Welcoming the 2009 season at... The mission at Laughing Dog Farm is to grow the finest year-round produce for ourselves and others, as well as teach, promote and inspire viral participation in backyard, micro-farming. Getting Started at Home Why Save Seeds?S Farm-Based Mentoring Getting Started With Goats 2006-Year In Review 2007-Year in Review 2008-Year in Review What are"Food Politics"? CSA Partnership with LDF On Gleaning and Farming Footbag Peace Studies   This website is lovingly dedicated to our departed dog friends, Loretta, Sheba and Topher... They must all be laughing together now! .

Assessing the troubled state of our World today, we asked ourselves,

"What could be the best use of this beauteous and fertile ground...

...and this fleeting time we've been gifted?"

...To glean treasures from the mud...?

to teach sustainable micro-agriculture to the "masses"?

...To share its precious fruits with our family, friends and allies, spreading heirloom seeds of knowledge, inspiration and connection?

...To cultivate family, community, healthy soil, heirloom tomatoes, baby goats and PEACE along with the good, green grub???

"Yeah, yeah... YEAH! That's it. That's it!", we said...

398 Main Rd. Gill, MA 01354 *dbotkin@valinet.com * 413-863-8696

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Agriculture: Supporting Community at Laughing Dog Farm

My sweet wife Divya and I, (Danny Botkin) our daughter Leylee, along with our dear, near neighbors, Chris and Laura - and various seasonal interns and friends - "operate" an innovative, diversified homestead and organic micro-farm in central Franklin County. Laughing Dog Farm consists of 3+ acres of raised beds, two greenhouses, inter-planted vegetables, flowers, herbs, fruit and nut trees as well as a batch of delightful, multi-purpose, dairy goats...

Intentional Community's long History

This stunning, sunny hilltop we inhabit was once part of a well-known commune, one of the first and longest-enduring, with a poignant and facinating history, now past. Through neither of us was directly involved with the commune, we know many people who were. And our own lives and work here this past decade +have also been defined by an ongoing quest for community and connection, as we have sought to incorporate some of that legacy of tribe, family, land stewardship, social activism and co-creative inter-dependence. That's always been the ulterior goal, the idealistic Bigger Picture, per se. However, like everybody else, we're practitioners, working, growing and learning daily -- imperfectly attempting to do it better each time.

A Return to Farming

In 2000 I left a 20+ year career in teaching, counseling and human service to dedicate myself full-time to micro-intensive food farming. Here our pragmatic goal was to produce ongoing abundant harvests of seriously useful, diversified, high quality, nutrient-dense food using organic, soil-enhancing methods on marginal acreage, all by hand.

Food as Curriculum

But we also looked at the world and observed a ubiquitous need for greater knowledge and literacy about food, plants, farming and other food-related subjects... These are key competencies to teach and promote In this age of global instability, rising fuel and food costs (not to mention poverty, "terror" threats, pesticide residues, obesity and eating disorders...) We soon realized that the traditional food and farming skills we're learning and practicing at LDF are perhaps even more valuable than the fresh bounty we harvest. And so we continue to explore new ways to teach and inspire others to grow food in non-traditional spaces. Interestingly, we've found that skills, seeds, space and time aren't the only obstacles to more folks growing their own backyard sustenance. The most insidious are the mental barriers that stand in the way of more proactive home food production.

Farm Mentorship

For seven years now we've had a series of wonderful, seasonal interns ("WWOOFers") who come to live and volunteer on our farm in exchange for food, fellowship and learning. These mentoring relationships at Laughing Dog have been enormously rewarding for everyone.

CSA Foodshares

Laughing Dog Farm was organized for five years around a small Community Supported Agriculture project, which is a group of lucky folks who sign up and pay in advance for a weekly delivery of excellent produce, from May to October. At this scale the "CSA" was not at all profitable in money -- and is thus currently on hiatus for one year. The CSA provided the farm with some income and an important community focus which we currently miss. However, CSA's work best when there is a two-way, mutually beneficial relationship between farmer and a vital community of consumers. Since starting the CSA in '02 we've polished our art and now are selling our excellent produce at the local farmers market. However, we wish to invite a core group of conscious, local, green consumers to join us in '09 to re-create a collaborative, neighborhood CSA arrangement which serves the needs of our community and honors the spirit imbued here in the land.

Kickstarting Backyard Permaculture Gardens Everywhere

We see part of our mission at LDF is to offer ideas, inspiration and consultation to beginning farmers and backyard permaculturists who are serious about growing real food by hand on marginal acreage. I am available, both formally and informally, to teach and mentor a variety of practical skills related to organic gardening, cooking and food processing, as well as selecting and saving heirloom and other open pollinated seeds.

Also, if you, like us, see the wisdom of local, sustainable, grassroots food production -- and just need a bit of support and/or inspiration getting started, check out this series of basic gardening and permaculture videos we made last year for Expertvillage.com on the following important subjects:

Hoophouse Design

Growing Greens in Hoophouses

Growing Seedlings with Minimal Space

Getting Started with Dairy Goats

Planting Tips in the Spring Garden

Heirloom Seeds and Seed Saving

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Laughing Dog Farm is still seeking one or more serious, long-term comrades/housemates/farm partners to share our home, land and vision into the future. We're especially interested in individuals, couples or a small family who share similar values and our intentional farming bent. Though sobered by the challenges of cooperative living and cooperative ownership, we remain clear and committed on this path... Please inquire!

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Laughing Dog Farming Methods:

We raise all our crops by hand on less than three acres, using traditional, "bio-intensive" methods, raised beds, permanent trellises, low hoops, cold frames, extensive inter-cropping and a steady supply of rich, goat manure compost. Healthy soil translates into healthy plants which thrive with less pests and disease pressure. We use no chemical inputs, GMO seeds or poisons, whatsoever -- and produce an extended season of diverse, high quality and delicious produce. Aside from feeding our friends and family, we also feed ourselves year round on these precious harvests. Nobody loves fresh, gourmet produce like we do!

On Varieties and other Perks:

Our farm specialties are many, although we're very partial to exquisite lettuce mixes, salad and cooking greens, multicolored and uniquely flavored, heirloom tomatoes, pungent garlic and leeks, rich, buttery, ultra-healthy collards and other leafy brassicas, old fashioned beets, various humble storage roots, rare pole beans, heirloom melons and diversely colored flowers. We use early and late (Eliot Coleman-inspired) season extension techniques to offer longer harvest periods of many popular crops. We also grow spring vegetable and flower starts, cut flowers and herbs. Our dried heirloom tomatoes and other fruits are legendary.

What We Plant:

Veggies: Mesclun, peas, carrots, lettuce, spinach, chard, Asian greens, asparagus, collards, beets (seven varieties), carrots, leeks, onions, garlic, basil, dill, thyme, cabbage, parsnips, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, kohlrabi, turnips, squash (winter and summer, multiple varieties), pole beans, bush beans, edamame soybeans, spuds, (multiple varieties) peppers, sweet and hot, tomatillos, cucumbers, corn, pumpkins, heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, watermelons, muskmelons and cantaloupes.

Flowers: Sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias, sweet peas, marigolds, nasturtiums, calendulas, calla lilies, ornamental beans, amaranth, echinacea, bee balm, asters... and many, many other common and culinary and medicinal herbs and plants...

For The Future: We also have 3-9 year old plantings (originally Y2K inspired...) of fruit trees, raspberries, chestnuts, gingko, peaches, pears, kiwis, cherries, plums and Asian pears which have now begun to yield. (I always wanted to live somewhere long enough to plant fruit trees.)

Laughing Dog Farm, like each of us, is a work in progress... Here's hoping that you can share with us in the next chapter of this deliciously vital, growing adventure. Your participation and input is highly valued. Join with us in whatever way you can...

Lovin' you with food,
Daniel "Dog" Botkin

398 Main Rd. Gill, MA 01376 * dbotkin@valinet.com * 413-863-8696

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"This final truth is self-evident. You are the one you’ve been waiting for... You’ve been here the whole time." ~ William Rivers Pitt