Entries by Cathy Svejkovsky

Small is Beautiful: The Wonderful World of Invertebrates

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By Nina Prater, NCAT Agriculture Specialist When I teach about the soil food web, I tend to paint with broad brushstrokes. This is probably because I only learned about the soil food web in terms of the big groups: bacteria, fungi, micro- and macroinvertebrates, vertebrates, and the plants that supply energy to the whole system. […]

Battlefield Lavender Farm: Solar Powered Processing

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By Chris Lent, NCAT Agriculture Specialist The concept of agrisolar—the use of land for solar electric and agricultural production—is becoming a popular idea. It captivates the imagination to think of the many ways we can use a limited land base to produce crops and livestock while also producing clean power on that same land. But […]

Sustainability Project Transforms Cafeteria Waste into Usable Compost

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By Emilie Ritter, NCAT Director of Communications and Development Remember scraping off your tray in the lunchroom as a kid? Did you ever think about where that waste was going or if it could be more than just garbage? One nonprofit in Silver City, New Mexico is getting its hands dirty and helping kids and […]

Extreme Heat: Don’t Let Summer Be a Bummer

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By Luz Ballesteros Gonzalez and Darron Gaus, NCAT Agriculture Specialists Farmers and ranchers are weather watchers—we begin the day by turning on the local news or checking our apps for the weather highs, humidities, and chances of rain. A lot of us have noticed that temperatures are getting higher, for longer periods of time, and […]

Armed to Farm Map Connects Farmer Veterans Across the U.S.

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By Margo Hale, Armed to Farm Program Director For more than 10 years, I have led NCAT’s efforts to train and provide technical assistance to military veterans who are interested in farming. This started with a series of workshops for veterans in 2011, and then in 2013 we hosted our first Armed to Farm training. In […]

Practicing Resurrection: Using Green Manures on a Small Semi-Urban Homestead

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By Lee Rinehart, NCAT Agriculture Specialist The garden entrance is protected from groundhogs and deer by a mesh-covered wooden gate. On the gate hangs an 18-inch-long pallet board with the words “Mad Farm” painted in green. Inspired by Wendell’s Manifesto, I wanted to instill the place with the contradiction embodied in his poem. To “every […]

Solar Shepherd in Massachusetts: Solar Grazing

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By Allen Puckett, NCAT Technical Writer The Solar Shepherd provides grazing services in Brookfield, Massachusetts, with 75 sheep that graze a solar array site owned by SWEB Development, a European clean energy firm. This beneficial partnership was born when SWEB reached out to Solar Shepherd for grazing services after seeing their solar-grazing sites on social […]

When in Drought, Plan It Out: Rain Harvesting

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By Stephanie Kasper, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Program Manager As a south Texas farmer, there’s not much I love more than a refreshing rainy day. However, my rain appreciation grew deeper this year after my partner John and I installed a 1,650-gallon rain harvest system at our house. After moving into our home […]

Free Bees, Part Two: Keeping Them

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By Justin Duncan, NCAT Agriculture Specialist In a previous blog, I detailed how to find free bees. Finding them can be relatively easy. Swarm? They aren’t starving? Sweep them gently into a nuc (a five-frame starter hive). It’s truly one of the loveliest experiences a beekeeper can have.   What’s in the awaiting nuc? I […]

Maces Pond: Agrisolar Wild Blueberries

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By Chris Lent, NCAT Agriculture Specialist Not far from the town of Rockport, Maine, Paul Sweetland of Sweetland Farms, LLC has been tending wild blueberries since he was a young boy. On one field that he has been farming since the late 1990s, there is more than blueberries being produced. Solar panels have been installed […]