The goal of the Homemaker group is to create useful and tactful information that will stimulate participants’ interest in learning more about topics related to how to manage gardens and orchards to produce high quality foods for families. The goal is to pursue topics that are not too complicated, but that are energizing and easy to grasp.
Baking Sourdough Bread
By Jonathan Bethony of Seylou Kitchen
This presenter will talk about how important the source is of the wheat used to bake bread. He will talk about, and possibly demonstrate, how to grind whole grains of wheat into flour that can be used to bake sourdough bread, and how to accomplish the raising of the dough without the use of yeast by letting live cultures do the work. He will explain the differences and challenges of using self-milled grain as opposed to store bought flour, even if it is whole wheat. Come and learn from a full-time profes-sional baker about a process that is good for the earth, good for your family, and one that shortens the trip of grain from the field to the table in ways you may have never thought were impossible.
Growing Vibrant Fruit Without Pesticides
By John Kemp
Did you know it is possible to produce abundant yields of fruit in a home orchard without using pesticides to control insects and disease? When George Washington sent Sullivan’s army to destroy the harvest of the Oneida and Cayuga Indians in the Finger Lakes area, after they had sided with the British during the Revolutionary war, the soldiers reported destroying orchards of thousands of cherries, apples, and peach trees loaded with fruit. Reportedly some trees produced peaches that were measured at 13 inches in diameter. Before the era of pesticides, fruit trees seem to have flourished more than they do today.
Many people today believe that fruit can not be grown without using pesticides. However, many commercial orchards and home orchardists are figuring out how to do so, and are producing higher quality fruit than ever before.
When orchard ecosystems are designed and managed to produce trees so healthy that they resist insects and disease, they also produce large yields of fruit with incredible flavor and aroma.
In this presentation, John Kempf will describe how to design and manage an orchard ecosystem that produces vibrantly healthy trees and reduces or eliminates the need for pesticides.
One of the subjects he will discuss include how to maintain a constant supply of flowering plants in the orchard floor and the impact this has on maintaining beneficial insect and spider populations preventing insect pests from becoming a problem. He will also describe how to use medicinal plants as cover crops to provide disease resistance, how to manage manure and soil amendment applications, how to select trees that can be resistant to pests, and how to renovate and manage existing orchards to produce similar results. This presentation will be packed with information. Be prepared to take notes.
Providing Medicinal Quality Wheat for Our Families
By John Kempf
As recently as 30 years ago, allergies to wheat or gluten were relatively unheard of. Wheat is described in the Bible as a nourishing and life-giving grain, yet today many people are becoming ill from consuming modern wheat. What has changed?
Modern wheat has been developed using mutation breeding, and bears no genetic resemblance to the older wheat varieties that were grown prior to World War II. Because of the genetic differences, it requires very different fertilization practices that result in a grain with a completely different nutrient profile when compared to historical wheat varieties. When older wheat varieties are grown with proper nutrition, they actually have an anti inflammatory and antioxidant effect on the human body. This is opposite of the effect produced by modern wheat, where a single slice of bread provides more rapidly digestible sugars than a large candy bar.
With some of the recent innovations in growing practices, commercial and home growers are reporting small grain yields as high as half a bushel per hundred square feet. These innovations make it very possible for us to grow our own medicinal quality grains at home on a small scale, and produce flour that doesn’t have any of the baking challenges commonly associated with ancient grains.
In this presentation, John Kempf will describe why modern wheat is not the same as the wheat of the Bible. He will also discuss a method of growing wheat that is very different from the one we are familiar with, which has been demonstrated to increase small grain yields by as much as four to six times over current cropping practices. Another topic will be how to manage nutrition to produce high test weight and high protein content grain with outstanding baking qualities. ✸