Organic Turf and Athletic Fields Workshop Features Industry Experts

Organic Turf and Athletic Fields: An Advanced Workshop

Presented by NOFA OLC

 Thursday, September 22, 2016

 8:30am until 4:00pm

At the Harmon Leonard Jr. Youth Center in Cheshire, CT

The NOFA Organic Land Care Program is pleased to invite land care professionals to an all-day Organic Turf and Athletic Fields Workshop featuring presentations and demonstrations by organic lawn and landscaping experts from the northeast. This workshop is designed for lawn and land care professionals including private, commercial and municipal sports, leisure and hospitality groundskeepers and athletic field construction and maintenance professionals seeking to transition to state-of-the art, non-toxic turf and athletic fields. 

Chuck Sherwood, contractor for the Cheshire Parks and Recreation Department, will discuss challenges and successes over their 10 year transition to organic management of town athletic fields and parks. Frank Crandall of Frank Crandall Horticultural Solutions and Chip Osborne of Osborne Organics will cover creating organic management plans and budgeting for the expense of equipment and organic inputs on athletic fields. Field demonstrations will include turf aeration with Tom Corradino from Schmidt's and Serafines and compost tea spraying with Peter Schmidt from Compostwerks. 

Organic fertility will be discussed with industry experts including Fred Newcomb from PJC Organics, Peter Schmidt from Compostwerks, and Joe Magazzi from Green Earth Ag &Turf.  Paul Bednarczyk from Hart’s Seed Company will discuss seed selection criteria and blends offered by this Connecticut Company. Admission is $80 per person / $70 for municipal and nonprofit employees. Learn more and register at www.organiclandcare.net.

Organic Land Care Course Addresses Growing Need for Chemical-Free Experts

Four Day Course Trains and Accredits Organic Land Care Professionals (AOLCPs)

NOFA Organic Land Care Accreditation Course 

 University of Southern Maine, Portland

August 15, 16, 22, & 23, 2016

8:00am - 5:00pm

Early bird registration of $695 ends June 30

Register at organiclandcare.net or call 203-308-2584

NOFA Organic Land Care Program is pleased to announce its first Accreditation Course in Organic Land Care in Maine and offer early bird registration through June 30.

Demand for organic land care professionals is increasing rapidly in Maine due to a growing concern over the hazards of synthetic pesticides and the adoption of ordinances banning or restricting the use of chemical pesticides on town, and sometimes private, land in twenty-seven towns including Ogunquit, Rockland and most recently, South Portland. 

Local professionals joining the roster of notable instructors include David Melevsky of Go Green Landscaping Inc. of Scarborough who will teach “Organic Tick Control” and Paula Kovecses of The Way It Grows in Eastport who will teach "Introduction to Permaculture." Group discounts and payment plans are available. 

For more details including a course curriculum, and to register, contact the Northeast Organic Farming Association (CT NOFA) office at 203-308-2584 or visit www.organiclandcare.net.

A Report from the Organic Land Care Program's Advanced Workshop!

Review by Jenna Messier

Rye Country Day School's beautiful organic grounds were a perfect place to host the workshop!

On August 9, 2012, the NOFA Organic Land Care Program held its second Advanced Workshop, “Compost Tea and Air Spading” at Rye Country Day School in Rye, New York.  The workshop was a huge success, with over 50 attendees from 5 states, informative presentations, and two outdoor demonstrations.

Michael Almstead, Vice-President of Almstead Tree and Shrub Company, developed the workshop and taught sessions:  Setting up the Business, Soil Food Web Tests, Estimating the Hidden Costs, and Intro to Brewing.  Dan Dalton, ISA Master Arborist, taught the Soils and Air Spading Protocol sections.  The full presentation may be seen at:  www.almstead.com/presentations/8-9-12.pdf.

Michael made some excellent recommendations regarding compost tea.  Before brewing your tea, assess the quality of your compost source by requiring the supplier to provide you with Soil Food Web test results.  Secondly, Michael suggested using annual Soil Food Web test results to measure the effectiveness of your compost tea program over time on an individual property, and to determine future applications. Thirdly, Compost tea is a knowledge-based practice, and anyone who brews tea must be trained to use the microscope and to identify beneficial or harmful microorganisms – or you may just be spraying “dirty water.”

Dan Dalton presented a soil review and then described the different forms of Air Spading such as radial trenching, root collar excavation, vertical mulching, and sheet excavation which are different patterns of excavating the tree roots by blowing pressurized air into the soil surrounding roots.  The exposed roots’ health is then evaluated and the area backfilled with compost and amendments, such as zeolite to reduce compaction and rhizoscience containing humates and kelp.

Russell Wagner of Almstead Tree and Shrub Company led the on-site Air Spading demonstration of an old Cut-Leaf European Beech tree which was suffering under compacted soil.  

 He shared best practices with the group, such as inspecting your equipment before use and always using ear protection.  AOLCP Eileen Fisher volunteered to try out the air spade and extended a radial trench.  The group was able to inspect the roots of the tree for damage, noting the lack of root hairs, before back filling the area. The day finished with a compost tea application on turf, performed by Marc  San Phillipo  The tea which had been brewed that morning was poured into the tank of a large spray truck.  Two employees reeled in the hoses while Mark walked across the lawn lengthwise while spraying 10 foot sections.  He also used a root feeder attached to the compost tea tank and applied tea directly to the root zone of an elm tree.

NOFA Organic Land Care Program extends many thanks to Almstead Tree and Shrub Company for donating their time, equipment and expertise in order to create and run this informative program.  Thanks go out to Rye Country Day School for hosting the event as part of their commitment to environmental sustainability.  Thanks to Peter Schmidt from Compostwerks who sponsored breakfast and brought his truck and equipment for attendees to view.

New Ways to Get Rid of Those Pesky Invasives

The Ecological Landscaping Association recently wrote an article detailing creative uses for invasive plants, including eating them, building with them, and creating stationary.
We picked out some of our favorite ideas, but you can visit the ELA's site about invasive species for more information.

Eat knotweed when it looks like this. Or else . . . 

The first option is, eat them! 20 of the 66 invasive species in Massachusetts are edible.  The ELA article focuses on knotweed recipes like pie and cake.  You can also put knotweed in jams and fruit butters, if you harvest knotweed in early may, it can replace rhubarb in a lot of recipes, and it tastes sour like an apple.

It will become like this.

For more information on eating invasives, check out "Eat the Invaders", you can find recipes for knotweed, kudzu blossom sorbet, purslane (not quite an invasive), and dandelions. This site offers a lot of advice on eating invasive animals - I'm not quite there, but if you want to try eating Asian carp or wild boar, all the more power to you. There are even more recipes in Wild Flavors a cook book in which the main ingredient is weeds.

You can make crafts out of invasive vines, like bittersweet.  When I was young I used to make bittersweet wreaths. You have to be careful not to move any bittersweet berries (or else you might spread the invasive!) Nancy Riley uses bittersweet to make furniture in the ELA article.

Now identifying and removing invasives in your yard can be fun! Consult with Connecticut Invasive Plant Council's list and also use this guide from the Connecticut River Coastal Conservation District.

Announcing the NOFA Summer Conference Workshop Tracks

Attention farmers, gardeners and landscapers!

The NOFA Summer Conference on August 10-12 features a host of workshop tracks to suit your needs!  If you are in need of valuable information about getting started in farming, operating a CSA program, earning AOLCP credits, and more, this conference has it all!  Here are some of the tracks that will be offered at the conference:

• Beginning Farmer Track: This track highlights a range of technical and farm-planning topics of particular interest to farmers with fewer than ten years of independent farming experience. Don't forget, if you've been farming for less than ten years, you may qualify for a scholarship to attend the conference.  You can fill out a scholarship application form online here. Please submit by July 2 in order to have your application reviewed and granted in time for you to register early.

• Community Supported Agriculture Track: Presenting a variety of innovations for the CSA model.

• Nutrient Density Track: Presenting principles of biological farming aimed at improving crop nutritional quality for a variety of scales and applications. Own own Connecticut farmer, Bryam O'Hara from Tobacco Road Farm in Lebanon, CT will be teaching a workshop in this track.

• Organic Land Care Track: Attending these workshops qualifies participants for credits in the NOFA Organic Land Care Program. Other AOLCP credit opportunities can be found on our website.

• Permaculture Track: Presenting permaculture approaches to organic agriculture and ecological design.

• Winter Growing and Season Extension Track: Presenting innovations from the farm to the home scale for growing and storing crops year round

View a full list of tracks by visiting the Summer Conference website.  You can also register for the conference here.  For a list of registration fees, click here.  We can't wait to see you at the conference!

Happy Solstice!
-Melissa

Our New Guide to Organic Land Care is in!

This is a view of the lower level of our office building with our new shipment of 2012-2013 Guides to Organic Land Care.  Hopefully it won't get too cold for a while because it looks like we won't be using that stove for a few months.

As you know, last month we received a shipment for the first of our two printed Guides, the 2012-2013 Farm and Food Guide, which provides information by county of our member farms, farmers markets, csa programs, supporting businesses, community farms, and community gardens.  Yesterday, our second Guide developed by the NOFA Organic Land Care Program was completed and brought back to the office!  The 2012-2013 Guide to Organic Land Care provides course information, local pesticide info, and AOLCP listings by state and county, as well as a large number of feature articles and book excerpts about pest control, compost, rain gardens, and much more. The Guide is a great resource to help you find Accredited Organic Land Care Professionals in your area who can help you maintain your property without the use of harmful chemicals.  If you are an Accredited Professional, this is a great way to advertise yourself as part of a large and influential community of sustainable landscapers while also providing helpful tips to homeowners and groundskeepers on how to organically maintain their land.

You can order a copy of the Guide to Organic Land Care for just $2 to cover the cost of shipping, and if you visit us at one of our outreach events, you can pick up a copy for free!  To order larger quantities of the Guide for distribution, contact the CT NOFA office at 203-888-5146 or e-mail ctnofa@ctnofa.org.  A PDF of the Guide will also be available online shortly.  

Have a lovely Thursday,
Melissa

A Decade in Organic Land Care

Our certificate from IFOAM welcoming the NOFA
Standards in Organic Land Care to the IFOAM
Family of Standards

The NOFA Organic Land Care Program, a regional project out of the Connecticut NOFA office, has been accrediting professionals for 10 years now.  And we want to expand the organic land care movement to be bigger than ever in 2012.  Organic should be the standard in landscaping. 

This year our standards were accepted to the International Family of Standards established by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements.

We celebrated 13 AOLCPs who have been with the program for a decade!

We received news that the 2012 Beyond Pesticides Forum will be held in New Haven, Connecticut on March 30-31

Our Accredited Organic Land Care Professionals (AOLCPs) : Have taken the NOFA OLC 5-day Accreditation Course in organic landscaping, passed the Accreditation Exam, pledged to provide organic land care according to the NOFA Standards for Organic Land Care, maintained continuing education by attending a minimum of 4 credit-hours of organic landscaping education annually and must pay an annual fee ($100) to support the work of the OLC program

If you are a homeowner, check out our homeowner's guide and brochure about going organic at home.

If you have a landscaper, ask them if they're accredited - there needs to be a demand for organic!

If you're looking for a landscaper, find an Accredited Professional near you in our database.

Ask your town government or schools if any of their groundskeepers are accredited - it's state law that no pesticides can be used on k-8 schools, and towns are also implementing these bans on town lands.  

If you're a land care professional, think about accreditation 

Frank Crandall

The course is coming up:

Massachusetts
January 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and a snowdate of Jan. 15th
Worcester State University
486 Chandler St.
Worcester, MA  01602

Connecticut
February 15, 16, 17 and 21, 22, and a snowdate of Feb. 23rd
CT Agricultural Experiment Station
123 Huntington St.
New Haven, CT  06511

Camilla Worden

Rhode Island

February 27, 28, 29, March 1, 2 and snowdate of March 5
Kettle Pond Visitor Center
Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge
Charlestown, RI 02813

Read about how a couple of our AOLCPs and committee-members, Camilla Worden of Brookfield, CT and Frank Crandall are making their accreditation work for them.  While you are helping the environment and offering customer safer land management practices, you can also really help your business.