Saturday, June 23, 2012
Blog Address Change!
For your convenience and ours, our blog is now just part of our regular website - http://www.acressfarms.org , see you there!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
One Small Step for Aquaponics
We've been working hard at building structures in our ACRESS staging grounds in the Seabright area of Santa Cruz. The cold weather has slowed some of our experiments with water hyacinth and water lettuce, but we're figuring out ways to keep our plants warm. Pictures will follow soon!
Our animal family is also doing well, except for our Oscars, which were eaten by a raccoon that dug into our greenhouse. We have since raccoon-proofed our mini-greenhouse and have received more fish donations. A woman from the East Bay donated three albino corydoras, which are miniature tropical catfish, and three guppies. We've decided that these smaller fish will better serve our aquaponics system and are less likely to tempt raccoons. We'll continue adding small, tropical, non-aggressive fish until we reach our desired balance of fish waste produced.
Our goal as an organization is to use tilapia for our aquaponics systems when we have our full set-up. While we're doing these small scale experiments, though, our corys and guppies will do just fine.
Our animal family is also doing well, except for our Oscars, which were eaten by a raccoon that dug into our greenhouse. We have since raccoon-proofed our mini-greenhouse and have received more fish donations. A woman from the East Bay donated three albino corydoras, which are miniature tropical catfish, and three guppies. We've decided that these smaller fish will better serve our aquaponics system and are less likely to tempt raccoons. We'll continue adding small, tropical, non-aggressive fish until we reach our desired balance of fish waste produced.
Our goal as an organization is to use tilapia for our aquaponics systems when we have our full set-up. While we're doing these small scale experiments, though, our corys and guppies will do just fine.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Thanksgiving Cometh
As the holiday season shifts into full gear we've been so busy building that Thanksgiving is almost upon us! Some exciting news is that our friend Leroy has joined our team, his biography and all of ours will follow soon.
November 21st marks the beginning of our Holiday Campaign! Our goal is to raise enough funds to incorporate and you can help us stay on track by donating. Donations are safe and easy, simply click on the "Donate" button in the top right hand corner of the page and fill out your desired form of payment. Our target is raising just $500, that means if one hundred people donate just $5 we can reach our goal! Everyone who donates between now and the end of the year will receive an ornamental garden seedling and be entered into a raffle to win a 1/2 hour massage! Many thanks to the Natural Garden Company for donating seeds to our efforts, check them out on their website.
We're also excited about our upcoming silent auction and art show in January, details TBA soon!
In our animal family news, our duckling is fast becoming a duck! Below is a picture of him this week, click here for a picture of him when we first adopted him (he's the bigger one).
We'll start construction on his outdoor cage in about two weeks when all his adult feathers are grown in.
Our miniature greenhouse was a joy to set up! This small-scale set up will allow us to test various methods of aquaponics and control more variables. Updates on our findings will be posted often!
November 21st marks the beginning of our Holiday Campaign! Our goal is to raise enough funds to incorporate and you can help us stay on track by donating. Donations are safe and easy, simply click on the "Donate" button in the top right hand corner of the page and fill out your desired form of payment. Our target is raising just $500, that means if one hundred people donate just $5 we can reach our goal! Everyone who donates between now and the end of the year will receive an ornamental garden seedling and be entered into a raffle to win a 1/2 hour massage! Many thanks to the Natural Garden Company for donating seeds to our efforts, check them out on their website.
We're also excited about our upcoming silent auction and art show in January, details TBA soon!
In our animal family news, our duckling is fast becoming a duck! Below is a picture of him this week, click here for a picture of him when we first adopted him (he's the bigger one).
Our miniature greenhouse was a joy to set up! This small-scale set up will allow us to test various methods of aquaponics and control more variables. Updates on our findings will be posted often!
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
One Fish, Two Fish
People were wondering about the fish gadget we have over to the right. Aside from being visually pretty, the swimming fish represent one of our main areas of interest: Aquaponics.
So much of today's fish farming is bad for the fish, the farm, and the environment. Our goal is to have sustainable, healthy, delicious fish and we plan to do this through Aquaponics, blending hydroponics and aquaculture. Our goal is to have the most modern, efficient, and sustainable technology in our aquaponics systems and then teach those skills to tomorrow's farmers.
We got our two beginning fish for our mini-aquaponics system we will set up soon. We would like to have a functioning and small system so that all of our ACRESS family can experience the aquaponics system: see it, touch it, feel the humidity in the air. Having our eyes on such a far away goal as our farm, we like to reward ourselves with urban sustainability to remind us of the goals ahead.
Meet our Oscars: Jung and Freud. A Scotts Valley family generously donated these fish and the tank set up and we can't wait to hook it up to some veggies and start growing!
We got our two beginning fish for our mini-aquaponics system we will set up soon. We would like to have a functioning and small system so that all of our ACRESS family can experience the aquaponics system: see it, touch it, feel the humidity in the air. Having our eyes on such a far away goal as our farm, we like to reward ourselves with urban sustainability to remind us of the goals ahead.
Meet our Oscars: Jung and Freud. A Scotts Valley family generously donated these fish and the tank set up and we can't wait to hook it up to some veggies and start growing!
Rummage Sale
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| Nacho, part of the chihuahua ACRESS family |
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| Our hundredth customer! |
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| Sporting her new purchase: a bag made from recycled sweaters! |
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| Enjoying a donated toy car |
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| Our VERY FIRST donor! |
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| This man said he'd been working on his hat for four years! He found the surfboard key chain at our sale and decided it was his next addition. |
Welcome, Fall
Our rummage sale fundraiser was a great way to ring in October! As thoughts are shifting to the seasonal change and corner lots are springing pumpkins, I get excited about the yellow light that illuminates my morning air and go out of my way to crunch leaves. Everything feels earthy: brown, gold, gray, evergreen, these are the Fall palette of Santa Cruz County. I hear school bells and open house speeches, I see crossing guards and little kids with new back packs adapting to life back in the classroom. I smell pumpkin pie and wood burning stoves and sometimes I just stand in the first rain and breathe deep. There's nothing quite like the smell of dirt during the first rain and I never want to be so busy I cannot enjoy it.
Another way we welcomed Fall was with this pumpkin chowder recipe. I wanted to take it to work the next day for lunch but by the end of the evening it was all gone!
With Fall we also welcome the beginning of the holiday season and the excitement of ending another year. ACRESS will be busy building community relationships and doing outreach this season. We're excited about our October 22nd event on "Make a Difference Day", here's me building some planters:
Another way we welcomed Fall was with this pumpkin chowder recipe. I wanted to take it to work the next day for lunch but by the end of the evening it was all gone!
With Fall we also welcome the beginning of the holiday season and the excitement of ending another year. ACRESS will be busy building community relationships and doing outreach this season. We're excited about our October 22nd event on "Make a Difference Day", here's me building some planters:
We took old fence boards and scraps of wood and screwed them together to make very basic planter boxes. Craigslist often has free dirt and I've been working on some good compost to distribute with the plants. This morning I found some tiny potatoes that had grown where I thought I dug them all up. Those will be the starters for the potato growing drawers I will be making soon. I'm a huge advocate of repurposing or reincarnating objects, so I have a long set of drawers that will soon house many potatoes.
Today I planted donated lettuce and arugula seeds, I'll post pictures when they sprout! I think my favorite part of planting something is seeing those first leaves burst through the dirt. I also picked my round carrots this week, they didn't do so well in a container, I suspect because they were not thinned enough. I call them midget carrots (they prefer the word midget) and they are perfect in soups or roasted in the oven. See my recipe blog for a roasted root vegetables with honey balsamic glaze and dill flowers.
With such exciting food to be made it's hard to find time for setting up our mini-aquaponics system! See our new fish in our next blog article.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
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