Northwest Passage's Food in America Class spent a day at the farm learning about our approach to food and getting a taste of farm life. They arrived on brussel sprout harvest day and started the long process of harvesting the remaining sprouts, helped separate and clean pumpkin seeds for our seed-saving project, transported compost to the hoop house, and spent time with the animals, and enjoyed a walk to the waterfall.
A big thank you to the City of Lakes Third Grade Class who joined us on the farm for three days helping with chores, mucking the chicken coop and Burrito's stall, mulching strawberries, seeding the pumpkins, raking leaves, and learning about farm life. The students brought a wonderful enthusiasm for the animals and chores, making the week a delight.
All students had the opportunity to feed the chickens and get to know chicken life better, and some students had the task of smashing (slightly rotten) pumpkins in the chicken yard so the flesh would be accessible to the pumpkin-loving chickens.
On Monday, students from the Paying it Forward Program in Barron, Wisconsin helped out in the fields. In the morning, they harvested green beans for the CSA shares. In the afternoon, they harvested the rest of our storage onions (see photo above) and placed them in the white barn for curing (see photo below). All of our onions are now safely curing in a dry place. Thank you for all the hard work!
Saturday is the last day for Youth Farm and Market Project's summer camp here at Philadelphia Community Farm. Pictured above is a group of students cultivating the pea bed in barn field. They were proud to finish weeding the bed after two groups had started the project earlier in the day. To celebrate, we gathered the harvested weeds and fed them to the sheep.
We've seen many early mornings this month, including this foggy morning pictured above. The farm crew is frequently out harvesting vegetables at 6 am before the vegetables get too warm. We're also working the fields diligently in the early mornings and late afternoons so that we can devote quality educational time with the Youth Farmers from the Youth Farm and Market Project who are enjoying a summer camp on the farm. So far we have run three summer camp sessions with approximately 25 participants each. The students range in age between 8-14 years old with varying degrees of farm experience before coming to camp. So far it has been a wonderful experience, and we have 6 sessions remaining.
One of the garden projects that we have been doing with students is rounding up our Colorado Potato Beetles before they eat too many leaves. We are finding them in all phases: eggs, larva, and adult, with the photo above showing a potato beetle molting. There have been many "teachable moments" in the potato field!
In the photo above, Dan teaches about compost before giving students the opportunity to turn the compost pile. About 20 students from Hayward School spent three days on the farm while participating in the sustainability-focused program. On Wednesday they took a tour of the farm, visited Buttermilk Falls, dusk walked in Tewksbury to watch the sunset, and sang ecology-related songs at the campfire. On Thursday and Friday, they participated in group initiatives, learned about CSA farms, our biodynamic practices and prairie restoration, and worked alongside the farmers with educational service learning projects that included mulching potatoes, wrangling Colorado Potato Beetles, and de-rocking the garden beds. We enjoyed their visit!
The Community Technology Empowerment Americorps Program visited the farm on Friday. With 25 extra sets of hands on the farm, we tackled some big projects like mulching the potatoes, wrangling potato beetles, planting the flower beds, moving the sheep to new pastures, and weeding. We also set aside some time for a fabulous lunch prepared by Robin and a visit to Buttermilk Falls to cool down after a hard day of work.
