We are excited to say that our first Garden Morning of the year is here! Join us on April 29th anytime after 9:30 with a potluck lunch at noonish. The Garden Mornings are held the last Saturday of each month through October and offer a chance for shareholders to connect with each other in the gardens and around the picnic table. There are generally 2+ activities happening, to suit a mix of ages and abilities. All welcome, including family members, friends, etc. Two exciting extras for the April Garden Morning are: hanging a brand new barn quilt painted by Bob’s brother Eugene and a visit from our multi-season apprentice GH!
It has been a busy month preparing for the upcoming season. To see the rest of the April highlights, check out the dozen photos and captions below.
Calvin has been spending time in the garden since his toddler years! He helped tuck in 4,000+ onions last weekend, ideal timing just before the rain. The varieties include fat sweet ones like Walla Walla and Ringmaster, along with ones that store longer like Red Zeppelin and Patterson. Awesome job onion planting crew Calvin, Charlie, Evelyn, Farai, Jim, Mareika, and Relani!
First fun thing in the barn this season was a Kitchenwares swap organized by our friend Leslie, pictured here, and Bob. A half dozen folks donated items beforehand (nice work!) and another dozen or so households came that day to drop off and pick up items. All the surplus was donated to neighborhood centers and thrift stores in the area.
There’s eight Community Based Learning (CBL) students on the farm once a week this semester. They’ve chipped in to learn about everything from canning to fencing to seeding. Here the group is helping whip the perennial herb and flower area into shape.
The farm was one of the water stations for the 7th annual Maple Run Half Marathon and 5 km. It was during the 80 degree patch in mid-April, so the hydration was a hit, thanks for keeping it well stocked Charlie!
We host guests via our membership with Worldwide Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF). The Flower family came up for a long weekend and kicked off seeding flats in the greenhouse with us. Flats in there now include kale, chard, head lettuce, sunflowers, cilantro, dill, fennel, and more.
Ramp season is here! Rye always enjoys a woods romp, and there’s a massive patch on the far side of the property.
Pizzas are the current fad in our house. We buy frozen crusts then play around with toppings, here’s rehydrated sweet red peppers and mushrooms from last season added with a recent ramp harvest. Topped with parmesan and mozarella-yum!
While the landscape may still look a bit bare, plants that come back year after year (perennials) emerge from the soil early. (Pardon the dirty hands) but a favrite garden snack of early spring is lemony sorrel leaves wrapped around young chives.
Mulching the perennial beds using compost we made from the food scraps of Canton village residents. We accept food scraps right on the farm and the village crew also brings the organic matter from the dumpster downtown.
Last week we hosted Aaron Iverson’s Sustainable Agriculture Systems class from St. Lawrence. The tour time flew by as they asked questions from soil practices to member communications to developing our CSA model. What a fabulous group!
In Flip’s role at the Extension Learning Farm, she and the Master Food Preserver Volunteers are running a first ever Canning Jar Drive throughout the month of April. Here she is with volunteer Jan DeWaters showing some of the goodies already donated. If you have any spare jars there’s still 1 week to donate, find information about it here. A fun event where some of the jars will be redistributed to the community is the free Grow and Preserve Open House on May 6th, 11am-2pm. Stop over!