Tag Archives: Florida

As the only farmer Georgia delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and the only delegate from Lowndes County and one of the few from rural Georgia, Gretchen Quarterman is off to the Democratic Platform Committee meeting in Orlando today and tomorrow, Friday July 8th and Saturday July 9th 2016.

Remember: No Farms, No Food.

She already knows a bit more about the process than Jimmy Stewart in 1939’s Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Hm, I’d forgotten that movie was about Continue reading →

Happy Serenity Acres Farm

Julia Shewchuk will present How to make Basic Goat Milk Soap at South Georgia Growing Local in February.

Gretchen Hein, New Leaf Market Co-op, Jan/Feb/Mar 2016, Local Spotlight—Serenity Acres Farm,

“Happy Soaps by Happy Goats,” is the tagline of the Serenity Acres Farm Goat Soap home page and “happy” describes many things about Serenity Acres Farm. Yes, even how it feels to be lathered by the suds of their goat milk soap.

Owned by Julia and Wayne, Serenity Acres Farm is located in nearby Madison County, Florida. It’s a small farm with a big goal of producing locally grown and farm-raised products free of major pesticides, hormones and genetically modified components. All their animals are Animal Welfare Approved certified and pasture based.

Originally, Julia and Wayne were looking for…. Continue reading →

Raising goats. Is it a hobby or a business? –Bobbie Golden @ SOGALO15 2015-01-24

South Georgia Growing Local is also for North Florida, where these goats live.

Breeds that are most likely to live in our environment
How to market and get some return on your investment

Bobbie’s business is Golden Acres Ranch, between Monticello Florida, and Thomasville, Georgia. Come hear Bobbie talk about her goats at South Georgia Growing Local 2015, this Saturday, January 24^th, at Pine Grove Middle School, in Lowndes County, Georgia.

-jsq

Location, Location, Location –Christine Hagen from the Hagen Homestead

Christine Hagen will speak about her family’s CSA at South Georgia Growing Local 2014:

We started out going to a weekly organic farmer’s market over in Thomasville but transitioned to a CSA after 2 years. We will explain why and show you how our gardens have taken shape over these past few years. We are still a small operation after 4 years choosing to grow our business slowly. However, we have learned a great deal during these growing years. Plus we have gleaned much from other folks which we will be implementing over the next few years. We are grooming the farm as a business venture for our son, who does most of the labor.

Hagen Homestead’s website. Christine Hagen’s conference bio: Continue reading →

Gretchen on the radio about South Georgia Growing Local 2014

We will be on the radio twice on Monday. First on the Chris Beckham show at 7:30 and then on a Jasper station at 11:30. Listen in and invite your friends.

Here’s a facebook event about the Black Crow Media 105.9 FM radio show, 7:30-7:45 AM. You can listen to it online with Streema.com or any of several other apps. Or over the air!

And remember to register for the conference.

-jsq

French mulberry, or dwarf mulberry, becomes beautyberry

Due to discussion on facebook with Rihard Sexton after the previous post, I dug around a bit, and discovered that beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is also known as dwarf mulberry, French mulberry, and Spanish mulberry, sow berry, and sour berry. That last is especially a misnomer, because its berries are not sour, they taste like flowers. And it turns out that beautyberry was mentioned in books before 1800, it was just mentioned as dwarf mulberry:

Further, William Bartram did mention it in his Travels of 1791, as French mulberry. Curiously, even though Google books does have Bartram’s book, ngrams doesn’t seem to show French mulberry for that date, but does show American mulberry. Even more curious, William Bartram’s father, John Bartram, corresponded with Linnaeus, the founder of modern botanical terminology.

The currently most popular name is beautyberry, which turns out to be related to the scientific genus name, Callicarpa: Greek kalli means beautiful, and Karpos means fruit.

The plant has all sorts of uses: Continue reading →

The Art of Managing Longleaf

The surprising thing is so few people have heard of Leon Neel. Here’s a very interesting biography of this very influential pioneer in southeastern forestry and agriculture, including many interesting stories of south Georgia and north Florida life and politics:

The Art of Managing Longleaf:
A Personal History of the Stoddard-Neel Approach,
by Leon Neel, with Paul S. Sutter and Albert G. Way.

Leon Neel was a atudent, apprentice, and successor of Herbert Stoddard, who was originally hired by quail plantation owners around Thomasville to figure out why their quail populations were decreasing. The answer included a need to thin and especially to burn their longleaf pine tree forests. Stoddard and Neel studied and practiced for almost a century between them on how to preserve and increase the amount of standing timber and species diversity while also selectively harvesting trees to pay for the whole thing. Their Stoddard-Neel Approach is written up in textbooks. In this book we learn how it came about, and how it is basically different from the clearcut-thin-thin-clearcut “efficient” timbering cycle that is the current fad among pine tree growers in the southeast.

It starts back in the old days of Leon Neel’s youth when his daddy taught him to hunt quail: Continue reading →

County Commission Votes Tonight: Save Our Canopy Road

In a front page story in the Valdosta Daily Times, Matt Flumerfelt writes:

VALDOSTA — The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will vote today concerning the proposed paving of Quarterman Road, located off Hambrick Tree Farm Road.
The road is already partially paved, but some community members are concerned about the trees that line a section of the road that will have to be removed in order to complete the paving project.

There’s more. He ends with:

The commission will meet tonight at 5:30 p.m. at the County Commission Building on Savannah Avenue.

If you’re heading south down Patterson Street, turn right just before the overpass. That’s Savannah Avenue. Several blocks down you’ll see the water tower, and the commission office is on the left just before you get to the tower. If the parking lot is full, you can park across the street in the county fire station lot.

We’ll see if the county will consider the idea of treating canopy roads throughout the canopy as the benefit they are to the environment, beauty, and tourism.

Canopy Roads of South Georgia

Outside the city; off the main roads.