Crab+Cracker+73-1 - The Crab Cracker

Fresh from
the farm
The Open Gate
Farm, 269 Russell
Road,
Camano Island,
www.theopengatefarm.com.
Now open Thur,
Fri & Sat from 9-
5 for organically
raised produce,
blooming
plants, and
tasty breads.
FEEDING THE SHEEP
“We serve 5,700 meals each week. Is our 3 acre space enough room
to raise the food we need to do this” Now there’s a question to
chew on! But it needed answering. It came from an orphanage in
Mexico which our new non-profit will be working with to teach the
children how to raise food. Then a few days later came the good
news. “ We just found out it actually is 5 acres.” Well, that is sort of
good news. But imagine if you can, a 5 acre lot being gardened as
intensively as it can be, with lettuce jammed together around the
base of beans trellised up corn stalks and all of them replaced by
rows of garlic and tomatoes as soon as they get harvested. Make
every square inch count, by golly, or someone goes hungry. Some
fast math suggested this figure of 5,700 meals represents about
270 people. Five acres is about 218,000 square feet, or roughly 800
square feet per person. Can you live for a year on what you could
raise on 800 square feet Even if you were a child Hmmm. Here
is where good conversation and great friends really help. Chatting
about this with some hard charging young farmer friends over in
Arlington, he loaned us a book, One Circle by David Dutton and
published in 1985. It reads like a doctoral thesis with more tables
and charts than NOAH has, but this fellow documented and then
raised a tasty, nutritionally complete diet on less than 1,000 square
feet. And over the years we’ve happily eaten every item he raised
to do this. So we could do it! We can feed the kids. In these hard
economic times, it is encouraging to discover you can survive from
your front yard after all. And don’t worry about what the neighbors
might say. They probably will be doing the same thing soon too.”
North Cascade
Construction
Local organic produce, plants, classes
www.TheCrabCracker.com
NC SQUARED, INC.
665 Scandia Parkway, Camano Island, WA 98282
Office: (360) 387-4233
Cell: (425) 308-4963
Email: racer334@wavecable.com
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