Experience where your food is grown

Sally Thiel and Joe Martin, co-owners of Zydeco Moon farm

High Country Farm Tour August 3^rd & 4^th, 2 PM – 6PM

If you enjoy exploring beautiful countryside and are interested in how local farmers make mouth-watering products, plan on participating in the 7^th annual High Country farm tour. This self-guided tour boasts 29 stops with 15 first time farms.

Nonprofit Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture organize the event with the goal of strengthening the food system by educating the public about sustainable food and agriculture while providing farmers with opportunities to increase their income.

Nearly every farm on the tour will tempt you with farm-fresh produce, meats, dairy and grocery products for purchase, so have an ice-packed cooler and cash ready. Also, local chefs will be preparing delicious snacks at some farms labeled “snack stops”, available for purchase.

Weekend passes are available for $25 on-line at farmtour.brwia.org and are sold at area farmers’ markets, including Ashe, Blowing Rock, Lenoir and Watauga. The pass covers everyone in your vehicle for both days. Available at the first farm you visit for $30. Another option is to volunteer at a farm one day, then take the tour the other day for free. Sign up on the website.

To help you decide which farms to visit, a printed farm tour guide is available at the markets, and an interactive google map is found on the website. To maximize your time, it’s best to visit clusters of farms. One such cluster includes Landmark farm alpacas and Zydeco Moon farm located in northern Ashe County. Both farms are fun for kids of all ages.

Landmark Farm alpacas will offer a self-guided tour including "from alpaca to finished garment" exhibits, storyboards, and demonstrations, including fiber carding, hand spinning and knitting.

Visitors to Zydeco Moon will tour a passive solar green house, 3 high tunnels and 11 fields along Helton Creek and the ridge above the creek. A farm wagon will be hooked up for guided tours with stops for wild berry picking on the way to the ridge fields. Kids are welcome to bring fishing poles and try their luck in Helton Creek, one of North Carolina’s premier delayed harvest trout streams.

Zydeco Moon farm has been on the tour for the past 7 years. When I asked co-owner Sally Thiel what she liked about being on the tour, she said, “I think it’s important for people to know how food is grown and get to know who grows it.” Husband Joe Martin added, “We also like for those who are already farming or who are interested in farming to learn from our production methods.”

With 3 high tunnels, Sally and Joe avoid many prevalent fungal diseases and specialize in heirloom tomatoes. Sally offers this easy recipe for the tomato season.

Heirloom tomatoes parmesan pasta

Cut up a mix of heirloom tomatoes.  Marinate with olive oil, minced garlic, salt to taste, and chopped fresh basil for about an hour.  Serve over hot pasta with parmesan cheese.

4-H Camp 2013

Watauga County youth traveled to Betsy-Jeff Penn 4-H Camp this month.  The camp features lots of activities from horseback riding, canoeing, swimming, archery, and climbing. 

See some footage of camp fun featured here

Pizza Adventure Week

4-H Super Summer kicked off with the Pizza Adventure Week.  

We visited some special farms to collect ingredients and make pizza from scratch! We got to milk a cow, got some insight on how to care for farm animals, and picked herbs and veggies.  All participants reported they tried a new vegetable or herb.  One stated that she her favorite pizza changed from cheese pizza to veggie pizza.  Many expressed a desire to do more farming and cooking activities, like making pie and collecting eggs.
  

Thanks to some of the awesome places we visited:

Baublitz farm

Apple Hill farm

FIG farm

Lieberman farm

A Yokel Farm

Mellow Mushroom

Farmworker Safety Day

Over 250 participants attended a Farmworker Safety Day yesterday at Cline Church Nursery in Ashe County. Over 190 farmworkers from Ashe, Watauga, Alleghany, and Avery rotated through stations covering pesticide safety, health & first aid, chainsaw safety, backpack sprayer maintenance, hazardous farm plants and critters, heavy equipment safety, and local laws/customs. Watauga & Avery Farm Bureau, Carolina Farm Credit, and Southern Ag sponsored this event which was organized by Watauga & Ashe Cooperative Extension and the North Carolina Agromedicine Institute.

Presenters included: Katie Gray, a naturalist from Grandfather Mountain, Denny Paternak and Jimmy Cox from the NC Highway Patrol, Russel Choate from the NC Division of Forest Resources, Keith Eller from the Upper Mountain Research Station, Emily Dixon and her staff from the Farmworker Health Program, Jill Sidebottom & Jeff Owen, conifer specialists from NC Cooperative Extension, Cliff Parker, an ag liability and crop insurance consultant, and Ritchie Gardener from CPS.

Translators were on hand at each station, as a majority of the farmworker participants were Spanish-speakers from the Christmas tree and landscaping industries.

4-H’ers Earn Recognition

Emily Cornett, 18 year old 4-H member, has earned the 4-H Gold Achievement medal.  The NC 4-H Achievement Plan program helps youth set goals in 4-H. Emily demonstrated incredible self-initiative and follow-through to complete the plan.  To earn the award, she worked through three other levels over several years and had seventeen tasks to complete for the gold medal.  Emily is aging out of 4-H.  Over the years, she Emily has been a stellar 4-H member, participating in projects from animals to expressive arts, to participating the presentation and project record programs, to serving as club president, leading groups with kids and more. 

Erica Cornett entered district competition for the 4-H presentation program.  She delivered a demonstration on scrapbooking, earning her a silver medal.   Her presentation inspired others to get started scrapbooking!  She also received a silver medal for her project record in the animal science category with her project on rabbits.