On Memorial Day, Monday, May 27 at 10:30 a.m., "The Cook's Garden" founder Shepherd Ogden will present a lecture and interpretive walk at the Blue Ridge CSA's biointensive food garden in Neersville, VA. Ogden will discuss garden techniques that maximize production in a given space while reducing labor yet maintaining optimal soil fertility and microbial diversity, all within the context of a small-scale sustainable food production system. The morning promises to be visually rich and lively and of strong interest to urban gardeners who have an interest in growing large amounts of food in small spaces.
Shepherd Ogden is founder and president of The Cook's Garden, a mail order seed and supply house based in Vermont committed to providing American gardeners with untreated seed of both heirloom and modern gardening plants from around the world. His gardens and seed business have been the subject of articles in Country Journal, Inc., Organic Gardening, Time, Newsweek, Forbes, Vermont Life, Victoria, Martha Stewart Living, Boston Herald, New York Times, and USA Today. Ogden is a former board member of both The Vermont Small Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association and the Garden Writers Association of America. He is the author of four books and more than fifty magazine articles on all aspects of horticulture, agriculture and the environment and has been a contributing editor for both Organic Gardening and National Gardening magazines, where until recently he was Editor at Large. Ogden was the 1988 recipient of the American Horticultural Society's GB Gunlogson Award for "extraordinary and dedicated efforts in the field of horticulture." He has lectured at botanical gardens and appeared at professional and amateur symposia in most regions of the United States, and in 1995 conducted a month long lecture tour of the Czech Republic under the auspices of Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (USAID). Ogden currently lectures on Agro-Ecology at Green Mountain College in Vermont and is researching a new book on biotechnology and our food supply. Shepherd Ogden was a 1967 graduate of Charles Town (WV) High School. Ogden�s most recent focus has been on transgenic plant technologies, and he is working on a book about the effects of biotechnology and the market system on our food supply. He has appeared on numerous panels including conferences at Cornell University and the Radcliffe Institute, and he has given lectures at the National Conservation Training Center, Yale University, Amherst College and public meetings in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio and California. In February 2000 Ogden gave the keynote speech at the Northeast Organic Farmer�s Association winter meeting �Seeds of Change: A Community Response to Biotechnology� in Randolph, Vermont. His paper �The Language of Biotechnology: Terminate or be Terminated� was recently published in the journal Organization and Environment. Ogden currently works in The Intervale, a 600 acre agricultural district in the city of Burlington, Vermont, where he maintains display and research gardens in support of The Cook�s Garden and the Intervale Foundation, which supports the re-establishment of regional sustainable agriculture in New England and other regions of the United States and the world. He has two children, Molly (18) and Sam (14). Ogden's presentation will be followed by a demonstration of compost tea brewing; compost tea is an easy and inexpensive method of increasing the biodiversity and available fertility of the soil and of controlling pathogens on leaf surfaces. The talk is free and open to the public, but space is limited, so please RSVP. Shepherd Ogden will bring some of his books to sign and sell (or bring your own copies to have signed). This presentation is part of an on-going series of natural gardening and agroecology educational events presented by the Blue Ridge Center CSA's internship program in cooperation with the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship. RESERVATIONS ARE STRONGLY RECOMMENDED!! For reservations and more information (and for volunteer and internship opportunities) please contact Garden Manager Allan Balliett at (540) 668 6165 or email at [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Blue Ridge Center is on the web at www.blueridgecenter.org.
