Mark Your Calendars for Houston

Organic beef farmer Betsy Ross in her Texas field

I’ll be honored to join one of my agricultural heroes, Betsy Ross, as keynote presenters on Saturday, Feb. 19, in Houston at the Organic Landscape & Gardening Fair.

Betsy is nationally renowned for the grass-fed organic beef she has produced pesticide-free for years at her central Texas family farm. A pioneer in the use of compost tea, she’ll present a morning talk titled “Health Starts with the Soil,” and she won’t be talking just about soil health.

This will be my second trip in as many years on behalf of the event’s organizers, Organic Business Alliance, a committee of Urban Harvest. The dynamic group has moved to the forefront nationally by bringing in some of the leading presenters on organic land care and agriculture in the nation. Other sponsors of the day-long event at the United Way Building include the U.S. Green Building Council, the American Society of Landscape Architects, Texas A&M University Cooperative Extension and HoustonGreenScene.org.

I’ll be talking about “A New, Better Way to Live,” which will focus on trends and techniques that are sweeping across the United States and Canada in gardening and farming.

Among the other presenters and topics are:
John Ferguson – Soil Foodweb & Compost;
Bill Wyatt – Compost Tea;
Gene Barnes – Water Conservation;
Bart Brechter – Organic Basics;
Mike Serant – Complete Organic Program;
Dee Howell – Organic Pest Control;
John Jones – Organic Tree Care;
Charles Allen – Edible Plants;
Heidi Sheesley – Butterfly and Hummingbird Plants;
Bob Randall – Growing Food;
Kathy Vosburg – Organic Landscaping.

You can register on-line for $55 at http://ohbaonline.org/events.htm#OHBA. The fee includes all seminars and a gourmet organic lunch.