This week, I had the opportunity to talk to a high school AP Human Geography class about my experience with agriculture. One of my former teachers had found out I was back home and, because she is currently teaching a unit on agriculture, wanted me to come talk to her class. I was really touched to be able to do this, especially because that teacher played a big role in my interest in agriculture when I was in high school. I talked about my own experience with farming, both at the Evergreen farm and at Prema. I discussed the differences between those farms and what I had learned (and continue to learn) from working on them. I also talked about environmental and social impacts of conventional, corporate agriculture and some alternatives to that model, such as small organic farming and community gardens. I also talked about the importance of supporting local farms and local food economies and pointed out some ways that the students could support the local food movement in Reno.

As for work on the farm, Zach and I continued our weekly seeding. On Wednesday, we seeded salanova, peas (which were apparently very popular last season), and celery. We also worked on preparing the farm for a farm tour that will be happening next week as a part of a local farm conference. On Friday, some people came to build a shed on the farm. We will be able to store all of the tools and the tool bench in the new shed and some other things that have been sitting around the farm or in the greenhouses. Next week, we will work on making sure the farm is all cleaned up and organized for the farm tour.

And although we have been having some more snow in Reno the past couple of weeks, the increasing amount of daylight has definitely been making a difference on the farm and everything seems to be growing a little bit faster. This week, we harvested over double the amount of curly kale that we harvested last week!