Dec 22, 2008

The CC & R Farm suburban hoop house

For those of you who listened in to the KUNR Nevada Newsline last Friday and were interested in the suburban hoop house I mentioned, here are the pictures and some basic instructions.

We’ve used this structure for a couple of years, covering it with bird netting from spring through fall. This is our first year using it for harvest extension, and it has been pretty successful. We harvested parsley, sage, arugula, radishes, and carrots, really just about everything I’d planted correctly, until about the first week in December. There’s still stuff in it but mostly what we’ve learned we don’t really like, chicory for one.

I’ll plant more cool weather crops into the hoop house starting late February-early March to see what we can get at the beginning of the growing season.

Using technology to extend the growing season is a great way to increase the amount of food you grow in your own yard, and Nevada farmers are using this technology to bring local food to us for much of the year. Watch here for really exciting growing/farming classes planned for this area, geared toward farmers and backyard farmers.

Please contact me if you need additional help.



Our raised beds are about 20 inches high. Drill holes large enough to sink a one-foot rebar rod so that it stands vertically and deep enough so the rebar will not pop out under pressure. The rebar should be placed intermittently along the length of the bed, about 2 to 2 1/2 feet apart, down both sides and directly across from each other. Take a piece of PVC and slip it over a rebar rod, then bend it and slip it over a rebar rod directly on the other side of the bed. You should have an arch over the width of the bed. Determine how tall you want your hoop house to be, then cut each piece of PVC to the needed size.


Install these clips, using screws, every foot or so around the entire bed, about 4-6 inches below the top of the raised bed wall, and spaced about 1 to 1 ½ feet apart. These clips are available at Home Depot in the safety section for about 27 cents a piece, so buy lots just in case. You should leave enough space between the top of the bed and the clip so that when the sheeting is installed it hangs down below the top of the bed.

When you have all of the hoop supports up and the clips installed, cover the entire structure with agricultural grade plastic sheeting. It should be long enough to hang well below the clips, all the way around. We bought sheeting from Peaceful Valley because that’s the only place we knew of at the time, but if we find we need to buy again we’ll try to find someplace local. These products are agricultural so not available at the average nursery. You can see the structure in this picture.


Cut the sheeting to size, leaving enough sheeting hanging past the clips so that it is necessary to role the edges up to the height of the clips. This is really important because the clips will not hold onto the plastic when it’s windy unless there is a rolled edge for it to hang onto.

Once the size is correct, roll up the bottom edge of the sheeting and insert it into the clip. The green plastic tips must touch through just the single layer of sheeting, rather than holding on to the roll.

Make sure the sheeting fits snugly all the way around. Cut a couple vents in the upper ½ of the sheeting for ventilation and to allow the wind to pass through. Use these huge standard office supply document clips to secure the sheeting to the PVC – use as many as you feel is necessary. Be careful with these because they can rip holes in the sheeting.


Check your hoop house frequently to make sure everything is still in place, especially when weather is expected. We’ve lost the sheeting only once, when I didn’t clip the plastic in correctly after harvesting some arugula.

Dec 16, 2008

Cowpool 2009 (order grass-finished beef in bulk)

Tis the season to cowpool! If you haven’t tried eating local grass-finished beef, I personally know about ten families who highly recommend it.

We get our beef from the Smith family. They have twelve beefs ready to go right now, and we expect to pay about $7.00 a pound for ours. There are a few other grass-fed ranchers in the area who might also appreciate more cowpooling activity. If you know one, get your own group together and work with that rancher. The more the merrier.

If you want to join us this year, or learn more before committing, contact me by Monday December 29th. Use the contact button located in the right sidebar.

Or even better, if you enjoy organizing/sharing and want to start your own cowpool contact me – I’m happy to share what we’ve learned and how we work ours, and I’ll even share my very simple tracking/administrative forms. Again, use the contact button located in the right sidebar to contact me.

This will be our third year cowpooling and it has been a great experience. For those of you who haven’t tried it yet here’s a quick rundown on the joys and challenges.


• Great tasting, grass-finished beef – according to our cowpoolers their dinner guests can’t believe how tasty it is and our experience is the same

• Cowpooling , purchasing through CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and in bulk from producers like Sod Busters (chicken) insulates family food costs from petroleum price swings – approximately 70% of our 2008 food budget was shielded from price increases associated with petroleum

• The Smith’s grass-finished beef is free of unnecessary hormones and antibiotics, and the cows live happy cow lives

• Cowpooling supports a local farm that provides local jobs

• Buying locally and in bulk means your family can have month’s worth of food on hand

• Cowpoolers and farm families know each other and are interdependent on their local communities

• Cowpoolers learn to cook all the cuts that come from an entire beef-- really delicious cuts that get no love at the supermarket

• Learning to prepare cuts you’ve never cooked with can be scary, but you can learn and it's very rewarding – every one is happy to share what they’ve learned

• Cowpooling can require financial planning because your family pays for an entire year’s worth in one payment (okay two, nominal deposit then full amount just prior to delivery) – our families buy an average of 10 – 40 pounds each, costing something like $70 to $280 for the entire year.

Hope to hear from you, one way or another!

Dec 11, 2008

We're being interviewed..listen in!

Where have I been?! Advocating, outreaching, and organizing...and eating!

This is a consumer based blog...when I first started it the intent was to create an online presence so that anyone living in the Reno/Sparks area looking to purchase local food could find a resource using a keyword search. But it is getting difficult for me to keep the consumer needs separate from the need to help build the necessary infrastructure. So I'm feeling inclined to put community info here, as well as family activity and consumer.

Learning about and eating local food, combined with a tendency to ignore my fear-based impulses and an interest in working with groups to make things happen has naturally led me to local food advocacy. Right now there is a lot of national energy geared towards serious change and that energy exists in Nevada, too. So I'm taking this opportunity to get involved.

My friend Leslie and I have a lot of things in common; really great/supportive husbands and local-food-love are among them. We're doing a live interview with KUNR...we'd love it you'd listen in to hear what the local food movement is up to...and tell your friends and family!


Media blurb:
"Local Food in Nevada -- Consumers and family farmers everywhere are making locally grown food a reality and it is happening in Nevada, too. Join Shelley Brant and Leslie Allen from the Local Food Network for a conversation with Dan Erwine about what it is like to eat locally in Nevada, why it is important, and how you can bring farm fresh, locally grown food to your family table. Call ins welcome!

Friday, December 19th, 9am to 10am with Dan Erwine on Nevada Newsline, KUNR.

Streamlining at KUNR.ORG or listen in at 88.7"

Dec 1, 2008

Local honey at Whole Foods

Woo hoo! We Nevada honey at Whole Foods. Look for Al Bees Nevada Honey the next time you do your shopping.

We picked up a bottle of Al Bees honey earlier this year at the Apple Basket u-pick orchard, which was made by the same bees that pollinated the apple trees. It was delicious (Yep...ate it already!).

Nevada honey is also available at the Great Basin Community Food Co-op. Look for Hidden Valley Honey or Joy's Honey.

If you haven't tried it yet, honey is an excellent replacement for sugar in your coffee. If you're looking for another way to avoid the GMO sugar (unmarked, of course) that is hitting the supermarket shelf even as I type, this is a great alternative.