A word about our production practices:

I wanted to take a moment to write about how we are trying to do things here at Nana Louie farm. We are non-certified organic--meaning we follow the National Organic Standards, but we have not gone through the formal certification process. Organic not only means producing without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, it  also means taking a wholistic long-term approach to soil and pest management. Two of the practices that we have employed this year are cover cropping and farmscaping. Cover crops are planted but not harvested in any way. They are turned into the soil at the end of the year to help build soil and nutrients without using synthetic fertilizers.

This picture is of our buckwheat cover crop. Ben's bees love this stuff too!  

Farmscaping is planting plants and flowers that attract beneficial insects. We have built a few beds in the middle of our cropped beds and planted yarrow and cleome, both of which attract parasitic wasps and other "good" bugs that eat our "bad" bugs.

Yarrow in the foreground attracts beneficial insects. So far no good though. Seth and I attempted to collect insects the other day and only found the "bad" bugs.  Maybe next year!