For an number of years now I keep reading articles about how our neighbors have been growing part of their food in their backyard, and about how wonderful it is. The problem for me, and I suspect many others out there, is that I appear to have a black thumb when ever I have managed to find enough time to attempt this myself. Everything I have stuck in the ground, including most of my grass, has turned brown and died, never to return. There always seemed to be too much or too little water, or soil with the wrong balance or makeup. And then the weeds would appear and I would spend all my free time bent over digging them up. +
Then I started fiddling around with Aquaponics as a way to stop using so much water in my attempts at keeping my plants green. Interestingly enough I had near instant success at keeping my plants green, and I found that pulling weeds was extremely easy on the rare occation I had to do it at all. It has taken me quite a while to achive the water savings I was after since I kept changing designs and dealing with leaks and overflows as I learned. As my aquaponic systems stabilized I did start to see large percentage (>50% depending on how much water was exposed to evaporation) savings of water, which makes sense because an aquaponic system recirculates the water indefinately. I no longer need to worry about soil composition since there is no soil, and the plants derrive nearly all their nutrients from the fish waste. +
While I did have a lot of problems at first with aquaponics, it was never discouraging in the way direct soil growing was. I have now worked out solutions to all but the most minor problems with aquaponic food growing. Aquaponics is now ready for the backyard. +
Using aquaponics, the average person could grow a fair percentage of their food (in the double digits). This would take about 15 minutes a day most of the time, and could be done even while working 40-80 hours a week. For the most part an aquaponic system is hands off. The owner just needs to throw some feed to the fish every other day, throw some seed in the grow beds, havest the food as it grows large enough, pull any weeds that manage to self seed in the grow beds (they pull out entirely and easily without tools or muscle), and give a daily visual check for obvious problems. Even the visual check becomes less of a need once the system is well established. + +
Aquaponics is still a big investment in terms of money and time when you first get started. If you are going to do it yourself, I suggest starting small to get a feel for things before planning to fill your backyard with rock beds. I will explain everything you need to know on this site, but it will take actually doing it before a lot of the information becomes second nature. + +
There are a lot of components that make up an aquaponic system. In each of the linked articles I go into the details of how each component or principle works, can be built, and should be used. +
If you really want a system that fits your needs and best utilizes your available space, you will need to design your own system to fit the land available. I strongly recommend you build a couple of the example systems first if you intend to design your own system from scratch. You will need a firm understanding of the various problems aquaponics presents and how they are solved because fixing a badly designed system that uses 20 yards of rock is a real nightmare. +
This is a subject that really requires custom fabrication of plastic grow beds that either fit seamlessly into your existing space, or can be molded into a complete redesign of your land. It is possible to build your fish tanks, grow beds, and sumps such that the infrastructure becomes invisible. With the proper planning, you can create a beautiful backyard lagoon or pond space with plants and food growing all around, along with the soft sounds of moving water. +
If you would like all the benefits of an aquaponic space, but are not really interested in the work involved in building it, or even maintaining it, you should give us a call: 707.684.4146. We are able to evaluate your situation and design customized aquaponic solutions that fit your needs. Depending on your location, we may even be able to care for the system for you. +
“We grow it. We can it.” Why this is our motto. What makes it important - to us & to you. How it came about. -
In the beginning of our farming life it quickly became clear that we produced far more than we consumed so we started selling fresh fruit, produce and eggs at farmers’ markets. There it quickly became apparent that we couldn’t sell everything we grew nor could we sustain a business on what we did sell. We next built a commercial kitchen on the farm to be able to preserve and add value to what we couldn’t eat or sell or feed to our animals or the compost. Our mantra has always been “NO WASTE”. -
The fact that we grow everything we preserve sets us apart from most value added product producers and defines our business since most canners purchase their ingredients. It also gives us control of the quality of our canned goods. Although the farm is not certified organic we use only organic practices and as few outside “inputs” as possible which are organic also, eg: incidental flavorings such as spices we cannot grow and necessary preservatives like sugar, vinegar and lemon juice (required to ensure acidity). A new California law requires that farmers’ markets be divided into two sections...agricultural products and crafts…so the other advantage to growing what we preserve is that we remain in the agricultural section. The canners who do not grow the produce they put in their jars are in the craft section. +
In the beginning of our farming life it quickly became clear that we produced far more than we consumed so we started selling fresh fruit, produce and eggs at farmers’ markets. There it quickly became apparent that we couldn’t sell everything we grew nor could we sustain a business on what we did sell. We next built a commercial kitchen on the farm to be able to preserve and add value to what we couldn’t eat or sell. Our mantra has always been “NO WASTE”. +
The fact that we grow everything we preserve sets us apart from most value added product producers and defines our business since most canners purchase their ingredients. It also gives us control of the quality of our canned goods. Although the farm is not certified organic we use only organic practices and as few outside “inputs” as possible which are organic also, eg: incidental flavorings such as spices we cannot grow and necessary preservatives like sugar, vinegar and lemon juice (needed to ensure acidity). A new California law requires that farmers’ markets be divided into two sections - agricultural products and crafts - so the other advantage to growing what we preserve is that we remain in the agricultural section. The canners who do not grow the produce they put in their jars are in the craft section.
The art of canning has been honed in families for generations as a way to preserve the summer harvest for winter consumption. This is where we’ve kept it. Our family harvests, selects, hand cuts and cans the produce contained in our jars. There is no machinery or assembly line. All the work is done as you would do it in your kitchen…by hand. And all the food is preserved as it comes in from the fields. Each run of each item is only as large as the amount of the fruit or vegetable harvested that season from our six acres of fields and our aquaponic system.
The art of farming, which has been practiced since time immemorial, demands diversity, resilience, self-reliance and creativity. Each year is different and each crop responds differently each year. One must be ready for some to fail and some to succeed and be flexible enough to take advantage of the successes and ride out the failures. This is where the “art” of what we are doing comes into play…if you have 50lbs of mint, what to do? Make mint jelly and pesto. Once the seeds are removed from the blackberries used for jam, soak them and make wine. We use what is available as creatively as we can. And what can’t be preserved is used by the plants and animals and compost. Nothing is wasted.
The goal is to create an ever widening circle or spiral of connections and you, the consumer, are part of that circle. We welcome visitors to the farm and are happy to talk and answer questions. You have the freedom to wander and question to certify for yourselves that we are who we say we are, and that the food is what we say it is. diff --git a/public/grow-and-can.styl b/public/grow-and-can.styl index 35eae14..64e790e 100644 --- a/public/grow-and-can.styl +++ b/public/grow-and-can.styl @@ -1,2 +1,14 @@ #grow-and-can { + h2 { + display: block; + font-size: 1.4em; + text-align: center; + margin-top: 10px; + margin-bottom: 10px; + } + h3 { + display: block; + font-size: 1em; + text-align: center; + } } \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/public/index.html b/public/index.html index 4dd4a9c..dfef387 100644 --- a/public/index.html +++ b/public/index.html @@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ -->AnimalsServices
Over the years we have had a lot of requests to ship our foods, but have in the past resisted since we want to maintain a close connection between our customers and their farm. Due to the rising cost and legal complexities of connecting with our customers exclusively through farmers markets and on farm sales, and the number of customers who love our foods but are outside our sales reach, we have decided that it is time we start offering shipping. +
To order, please download the PDF listing of what we have available this month, and the price listing. Then send us an email (farmer@petitteton.com) with what you would like to order and we will send you a bill you can pay with Paypal. If we are out of anything on your list we will remove it from the bill, notify you of what was unavailable, and allow you to adjust your order. + + +
We have a very limited quantity for most products because we hand make it. This gives us the freedom to make a wide variety of foods and spend a lot of time innovating, but it also means that inventory management is quite complicated. We update the listing of what is available each month, but some of what we list we may be out of already. Since we grow as much of our own food as possible, we often cannot produce more until more can be harvested. So when we do run out of something, it may be a year before we get the chance to make more. + +
We are often trying new flavor combinations, and modifying our recipes to perfect them. We appologize if you really liked something and we have changed the recipe on you. Please email us and let us know which version your prefer by telling us either the batch number on the container, or the approximate date when you purchased it. We do notice when people take the time to give us feedback. + +
We appologize for releasing something was not up to our high standards. Please let us know as soon as possible via phone or email, providing us with a batch number and approximate date of purchase, and we will do our best to fix the situation. We do appreciate getting the item back so we can prevent re-occurances, but please check with us first to avoid any unnecessary shipping. + +