{"id":5069,"date":"2016-01-11T12:44:26","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T12:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/?p=5069"},"modified":"2016-04-07T12:45:37","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T12:45:37","slug":"a-note-from-farmer-will-jan-11th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/a-note-from-farmer-will-jan-11th\/","title":{"rendered":"A note from farmer will: Jan 11th"},"content":{"rendered":"Dear CSA Members,\r\n\r\nIf you ask a seedsman about a particular plant variety, there could be a long\u00a0tale of that seed traveling from this part of the world to another or being\u00a0passed down from one generation to the next, its story spanning years or\u00a0maybe even centuries. However, a seed\u2019s past may also be quite mysterious.\r\n\r\nThere may only be a short, vague history with its origins before a certain point\u00a0being lost to time forever. It may have been grown on an old family farm for\u00a0years or gifted to a seedsman from an old friend or neighbor.\r\n\r\nAs a certified organic farm, all of the seed we source for our vegetable garden\u00a0must be certified organic. Frog Hollow Farm is certified organic by CCOF,\u00a0or California Certified Organic Farmers, a non-profit organization who is\u00a0accredited by the United States Department of Agriculture\u2019s (USDA) National\u00a0Organic Program (NOP). The USDA sets standards for what is considered\u00a0organic through the NOP and CCOF is one of many organizations that\u00a0enforces those regulations and helps producers like Frog Hollow Farm follow\u00a0the sometimes-complex guidelines.\r\n\r\nBefore Frog Hollow, I didn\u2019t have any experience working with CCOF. It has\u00a0been interesting, but also challenging, learning about the different regulations\u00a0and the way CCOF requires documentation to be done. If a farmer wants to\u00a0apply a new organic fertilizer, they have to petition CCOF and it must first\u00a0be approved. Every time a farmer wants to spray a compost tea to bolster\u00a0soil health, every ingredient in that compost tea has to be documented and\u00a0approved. And if a farm wants to produce and use their own compost for\u00a0that tea, they have to document what went into that compost and where\u00a0it came from, document the temperature of the compost throughout the\u00a0decomposition process, and send the compost to a lab for testing.\r\n\r\nBecause of the expense and the amount of paperwork required, some farmers\u00a0who grow food without the use of synthetic chemicals and pesticides actually\u00a0choose to not get certified. To say the least, it can be a complicated and\u00a0drawn out process to understand and comply with certification. Even the task\u00a0of selecting crop varieties and searching for organic seed can take a great\u00a0deal of effort for a diversified vegetable operation. Just because a variety is\u00a0an open-pollinated, GMO-free, heirloom variety doesn\u2019t mean it is certified\u00a0organic. Trying to find beautiful heirloom varieties that are certified organic is\u00a0a challenge.\r\n\r\nOrganic food should be the norm. But because understanding the process\u00a0can be so tricky, certified organic or not, it is important to know what you\u2019re\u00a0eating, the people who grow your food and how it is grown.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear CSA Members, If you ask a seedsman about a particular plant variety, there could be a long\u00a0tale of that seed traveling from this part of the world to another or being\u00a0passed down from one generation to the next, its story spanning years or\u00a0maybe even centuries. However, a seed\u2019s past may also be quite mysterious. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-note-from-farmer-al"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5HwAU-1jL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5071,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5069\/revisions\/5071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}