Thursday, February 2
Modern homesteaders strive for balance in all areas of their lives. Living the Frugal Life blogger Kate Hunter and Harvey Ussery, the man behind TheModernHomestead.US, are passionate about aligning their efforts to produce food with the natural systems that sustain them. Join them as they discuss strategies for increasing fertility, maximizing harvests, and integrating the 21st-century homestead with the systems that sustain it.
AGENDA
| 9:00-9:15am |
Welcome & Introduction |
| 9:15-9:50am |
The Working Homestead in its Ecology
Harvey Ussery
We will explore the practical implications of ecological concepts such as diversity, the roles of predators and diseases, energy flows, and the decomposition-regeneration cycle. The productive homestead is the one that mimics the biological efficiencies and conservation of energy found in nature. |
| 10:00-11:10am |
From the Ground up: Soil Care Strategies Using Compost, Mulch & Cover Crops
Harvey Ussery
Soil fertility is not something to buy in a bag, but arises out of the complexity, diversity, and health of the soil food web and, long-term, the accumulation of humus. We will discuss detailed strategies for feeding the soil life community through organic matter accumulation (using composts, mulches, and cover crops) and for minimizing soil disturbance (tillage) while avoiding man-made chemicals, whether pesticides or artificial fertilizers, which are deleterious to soil life. |
| 11:20am-12:00pm |
Healthy Soil in Small Spaces
Kate Hunter
Even at the small scale, soil fertility can be built and maintained through careful use of the homestead's own resources and by diverting organic material from community waste streams. We'll cover three specific techniques which build a healthy, vibrant foundation for all activities on the homestead while also saving time and labor. |
| 12:00-1:00pm |
Lunch |
| 1:00-2:10pm |
Growing for the Table Year Round
Harvey Ussery
We will consider many of the options for home food production--garden, orchard, forest garden, pasture, edible mushroom cultivation--as well as ways to include lawn and woodlot in food production. Emphasis will be on eating fresh throughout the year using season extension growing (cold frames and greenhouses) and natural food storage in preference to processing and artificial preservation. Our discussion will include appropriate tool choice for home production (manual versus powered).
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| 2:20-2:50pm |
Maximizing Harvests in Small Spaces
Kate Hunter
Wholesome food can be grown on even the tiniest properties if one is determined to do so. We will review several techniques for making the most of limited or less than ideal growing spaces, as well as extending food production both earlier and later in the year. |
| 3:00-4:10pm |
Maximizing Diversity in the Homestead with Livestock and Through Alliances with Wild Species
Harvey Ussery
The homestead or farm, like natural ecologies almost everywhere, should include both plants and animals if possible. This concluding section will explore the challenges and rewards of including livestock in the homestead, focusing on nuisance-free management of manures as resource, natural feeding and reproduction, and "stacking" of species. We will discuss as well strategies for maximizing edge habitat to increase natural diversity (for example, through use of living fences in lieu of manufactured fencing); for minimizing crop damage by insects without pesticides ("organically approved" or not); and for recycling of organic "wastes" to resource, including options for cultivating decomposer organisms such as earthworms and soldier grubs as high quality feed for poultry, pigs, and farmed fish. |
| 4:20-4:45pm |
Pursuing Integration at the Small Scale
Kate Hunter
Even at the sub-acre scale it is possible to establish closed feedback loops which reduce our dependence on resources external to the homestead, while ensuring that any "waste products" we generate only serve to support the next players in the cycle. Such closed loops confer a savings of money, time, and other resources while enriching the health of the environment where they take place. These can be achieved at the small scale by fostering wild pollinator species, feeding the flock from frequently overlooked resources on the homestead, careful selection of non-edible plants for "stacking" of services and functions, integrating a backyard micro-flock, and making full use of all products from fruit trees. |
| 4:45-5:00pm |
Wrap-Up & Closing Questions |
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Harvey Ussery, The Modern Homestead
Harvey Ussery and his wife Ellen, activists in the local foods movement in northern Virginia, produce all their own dressed poultry and eggs, fruits and vegetables, year-round. Harvey maintains an extensive website, TheModernHomestead.US, and has for six years contributed frequently to Mother Earth News, Backyard Poultry, and Countryside & Small Stock Journal. His book, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock (Chelsea Green, 2011), sets a new standard for holistic poultry husbandry.
Kate Hunter, Living the Frugal Life Blog
Kate Hunter has been homesteading on less than one semi-rural acre in the Lehigh Valley for five years. Formal culinary training and work motivated her desire to produce high quality food for a seasonal, local diet. Her present goal is to discover the amount of food that can be produced sustainably by non-farmers on an average residential lot. She gardens extensively, preserves food by several methods, and raises poultry for meat and eggs. |
