It's been quite a day: Awake at 3:15am in Andover, Logan airport at 4:15am... sleeping on and off then waking up in Milwaukee around 7:30. The temperature here read 1 degree F. The wind chill was around -14. Luckily a bus took me and my fellow intern Jon, right to Growing Power. We put our bags down and immediately went to work.
Since it's a holiday weekend, things were slow around here today (many employees are off until Monday). But myself, Jon, Jeremy and Chris spent much of the day sifting compost and wheeling the fine-grained soil to one of other 13 greenhouses (there are 14 total.) It's amazing what Will Allen has going:
- There are plants everyone... every bit of space is utililized to its fullest potential (vertical growing! pictures to come soon)
- Aquaponics - symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a re-circulating system. Growing
- Vermicompost - the final product of the breakdown of organic material by worms..
Some other observations I had on my first day:
- The number of employees is around 15 or so for the Milwaukee branch... another 10 or so for the Chicago site.. I think the employees will work at both sites when needed
- There are a TON of volunteers... on Saturday's the place is full of people in the community wanting to check out what's happening
- There are tours once a day at 1pm, and they will pretty much give people tours whenever they show up. I think Will does one himself once per month.
- Types of crops: lots of leafy greens in the winter (mustard greens, pea sprouts, sunflower sprouts, collard greens, arugula, watercrest)... they have a CSA that distributes the foods they can't grow in their greenhouses during winter to the local community (so this time of year they are getting potatoes, yams, celery, apples, , bell peppers, meat, etc. from local farms.)
Peace,
Ryan
ryan
ReplyDeletewhy are you doing this intern in wisconsin? are you planning on teaching or starting an educational permaculture seminar? i am gathering this is somewhat like permaculture and i know it is organic. how did you get interested in this? i do ecological landscape and also want to learn more on permaculture this is why i ask. thanks and happy new year.
starlet
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteThis is too cool! I interned just for a week last spring at growing power and thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I have family in WI and had heard about Will's farm for years. Some of the best stuff I took away with me is 1.) don't buy into the demographics/profiling of new farmers as one operation in the Pioneer Valley I know of does. Like Will, I'm 60+ too and actually kept pace with peeps young enough to be my grandkids, 2.) worm casting inputs (the only greenhouse inputs Will uses in 8 greenhouses (!) are beyond great, and a secret to providing $$$ farm employment to so many peeps at Growing Power employed, and 3.)another Growing Power secret is a diversified marketing strategy - from CSA shares in 3 cities to 'Healthy snacks' of pea sprouts to the public school system. Will has his marketing DOWN! He used to market for Proctor and Gamble. Mature experience is golden. On my return flight to Boston I brought some of his worms with me that are now reproducing in the Goddard College greenhouse. Homeland security gave me no grief.
See if you can get him interested in making biochar. It would be a natural for that operation. Get a copy of Lehmann and Joseph's book by request from the public library. I'm about to order a tape of his NOFA-MA conference keynote that I missed.
Give me an email when you return and I will give you a complimentary body massage treatment - you might be a bit sore from the physical work there - good tho. divinefarmer.nk@gmail.com Nancy Kellogg. Give Will my fond regards.