Great Lakes Expo...

This time next week I will be at the Great Lakes Fruit and Vegetable Expo. We went to this show and learnt a lot, first among them being that once there we were not in Kansas anymore. Welcome to the big bad world of commercial vegetables where we are not even small fish in a small pond, more like a goldfish in a bowl where we can see the small pond out the window!

There are half day sessions on lots of different things. A half day on carrots, a half day on onions, a full day on blueberries, a full day on apples, and on and on. Most of the focus is on conventional, but the sessions are broken into a series of half hour long pieces and we can float in and out and hear those sessions which we can use.

And Organics? Not so much. It is actually pretty funny, the expo hall closes at 12:00 on Thrusday at 1:00-3:00 that day they have the organic sessions. That being siad the organic sessions last year were very good. This year they look excellent: The Cornell Soil Health Assessment Protocol and the Connection Between Soil Health and Root Health, Biofumigation and Soil Health with Mustard Cover Crops, Soil Management in Organic Tomato and Pumpkin Production, Sweet Potatoes: The Next Big Crop for up North?, & Organic Weed and Soil Management: Insights from a NY Vegetable and Grain Farmer.

I can honestly say I learnt a ton more at this conventional confrence then at any of the