Our Recap of the 24th Annual MOSES Organic Farming Conference

Johnny’s Selected Seeds Maine-based Territory Representative, Ken Fine, attended the 24th Annual MOSES Organic Farming Conference held recently in La Crosse, Wisconsin (February 22–24, 2013). This was Ken’s 12^th year attending the show as an exhibitor! Johnny’s was pleased to serve as a sponsor of the tradeshow, as well.

Johnny’s double-sized booth was located on the corner of the third row of exhibitors, near the entrance to the educational sessions and lunch room. Some of the items we displayed this year at the booth were our 60-lb. JSS 'Polar Bear' Pumpkin with an informational poster board, a video of our new Quick-Cut Greens Harvester in action, and various informative materials about our new Salanova® Lettuce Collections.

This year we also brought our Quick-Cut Greens Harvester, along with live pea shoots and wheat grass, so Ken could demonstrate how efficient and easy to use the tool is to tradeshow attendees.

 

According to the MOSES website, over 3300 people attended the conference.

Participants came from all over the U.S. and overseas — the 'most adventurous' award goes to the person who came all the way from Nigeria! It was great to see the complete range of ages at the conference — if it takes a village to get things done, the organic farming community is well on its way to creating a brighter future.

Some additional highlights from the conference:

• Keynote Speakers: Filmmakers Jeremy Seifert and Joshua Kunau, and organic farming pioneer Carmen Fernholz. Fernholz, who has been farming organically for over 40 years, shared his view of the ideal food system, one which includes engaged and informed eaters.

• Charlie Johnson of Madison, South Dakota, was honored as the 2013 MOSES Organic Farmer of the Year. The Johnson family farm has organic roots dating back to the 1970s, well before the organic farming movement had gained serious traction.

Have a look at some of Ken's photos from the Conference, below. Whether or not you, too, attended the conference or you simply wish to share your thoughts, we'd enjoy hearing from you in the Comments section below. Or, visit us on our our Facebook page anytime!

 

The Set-up Process of the Booth Begins

 

A Look at the Booth

 

Attendees Begin Exploring the Booth

 

Folks Filling out the Raffle Tickets

 

An overview of the Conference

 

Another Look at the Tradeshow Floor

 

Johnny's Attends the 2013 NOFA VT Winter Conference

Johnny's Maine-based Territory Sales Rep for Vermont, Chris Hillier, recently attended the NOFA Vt Winter Conference held in Burlington, VT at the University of Vermont, on February 15–17, 2013.

This year’s Winter Conference featured more than 70 diverse workshops, intensive seminars, TED-inspired talks by food system innovators, a second annual seed swap, a collective art project with local artist Bonnie Acker, and much more.

According to the conference website:

Whether you’re a gardener, homesteader, commercial farmer, researcher, forager, chef or consumer, you are certain to find something at the Winter Conference to enrich your skills, inspire your goals, and deepen your understanding of resilient food and farm systems.

Growers from all over New England attended the three-day Winter Conference.

Chris spoke to conference attendees about our new-for-2013 products, including the new 'Salanova' Lettuce line and the Johnny's-bred, AAS Winner 'Jasper,' as well as the Quick-Cut Greens Harvester. At the Johnny’s booth, we also featured live Salanova product, grown by a Johnny’s customer in the Southeast and shipped to Vermont, for conference-goers to see the product first-hand. Along with the product, Chris displayed our Salanova brochure, as well as informative product sheets on some of our newest products and existing customer favorites.

Conference attendees who stopped by the Johnny’s booth were able to sign up for our free raffle, where one grower won a $100 gift certificate to Johnny’s. Congrats, Enrique Peredo of Two Guys Blooms in Hinesburg, VT.

Below are a some photos of Chris’s trip, Johnny's booth, and some other great sights at the conference. If you, too, attended, please feel free to drop us a line, share your thoughts in the Comments section, below, or visit our Facebook page anytime!

Harvest New England Ag Marketing Conference & Trade Show

Johnny’s (Maine-based) Massachusetts Sales Reps, Ken Fine and Liz MacKinnon, recently attended the 2013 Harvest New England Ag Marketing Conference & Trade Show. Held Wednesday, February 27–Thursday, February 28, 2013 at the Sturbridge Host Hotel in Sturbridge, Ken and Liz made the 4-hour drive from Johnny’s offices in Winslow, Maine.

While exhibiting over the course of two days, Ken and Liz spoke with growers from all across New England, including Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, as well as with customers from the New York region.

 

 

At the Johnny’s booth, we enjoyed giving a lot of Jang Clean Seeder and Quick-Cut Greens Harvester tool demonstrations for interested attendees. People love seeing these tools in action!

 

 

The focus of the conference zeroed in on the subject of marketing. Senior VP of Marketing at Cabot Creamery, Roberta MacDonald, was featured as the Conference Keynote Speaker. According to the conference website, “[I]f you're a grower, value-added producer, new farmer, farm store manager, farmer’s market manager, ag service provider, or just interested in agriculture, this is the agricultural conference for you!” The Conference offered over 25 workshops on marketing, social media, agritourism, financing, and much more.

 

You can learn more about the conference at their website, and also view the full conference agenda and list of attendees at http://www.harvestnewengland.org.

Here are a couple of our photos from the conference, below:

 

 

Johnny's Time Spent at the NOFA NY Winter Conference and the PASA Farming for the Future Conference

Johnny's Maine-based Territory Sales Rep, Kristen Dubord, recently attended the NOFA NY Winter Conference, held in Saratoga Springs, NY, January 25–27, 2013 as well as the PASA Farming for the Future Conference in State College, PA February 6-9, 2013.

NOFA NY Winter Conference

The conference offered a great selection of workshops on topics such as sustainable farming, soil health, grain production, and many others. Each morning, tradeshow attendees could additionally participate in a yoga session! The Keynote Address, which you can read here on the NOFA-NY website, was given by Scott Chaskey of Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, NY. You can also view conference programs for 2004-2013.

While at the Johnny’s booth, tradeshow attendees could demo our Four-Row Pinpoint Seeder, grab a free Johnny’s bumper sticker, take a new catalog, enter our raffle, ask Kristen any number of growing questions, discuss concerns, and learn about our new selection of products. Congratulations to our raffle ticket winner, Jacob Diaz of Slow Roots Farm in Kingston, NY. You can learn more about Slow Roots Farm at their website.

While at the conference, we found the most popular informational sheets we offered concerned our Planting Programs. You can learn more about these programs, such as What a Planting Program Is, What the Key Elements Are to Implementing a Successful Program, and Why to Use a Planting Program at Johnnyseeds.com, as well as which varieties are best to plant (and harvest) when.

We give out Johnny's bumper stickers at our booth

A look at the Johnny's booth, all set up

The conference program

 You can learn more about the NOFA NY organization, as well as their Winter Conference, at their website and official Facebook page.

 
PASA Farming for the Future Conference

According to the PASA website, this year’s conference hosted an audience of  “around 2000 people from 30 states. Attendees included over 950 farmers, and 219 scholarship recipients.” If interested, you can also check back at the PASA website to hear audio files from the conference, from Organic Voices.

The conference offered three full days of educational workshops, opportunities to explore the exhibitors’ booths, social events, and more. On Friday evening at the conference, there was a movie viewing of three films, as well as a social hour featuring “snacks and drinks that [were] regionally sourced.”  

Once the Johnny’s booth was set up, we featured poster boards with information on the Quick-Cut Greens Harvester and our 'Lunchbox' Series of Snack Peppers. We also featured several information sheets on new and best-selling products such as our 'Jasper' tomato, specialty pumpkins, butternut squash, and our organic pepper lineup.

If you, too, attended either of these conferences, we'd love to hear from you in follow-up. Feel free to share your thoughts in the Comments section, below — or visit with us on Facebook anytime!

Johnny's Attends the Great Lakes Expo in Grand Rapids, MI

Johnny's Maine-based Territory Sales Rep, Ken Fine, recently attended the Great Lakes Expo, held in Grand Rapids, MI, on Tuesday–Thursday, December 4–6, 2012.

The Expo featured over 70 informative education program sessions over the 3-day event, addressing topics such as greenhouse production and marketing information; organic production, other topics of special interest to growers; a Farmers' Market; and 380 exhibitors. According to the Expo website, over 4000 people from 42 states and 6 Canadian provinces registered for their 2011 event.

Over the course of the event, Ken was able to connect with growers from all sizes of operations and levels of experience. More than 80 people from Michigan stopped by Johnny’s booth, as well as numerous other customers from across the Midwest. Ken spoke about our new-for-2013 products, including the new 'Salanova' Lettuce Line and the Johnny's-bred, AAS Winner, 'Jasper' Cherry Tomato.

Here are a few photos of Johnny’s booth, below, as well as additional images from the conference.

A look at Johnny's booth

 

Johnny's booth, all set up

 

The conference center

 

Great Lakes Expo

 

A look at the trade show exhibitors

Learn more about the Great Lakes Expo at their website, and check out the 2012 Expo photo slideshow >>

Pepper Starting at Johnny’s Selected Seeds
— How We Do It —

Here is the basic process we follow when starting peppers here at Johnny’s …

In early April, once we have determined which varieties we want to grow and how many plants of each, we assemble the seeds, 20-row flats, and Johnny’s Germination Mix that we will need to start the growing process. We place masking tape on one edge of the 20-row flat, so we can keep track of the varieties we have sown. We fill the rows three-quarters full with the germination mix, tamp it down slightly, and seed our rows with 20–30 seeds per row. The flats are covered with more germination mix and watered lightly. A leak-proof tray is then set on top, to ensure that the flat retains moisture during germination, and the flat is placed in a warm (85°F/29°C), dark place.

As soon as the first few pepper seeds germinate, we take the trays out and place them on heat mats, with the temperature set to 75°F/24°C. Once the plants reach the stage where you can see the first true leaves, we “bump up” the seedlings to the 50-cell flats in which they are going to spend their most active growing time. Here in Albion, Maine, the length of time the seedlings will spend in the 50-cell flats is usually about 6 weeks, or until they are ready to be transplanted.
 

Our peppers are planted on IRT (infrared-transmitting plastic) mulch, with two rows per bed and plants 18” apart in staggered rows. The plastic mulch should be at least 32” across, which allows for the two rows to be planted away from the edges of the poly, where they may receive unwanted root pruning from mechanical cultivation. We fertilize the ground and lay the poly on slightly raised beds about a week prior to transplanting.

Depending on current weather conditions, we may install wire hoops and floating row covers immediately after transplanting, to add warmth and decrease transplant shock. These row covers are removed when nighttime temperatures reach an acceptable degree. 

During the main growing season, the pepper beds are mechanically cultivated regularly to limit weed competition. The planting holes are also checked for weeds, and hand weeded as necessary.

Depending on weather, a regular drip irrigation regimen will be established, in order to prevent any major fluctuations in soil moisture.

And that about sums it up for the pepper-starting routine we follow, here at Johnny’s.

— Brian Milliken,  Albion, Maine, 01/09/2013

To learn more about starting peppers, read:

§  Key Points to Growing Successful Pepper Transplants

§  JSS Pepper Selection

What's New at the Farm — Before the Ground Freezes Up

Pumpkin and Squash Seed Harvesting

The week before Thanksgiving finds the farm still buzzing with activity. Trying to get everything wrapped up before the ground freezes keeps us busy in the not-so-pleasant weather of November. Much of our time this week has also been directed toward the cucurbit (pumpkins and squash) seed-harvest.

A local farmer here in mid-Maine grows several squash and pumpkin varieties for us; here’s a shot of bins full of fruit being delivered to us prior to processing.

The fruits are loaded onto a hay elevator and dumped into our vine crop harvester. where they are crushed to release their seeds. Here’s a shot of the end of the vine harvester where the pulp comes out.

 At this point the seed has been extracted from the fruits and is being deposited underneath the rotating drum. What comes out the back are the fruit rinds. These are collected and made into compost, to be reapplied to feed another crop.

Once the seed depth has built up, we take the seed out of the collector on the vine seed harvester, for processing it in the coner.

This machine has rubber paddles inside, which, when injected with large amounts of water, gently wash the pulp from the seeds.

As you can see, it’s a wet job, with water going in every direction!

Here’s the business end of the coner and the washed seeds coming out.

The seed mixture is comprised of seeds, pulp, and a few rind pieces. All the seed is collected, whether it be good, plump seed or flat seed that isn’t good. It is all placed on our paddle dryer and dried down to where it can safely be stored whilst waiting for seed cleaning to begin.

Here’s the seed being agitated and dried. 

Once the seed is dried it goes into our controlled atmosphere storage.

After being cleaned on one or more of our seed cleaning machines, it gets a final inspection on a “Bean Table.” A bean table is a small table fitted out with a belt that carries seeds (originally beans; hence the name) along in front of a person, to be visually inspected. The small boxes on either side are for holding broken, dirty, or otherwise subprime seeds that are being taken out. The good seeds drop into a bucket and, when the batch is done, are sewn up and put back into seed storage.

And that wraps that up — well, 20-something varieties — and we’re done harvesting.

Aside from that, we’re trying to pull all the plastic from the fields that we can, before freeze-up. There may be warmer weather for pulling it in the spring, but that would be leaving one more job undone for the spring, and we’ve got enough to do that time of year. It’s nice to get it all pulled up before we’re done for the season — sort of a closing task to the season.

There are a lot of other projects we can do around the farm before winter, but I’m sure we won’t get to them all. There are a few trees that need to be taken down, and some limbs to be trimmed off. Getting as much equipment gone through and stored under cover is always a challenge. And we’re getting our hoophouses planted for our overwintering crops — we’ll have fresh succulent greens in March.

Spring is closer than we think!

Until next time,

—Brian
11/16/2012 — Albion, Maine

Johnny's Attends Tradeshows in New Hampshire & Maine

Johnny's Maine-based Territory Sales Rep, Chris Hillier, recently attended UNH's North Country Fruit & Vegetable Seminar & Trade Show, held in Whitefield, New Hampshire, on October 30th, and MOFGA's Farmer-to-Farmer Conference in Northport, Maine, from November 9th to 11th.

The North Country Fruit & Vegetable Seminar was held at the Mountain View Grand on the day Hurricane Sandy began to roll into New England. Due to the storm, unfortunately, some of the promotional materials we'd sent via UPS to the conference never made it there! Nevertheless, Chris Hillier was able to set up Johnny's booth with a selection of crops on display, as well as various useful informational handouts. Below are photos of our booth and some other shots from Chris of the conference.

A look at our booth – set up and ready to go!

Our pumpkins labeled and on display

Another look at our specialty pumpkins

Katsko Zintchenko, a home gardener from NH, won Johnny's door prize!

A view of the conference room, where the workshops took place

Workshops at the conference covered such topics as using cover crops to manage weeds, how to distinguish beneficial from harmful insects on your crops, and a discussion on growing crops in high tunnels. 

The following week, Chris headed to MOFGA's Farmer-to-Farmer Conference in Northport, Maine, November 9th-11th. Along with Chris, a member of our Contact Center, Dave, a Canadian Sales Team member, Randy, and Steve and Kelly from the Johnny's Research Farm also attended the conference from Johnny's.

Our-Farmer-to-Farmer booth, all set up

Chris was able to bring a preview of Johnny's 2013 catalog to this event, which allowed customers at the show to see what we would be offering as of November 15th. Attendees also got to check out the brand new product images that were displayed on the backdrop of her tradeshow booth, and grab handouts on new items, as well as new growing tips and charts that will be debuting in the new catalog and at JohnnySeeds.com on November 15th.
 

Learn more about MOFGA's Farmer-to-Farmer Conference at MOFGA.org >>