CT NOFA > Blog > CT NOFA Announces 2024 Slate of Soil Health Field Days
CT NOFA Announces 2024 Slate of Soil Health Field Days
July 25, 2024
Beginning in late summer, CT NOFA will host three field days centered on soil health practices. Learn more about how tree and shrub establishment, cover cropping, and no-till farming practices and improve the long term health and wellbeing of your soil!
Tree and Shrub Establishment
September 14
The Hickories | Ridgefield, CT
Join CT NOFA for a hands-on workshop on establishing native trees and shrubs on farmland and properties throughout Connecticut. We’ll take a look at planning, planting, and maintenance of trees and shrubs at The Hickories farm over the years. Demonstrations will include site selection, soil preparation, and sourcing of appropriate plant material for specific locations.
The workshop includes support from experienced growers with a focus on native woody trees and shrubs; hazelnut, inkberry, winterberry, witch hazel, viburnums, pussy willow, and black willow, as well as ecotypic pollinators. LEARN MORE.
Cover Cropping
September 29
Assawaga Farm | Putnam, CT
Join CT NOFA for an overview of how to adopt/improve practices that involve planting a cover crop in between crops for harvesting. Yoko Takemura and Alex Carpenter, farmers and founders of Assawaga Farm, will show several methods of working with cover crops on a small farm. They will share their trials and tribulations as well as planting plans, which have proven successful in improving the health of their soil. Various types of cover crops, timing, duration and termination methods will be discussed, along with a demonstration of preparing a cover crop bed. LEARN MORE.
No-Till Farming Practices
October 12
Sub Edge Farm | Farmington, CT
Join CT NOFA for a field day that will provide participants with resources and support in implementing no-till practices, or in transitioning to no-till and reduced tillage farming. This field day will include examples of no-till equipment, how they work, and how/when to use them. We’ll discuss how this climate smart practice helps reduce erosion, improve water retention, and increase soil organic matter, to be demonstrated by a microscopic comparison of soil samples taken from no-till vs. tilled fields, contrasting the bacteria/fungi ratio and microbial life differences between the two. LEARN MORE.
The Good News: CT Senator Chris Murphy has introduced a bill (bipartisan and bicameral) to increase funding for Agricultural Management Assistance to $30 million and to expand the eligible uses for these funds to include “soil health improvements, composting, implementing organic farming, and food safety certification in addition to existing authorized uses such as water management structure and soil erosion control.” Let’s thank Senator Murphy for introducing this bill!
The Bad News: The Farm Bill passed the House of Representatives on April 30, despite 320 food, farm, and conservation organizations, including CT NOFA, voicing our opposition to a bill that does not fix SNAP, does not support new and beginning farmers, and does not adequately support conservation programs or organic agriculture. Now it goes to the Senate and we need to urge both of Connecticut’s Senators to reject this Farm Bill.
In concluding its annual retreat, the Northeast Organic Farming Association Interstate Council (NOFA IC) reaffirms the values that have grounded our work for 55 years.
Our vision is that every person is able to live their life with healthy food, clean water and air, community, livelihood, dignity, and purpose within the means of our life-giving planet. We seek that vision on every level, from our households and farms to our communities, states, bioregions, nation, and world. For that vision to be fulfilled, every person, no matter their origin or circumstances, must have all their basic human needs met without degrading the air, water, soil, ecosystems, and climate which we have been given and on which we depend for our lives.
