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Richmond%u2019s Farm Will Show How ToBY IRENE VAN SLYKE%u201c With a tenth of an acre a 15 year old could make easily $1,000 in a summer,%u201d downtown Brooklyn Congressman Fred Richmond explained while operating a rototiller, turning up the soil, on a small plot on his three-and-aquarter acre experimental Richmond Garden Market Center in Pleasant Valley near Poughkeepsie, New York.%u201c It could be a hobby, something for the whole family to do, something exciting,%u201d Richmond explained. %u201cNot to mention that gardening will keep you young. My mother is 80 years old and is as spry as a chicken and she works in her garden every day. Instead of jogging or something people could exercise in the garden, growing fresh foods and make money too,%u201d he says.Pleasant Valley%u2019s three plus acres might make the area known not only for the fact that the 1977 New York City blackout started there when lightning strluck a power sub-station but also, as Richmond foresees, a national research center to show people how families can make themselves largely self-sufficient on a tenth of an acre plot. He hopes to help sprout the idea in everyone%u2019s mind that growing food in backyards can be a family hobby, provide needed exercise, at the same time get fresh fruits and vegetables on the table and can have earning power.BALANCE OF TRADEThe Congressman also secs in the future that if families begin to grow some of their own food, large agricultural firms can export their produce abroad to foreign countries, with the exports helping to provide the country with a better balance of trade. With the current lack of oil we are %u201c transporting food from California to the East coast,%u201d Richmond throws his hands up, instead we could be shipping that food %u201c to Japan and get top dollar.%u201d We save energy too, Richmond explains.Richmond hopes to build a national awareness for the need toOn his three and a quarter acre farm in Pleasant Valley New York, Congressman Fred Richmond pushes his rototiller, turning over the soil. (Irene Van Slyke Photo)grow fresh foods, not only because the homegrown variety is tasty and fun to grow, but because in doing so people conserve energy and help hold down the inflation rate. He is writing a book about it called %u201c Guerilla Agriculture,%u201d to be published by Godine Publishing Company' later this year.Right now the Richmond Garden Market Center, under the direction of Glenn Van Bramer has ten one-tenth acre lots set aside, about 4,400 square feet each, planted in various crops. %u201c Most homes in the United States are built on one acre plots,%u201d Van Bramer explains, and if a afamily sets aside one tenth of that for a garden it could raise enough food with only an hour and a half of work a day. The area is roughly the size of three row house back yards%u2014space that is available in many city neighborhoods too.CASH CROPA tenth of an acre can also provide a family with cash. %u201c If you grow lettuce properly you can make$5,000 in four months%u201d Richmond interjects, %u201c that has been documented by Troy-Bilt,%u201d the company that manufactures rototillers%u2014the mechanical replacement for the mule and plough. %u201c A teenager, a 15-year old, could make easily $1,000 in a summer in a family garden,%u201d Richmond maintains.Jay Kravits, a young farmer, who tends the Richmond Garden Market Center tells how this spring he cleared the grass off the site, removed mountains of stones and now has plots with tomatoes, others with vegetables and beans, arid some planted with dwarf fruit trees. Kravits says he keeps careful track of how much money and time is spent on each of the garden plots, how much crop is produced, and in the fall expects to sell some of its harvest.%u201c Next year we%u2019ll put in some cash crops like strawberries and lettuce,%u201d Richmond says excitedly, %u201c We want to see how that works. There will also be a pond to grow fish, bass.%u201d Other plans include the building of pens to raise rabbits and quail, in addition to the functioning apiary which provides bees to pollinate the plants. Then following a Chinese model, it will soon see a %u201c growing pit.%u201d%u201c Last year when I went to China,%u201d Richmond says %u201c I saw growing pits,%u201d allowing the Chinese to grow vegetables well into the winter. The pit, using the same principle as a cold frame, is dug 4 to 5 feet deep, 9 feet wide and 40 feet long and when covered with glass or plastic and heated with a heating cable, can grow cold weather crops such as turnips, beets, kale and chard during the winter months.%u201c When ail the facilities are built,%u201d Van Bramer says it will show a %u201c new way to look at suburban land. The price of labor,%u201d Van Bramer continues, %u201c is inflation proof.%u201d With little energy fresh foods can be grown and quail and rabbits raised. It will show a %u201ccheap and clean way%u201d of producing protein as an alternative to the high cost of raising pigs and cows on a scale that is manageable forBees ere useful In pollinating plants andCongressman Fred Richmond looks over his smallbustling apiary with farmer Jay Kravits. (Irene Van Slyke Photo)suburban ^families, he says.What will all the large agricultural businesses do when families produce most of their own food? %u201c Demand for food will continue to increase,%u201d Richmond maintains. %u201cAs standards of living improve in a largely underfed world, people will want more food. It is something they need and we can supply in infinite amounts,%u201d Richmond says.LEADING THE WAYRichmond seems to be leading the w^y in growing food whereever possible. His Washington office in the Longworth House Office Building has a 70-square foot terrace where vegetables are grown in containers. Gimbing through a bathroom window, %u201c the whole office feoes out on the terrace for lunch,%u201d he says. In fact, recently Richmond remembers he had lunch there with the Governor of Alaska, who did not mind at all that he had to climb through the window, and enjoyed a homegrown salad of lettuce, radishes, carrots and beans.Garden Class Trains ThumbsBY IRENE VAN SLYKEFor generations of Dutch people the only way to garden is next to the railroad tracks, and gardening this summer in an area set aside for the first course for adults in vegetable growing at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden I felt right at home listening to the trains go by on the BMT tracks running in a trench next to the childrens%u2019 garden.In the Netherlands with a shortage of space, people rent small plots next to the railroad tracks to grow a supply of summer foods, and at the Botanic Garden my small area 8 by 10 foot was about the same size.%u201c Gardening with a Trained Thumb%u201d started in the winter with Charles Mazza, the instructor, explaining the theories of soil preparation, propagation and winter pruning to a class of some 10 people.Early in the spring, after a quiz to test our knowledge, the class moved outside and everyone was assigned an area to work with a partner The first task - to sow seeds in straight rows and to labelseems. Seeds, I am sure are easily blown away by the wind and somehow on one of my rows I turned the label showing it had been sown when it was not.Students harvest vegetables from their small plots in a Brooklyn Botanic Garden class, %u201c Gardening with a Trained Thumb.%u201d (Charles Mazza Photo)We also learned about %u201c intercropping%u201d - growing rapidly maturing crops - radishes and lettuce - next to slower maturing crops - squash and tomatoes. As later maturing crops expand in size earlier maturing ones can be harvested making more space available. 1 never knew how much lettuce and radishes can be grown in one 8 foot row and I am not sure if I want to eat any more lettuce or radishes for another year and that goes for my neighbors too who have been sharing the bounty.When not busy harvesting we would weed and cultivate the soil and Mazza often would exhort us on the proper use of tools and tell us to resist the temptation to sit down in between rows and pull weeds instead of standing at the edge of our plots and use a hoe. He would patiently explain how walking and sitting in between rows would compact the soil and undo attempts at cultivating, wnicn helps the soil to absorb water and air.Now, in the dog days of summer, in our attemptsof August and by then with a certificate of the Botanic Garden in hand I am sure I will have a thoroughly trained thumbPlant Now For Fall Harvest FairIt is not too late to grow some vegetables that can be entered in the first New York City Vegetable Judging Contest to be Held September 15 at Gateway National Recreation Area and, who knows, you might be the %u201cbest-of-class%u201d or win a blue, red or white ribbon.There are 17 different classes for vegetable judging but you can still start planting for 3 of them%u2014chard, coliards and beans. So if you have a small unused area in your garden or some large containers on your fire escape, start planting now.Make sure you make the proper soil preparations before you sow any seeds. Dig at least a foot deep and turn the soil over, break up large clumps and mix in some fertilizer (5-10-5) in the top 6 inches of soil.For chard and collard greens follow directions on the seed packages for how deep and how far apart seeds should be sown, usually V* inch deep, 12 inches apart in straight rows for easy weeding. In about a week you will see seedlings come up and soil around the plants should not be allowed to dry out.Keep space between rows weeded and soil loose by cultivating. After about a month plants will need a %u201cSidedressing\fertilizer scratched into (he soil around the plants. Around September 15 they should be just perfect for entry.Beans are probably the easiest to grow and if you have no intention of entering your harvest in a contest try one row of hush beans just to show yourself that a green thumb is nothing magical.If you already have a vegetable garden other possible entries are for beets, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, eggplant, onions, peppers, squash and tomatoes. And if you want to win something but not grow it, there are also contests in fruit jams and jellies, cucumber pickles, yeast breads and rolls, quick breads and muffins and scariest scarecrow.Pick up an entry blank, to be mailed before August 1, and instructions for the contests at the ot the co-soonsors ot tne event, Cornell University Cooperative Extension, 30 Third Avenue, (YWCA building;, 587-T30, or at Congressman Fred Richmond%u2019s 147 Remescn Street, 522-7121.%u2014IVSJ u iy > y 19.1979. The PHOENIX. Page 15