Farm Tour

The Georgia Organics conference is happening in Decatur this year, only 45 minutes from our farm. So seventy of the conference participants came on a bus to our neck of the woods for a farm tour.

For the first time in years, I watched Nicolas' whole tour. He is quite a speaker. And he looked good - talking about his Belgian roots, his hoop houses, his asparagus, and general farming advice, under a cloudless sky. He had put on one of his least-worn button-up farm shirts for the occasion. When Gillen went with him to the farm this morning I heard him ask Nicolas why he was so dressed up. :) Here he is at the asparagus bed.Tom Stearns, who owns High Mowing Seeds (and whom we drank lots of wine with at Terra Madre) is in the red plaid shirt and vest to the left. He's created a hugely successful business by simply growing organic plants for seeds. He is also one of the guys talking and writing about Slow Money.

In a few weeks, Nicolas and Jesse are going to work with a big Atlanta chef on a cooking demo at our Atlanta organic market. The audience will be elementary school kids. I'm so glad that Jesse wants to do this. He's really excited. I had to take a picture of them today for publicity:Gillen also led a tour, in which he talked about his turkey business, the hoop houses and the worm farm. He speaks (maybe :) even better than his father. I hadn't even known he knew all that! Very cool. Here he is explaining about the worms:And after being asked what they look like:Tonight, Nicolas and I are going to a small Slow Food dinner that will include Michael Pollan. He is in town to speak at the Georgia Organics conference tomorrow tonight. I hope I don't gush - through my mouth or arm pits. I'm really impressed by his ability as a writer and am grateful that he got so many people talking about factory farming, organics and eating local. Though I am not as enamored as my friend Helen (whom I really hope gets to meet him tomorrow night), I did put on lipstick; and I am going to put my telephoto lens on my camera so as to capture him from afar.