Our Farm Report – August 2014
Wow where did the month of August go! With farming sometimes we do not have enough time.
Well good things happened at Our Farm this month.
115 UniversitySite -
-Donation of three wood birdhouses from a KW Hab employee. These
were installed on top of our tomato trellising
-Harvesting is at full swing here at 115 – tomatoes, beans, carrots, beets, beans, herbs, leeks and onions.
-Had two VIBE groups Monday and Thursdays active in the garden, from planting a second crop of beans to watering, to help making a market sign.
-YEP group – 12 participants and three staff came to 115 for birdhouse painting and to view the sensory garden and main garden. They stayed and had lunch here and were able to enjoy all the surroundings.
-5 interns and one Farmer from the YCG Northdale group came and did their volunteer hours at 115 on a Wed morning. They were great in helping remove loads of sod and grass from the back fence, planted spinach and helped with our Wednesday harvest. On two other occasions we have one or two of the Northdale interns here to complete volunteer hours.
-One high school student joined us for two Wednesday mornings to help harvest – hours will go toward her volunteer hour commitment for school.
-The sensory garden is a real hit at ADS – people love the water feature and rocks, plus the smelling and tasting of the plants.
-We had a revisit from the KW record a follow up to our June article in the paper – very exciting.
-we continue to have regular volunteers Monday and Wednesdays from volunteers. We also have had a new Community Volunteer complete the Volunteer process and sign onto Thursday mornings.
DFR Site
-Wednesday VIBE group continues – lots of help was done by this group from
harvesting, planting, moving mulch, grass clippings and weeding. They were also involved in visiting the Beechwood Market. This is a little market with KW that Our Farm had involvement with last year. We still provide a little produce to them in exchange for cash – it’s a good community connection.
-YEP group visited and worked on the farm 2 xs in August. They had so much enthusiasum and loved being there. They also helped with mulching, weeding, row cover installation and had a really good lesson on the farm what all the veggies were and how we will use them.
-We have been approached from a Bee Keeper to keep his bees on DFR property – well away from the residence. This is a really good thing for our garden.
-Lots of harvesting from the DFR garden, summer squash, tomatoes – (very few – most of our crop there has been lost to blight.) kale, herbs, ground cherries and peppers etc.
Everything continues to thrive out there.
Other Good things happening at OUR FARM
-Workshop was put on by the Bernardin Jar Company August 13th – 3 participants from the Agency joined in. We also had 6 YCG interns and two of their farmers plus 3 staff from KW Hab attend. – It was really super, lots learned by attendees. The Bernardin Company was generous and donated all the groceries needed for the demonstration, a canning set and all the mileage for their Chef to travel to Kitchener.
-We have held two VERY successful Farmers Markets at 99 Ottawa Street. Lots of great comments from both the KW houses and staff. The VIBE participants are really enjoying help run the market.
-We have frozen over 80 pounds of excess tomatoes for future canning
-Made 20 large jars bread and butter pickles with VIBE participation.
-Our Farm held two very fun and interactive spaghetti dinners with ingredients from the farm for YEP (15) and The Studio (22 people)
-Our soil student Elena and I completed a Waterfall Entry for the back of 115.
-Also have completed and waiting for printing an Our Farm brochure to be used at open house, volunteer fairs and to hand out to people who are interested in our program.
-Completed an Our Farm presentation.
-We continue to be involved in the organizing/ planning committee of the Mark Shepard workshop to be held in October.
-We continue to weigh and keep track of the produce we have grown.
September is here and we are on our way to our very plentiful harvest.
We have lots planned and I will happily report to you about that next month.
I hope each and every one of you had a very pleasant summer.
Respectfully submitted
Jenny Weickert
Our Farm
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