of stuff.

This is intensive beds, and we'll talk more about that as we go along.

Most market gardens are going to take advantage of season extension.

I'm sure it will be mentioned later, but I just want to emphasize our experience is the money is to be made in the spring.

If you can be first to market with your produce, you've got, we sell out every market in the early spring and we're able to get there early because we have lots of hoop houses.

So we can plant things a month ahead of everybody else.

And so we literally, somebody's gonna catch on sooner or later and we're gonna have some competition but for years now, you know, we have tomatoes almost a month before anybody else And everybody in spring is craving fresh produce.

So, that season extension, getting a jump early.

Now, what we've found is in the fall, we can extend the season.

We still have tomatoes and peppers and everything going at home even though we've had frost, because they're in a hoop house.

But the market isn't the same, you know, it's like, oh, tomato, yeah, I've had lots of tomatoes.

There's something about that early spring.

And then the other thing that is really good is the winter.

You know, the Perleys are doing a winter CSA.

That's actually how we started with the winter CSA.

We do everything the hard way, backwards, you know.

Well, it depends, of course, on where you live, but generally speaking in the US, fresh produce in the dead of winter, man, when people open their CSA boxes, you'd think it was Christmas.

You know, it's cold and snowing or raining and they open this up and it's like boom, spring pops out of the box.

Usually very diverse, you know, You don't want all your eggs in 1 basket.

I wish we had more time to share our journey.

But actually, we'll be telling you later on.

But of our personal testimony, And again, it's all to God's glory.

We're not putting ourselves as the model to follow, but we've been there.

We know what it's like to start with nothing, to know nothing.

We've been there, and the Lord brought us through.

And so we want to share that testimony with people, and we're taking preorders on the book.

Anyway, just back to the diversity, we started out just growing strawberries and we about lost our pants and our shirt doing that.

And there were a lot of reasons, you know.

The biggest reason, of course, was that we didn't know what we were doing.

So, some of the advantages of this market gardening model.

Obviously, we've talked about less land needed.

Oh, and I'll just apologize ahead of time.

That's because my daughter is my art director and she's now got a lot of things going.

So whenever I come up with a new presentation, She has to make it look pretty and it doesn't always happen.

So actually I think the next presentation is not going to have any pictures.

But pictures just make it look pretty, but you'll still get all the information.

Now, you know, depending on where you live in the country, that may or may not be an issue, but, you know, you can imagine if you've got 50 acres that need irrigation, that's a whole lot of water.

But if you're growing only on an acre, acre and a half, you know, you can almost do that with a garden hose, you know, and some sprinklers.

So that's a big thing if you don't have a good water source.

Now, we are blessed with an amazing water source, so that's not important to us, but this is a big 1.

You know, a front end loader of the tractor, I tell people that's the most useful tool on a farm.

For a small market gardener, a BCS, what they call a walking tractor, is really all you need.

And those are a whole lot less expensive than a four-wheel tractor.

You know, you can change a clutch on those and it's not intimidating, whereas trying to break apart a full-size tractor and change a clutch, that's intimidating to me.

Beginning Market Farming- Part 3

We're going to talk about what to grow and how to grow it.

And this is the 1 that I said I don't have pictures in, and my daughter is embarrassed about that, but it's not her fault So I think you know, you know what a tomato looks like, you know What what a lot of these things we're going to talk about so the pictures would make it pretty but I don't think it will take away from the presentation that you don't have them.

Let's just, we can't have too much prayer here, so let's just pray for God to be with us.

Lord, as we go into this next section, we just ask for your guidance, your wisdom.

May it be to your honor and glory, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

I'm going to give you a little heads up here that next year the conference is going to be the end of January.

Okay, so it's gonna be a little bit more space between.

But, and the reason I tell you that now is just because we have been, you know, for farmers, they're still kind of wrapping up their summer at this time of year.

And then with my son doing his first winter CSA, we've been very involved with that.

So we've been running full speed the last, well, pretty much since spring.

So I had wanted him to help me with this presentation, but he got in this morning driving all night because he had CSA delivery yesterday.

So anyway, we weren't, I wanted this to be more family, but We do have Kirsten and Nick presenting later on, and my dear wife presented.

And again, I wish it was different, but we're doing the best we can.

So, let's try to get practical here, and you're getting a couple handouts that it's with things that we grow and again we're in middle Tennessee, we're almost at 36 degree latitude, We're in, you know, the zone thing is all, I think, a little up in the air because of climate change and all of that, and we won't get into politics here, but I say we're in zone 6B, okay.

Zone 6B, we get temperatures down in the single digits in the wintertime, and occasionally, on an occasional year, it gets below 0.

Very little snow, which is kind of unusual.

We get lots of cold weather, but very little snow.

So anyway, that just to give you an idea of where we are.

And so our recommendations for varieties and timing, obviously, is our recommendations.

And that's going to vary a whole lot depending on where you are in the country.

But it's a starting point and then if you get other starting points, Elliot Coleman is in Maine and he gives recommendations for timing and varieties And JM is in Canada, Southern Canada.

So the more you glean from others, the more you can say, okay, well, he plants at this date and I'm planting at this date in Tennessee.

So if I'm in Indiana, you know, and you got to, at least it can help you not start from 0.

Do you have any start points to glean that are farther south from you?

I see Canada, I see Maine, I see Tennessee, I don't see anything closer to south Texas.

That's a good point and For whatever reason, and I should just kind of restate that for the audio, but he was asking if there's any people growing further south from us that would give starting points.

For whatever reason, most of the writers seem to be from more up north, and I think There are reasons for that.

The southeast is kind of rough because of the heat and humidity.

Those 2 combined make gardening more challenging than a drier climate.

How do your times correlate with what you see in the newspaper every spring?

How do our times correlate with what we see in the newspaper?

Well, my short answer is I don't look at the newspaper, so I don't know.

Yeah, and we're gonna have to save questions.

We're trying to make sure, at least in the final session, that there's time for questions, But in order to get through things, we're going to have to plunge ahead.

So write your questions down, and even if we can't do it in the seminar, we'll do our best.

Once I get through tomorrow morning, I'm through presenting.

So I can relax and look me up, and I'll be happy to try to answer your questions, okay?

So today is crazy, if we can get through today, and then I have 1 presentation in the morning.

And again, you know, these are guidelines.

It may vary somewhat, but these are pretty much tried and true.

Tomatoes are 1 of your biggest sellers, and I'm talking about cherry tomatoes, I'm talking about When I say regular, I mean large tomatoes slicing tomatoes hybrids and heirlooms and Again, I don't want to I'm not gonna get into hybrids versus heirlooms and stuff because I trust that you know the difference at this point and I just want to say, you know, hybrids have kind of gotten a bad name.

And hybrids are not necessarily the ideal because it's not easy to save the seed.

And we know as Adventists, we've got the inside scoop that at some point we're not going to be able to buy seeds.

So that's a very good argument for growing heirlooms.

But when you're doing a market garden there's a balance there because heirlooms don't always have the consistency and the yields that you have to rely on if you've got a CSA and you need this many heads of broccoli.

I tell you, I haven't found a good heirloom broccoli.

That's 1 thing, you'll find very few heirloom broccolis and there's reasons for that.

So we use hybrid broccoli and we don't, We don't feel guilty about that because there's nothing evil about hybrids.

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Series

Short Course: Beginning Market Farming

Beginning Market Farming- Part 5

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Beginning Market Farming- Part 1

44m

Beginning Market Farming- Part 2

1h

Beginning Market Farming- Part 3

1h 14m

Beginning Market Farming- Part 4

1h

Beginning Market Farming- Part 5

55m

Beginning Market Farming- Part 6

46m

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