RESOURCES
Useful Resources & Favorite Links
When it gets down to it, this is core of certified organic. The following link are the federal regulations the detail allowed and prohibited substances, methods, and ingredients in organic production and handling.
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Those rules are crazy specific, how do I know if this thing is certified organic? The best way is to check out OMRI, they are an organization that review organic materials and have a good database of branded names so you can see if they are legit or not.
https://www.omri.org/omri-search
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There are many other details that go into the regulations of the USDA NOP (National Organic Program), you can see them here.
https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/organic
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Every certified organic operation has a third-party accredited certifier who shows up to their farm annually and completes a process in the office, field and facilities to ensure the operation is in compliance with organic certification. The best organic certifier and the only one my family has ever used is CCOF – check them out here.
Looking for seeds? Johnny’s is always my first go-to, they have a good selection and their description of how to plant the crop is a great place to start.
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Wonder how we know how much to water? There is a great resource for California called CIMIS – these are a network of weather observation stations across the state that monitor how much crops uses (evapotranspiration ETo, temperature, rain fall, relative humidity, soil temperature and few other things). This service is free, check it out for the station closest to you.
https://cimis.water.ca.gov/WSNReportCriteria.aspx
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Need a lab test? These folks are great, I use them for: soil tests, irrigation water tests, processing water tests, environmental testing (looking for pathogens) and they do a lot more.
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So, what exactly is the best way to store that perishable fruit or vegetable and how long will it last? Go here and print out Dr. Marita Cantwell’s pdf. By fruit or vegetable it gives: Storage Temp, Relative Humidity, Highest Freezing Temperature, Ethylene Production, Sensitivity to Ethylene and Approximate Storage Life (from harvest). The University of California Postharvest Center is a great resource. I think they have an app that you can download too.
https://postharvest.ucdavis.edu/Commodity_Resources/Storage_Recommendations/
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My plant has this pest – what do I do?!? The first thing to do is check out University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management resources. Go to the link below, scroll down until you find your crop then start clicking around until you find the bug. Once there, they give recommendations on how to deal with it – often they have give organically accepted treatment suggestion also.
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture
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How big is this piece of land and what soil types is it made of? Great questions. There is a national database called Web Soil Survey (WSS) hosted by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. Once you are in the tool you can zoom in, use the tool to draw the perimeter of any shape field and the tool will calculate the average and show you the different soil types. This is a very powerful tool!!!