Busy Month

It’s amazing what can happen in just a month’s time. Last month, things were moving really slowly and we were trying to get all of our utilities hooked up so we could park our RV on-site to be close to mom to help her with daily chores. All of that got done and we spent our first night on the farm on Sunday September 21. It did take a little longer to get the electric hooked up and not without issue.
We spent the week of Sept. 29th in Tennessee, at aquaponics training. We had about 17 other folks there from all over the country and a young man from Moldova, in eastern Europe. His name was Simion and he flew to the US (after many hours on buses, etc to get to an airport). Moldova is an independent state, landlocked between Romania and Ukraine. Simion is too young to rent a car in the US so we gave him a ride to and from class each day. It was a great way to learn more about him and his country. He is studying IT back home but wants to start growing food aquaponically when he returns home.
Talk about busy brains during the week of training ? We had such an inspiring group of classmates, all with neat projects in mind for growing food aquaponically for their respective communities. Aquaponic food systems are so efficient and would help wherever there is a need for conserving water, growing nutritious food without the use of harmful chemicals and growing lots of food in a small footprint. For anyone who currently buys organic food, at the grocery store, you’ve heard the rumors that many so called “organic” farms actually do use pesticides and herbicides on their farms. Since it’s hard for certifying agencies to police day to day practices, sadly there are some farms who don’t follow true organic measures and the consumer pays the price. With aquaponics, our fish are the “canary in the coal mine”. If harmful chemicals are used, the fish die. It’s as simple as that ! Since we grow food in a closed loop system, where the fish provide all the essential nutrients that the vegetables need, anything that would be sprayed on the plants gets back to the fish. They need clean water to live in and harmful pesticides will kill them. Clean water = healthy, nutritious food.
We learned about different construction methods for greenhouses, depending on the climate where the vegetables will be grown. Since our climate here can get brutally cold we’re still working on what style will work best for us. We want to be able to grow year round in order to provide fresh, local vegetables when everything is getting shipped in from thousands of miles away. We’ll keep you posted on construction as it gets underway.
Construction will begin on the storage barn/packing center in two weeks and we’re super excited. Lots of planning going on at this point. Our web site is up and much more will be added to it in the very near future. www.newviewfarm.com  We’ll be getting  items in the “store” for on-line purchasing. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Lots of ways to stay connected to what we’re doing. Happy to have you along for ride….