This Week at the Farm: On Mother’s Day, Celebrate Mom and Mother Nature

Every year, it feels like spring is in full swing by Mother’s Day weekend. Tulips, daffodils, and other spring bulbs are in bloom. Cold-loving annuals like pansies and violas add splashes of color to your garden. You may even start preparing your vegetable garden and buying starts.

It looks like there’s going to be a break in the rain this weekend, which will give us all some time to get work done outdoors. Show Mother Nature a little love by planting flowers and plants in your garden that wildlife will love. Info about weekend plant sales are in the next section, and skip to the Gardening Tips section below for suggestions on how to attract pollinators!

Speaking of yards and gardens, we have a job opening for a Landscaper/Groundskeeper to help with the upkeep of the farm grounds this season. Read the full job description and apply here.

Just for Mother’s Day!

Still looking for a gift for Mother’s Day? Flowers for your garden and planters make a great gift, and they’re on sale this weekend!

• Pansies and Violas – Buy 1, Get 1 HALF OFF
• Annuals (4 & 6 packs, 4 & 6 inch pots) – Buy 4, Get 1 FREE

A Pick-Your-Own Bouquet Share is perfect gift for anyone who loves flowers! Bouquet CSA members get to pick their own 20-stem bouquet weekly for 12 weeks, July to September.

Sign up here →

And if mom prefers tasty baked goods, you’ll find an assortment of special sweet and savory treats for her in the farmstand and cafe this weekend.

From the Kitchen & Special Orders

While we wait for a wider variety of in-season produce, the kitchen is using carefully preserved ingredients to whip up soups (a creamy tomato bisque and a carrot ginger), sides, dressings, and salads. Yes, salads! We were able to harvest enough greens to make our first salads of the season this week!

A note about weekend baked goods: If you plan on purchasing more than 3-4 of any of our baked goods on Saturdays or Sundays, please email Theo and place an order no later than noon on Wednesday (croissants, morning buns, and Danish pastries take 3 days to make). We want to make sure everyone can have their weekend treats!

Learning About Stewardship

One of the main goals of our education programs is to raise young stewards who take care of themselves, the environment, and others.

This week, our Little Farmers made friends with worms in their habitat (the soil) and planted brassicas in the education garden. Middle schoolers in the cooking class learned sanitation and knife safety before jumping in and making cheddar scallion scones with CCF arugula. Homeschoolers identified a few ways that farmers prevent pests without using pesticides – reemay, mulch, and ladybugs. The group even got to release ladybugs in Greenhouse 1 to help mitigate any aphids that might be lurking.

With the homeschool class, Meredith also facilitated the creation of a community agreement (CommuniTree Agreement) to help the group be intentional with their actions and to hold themselves and their peers accountable.

There are so many ways to practice stewardship!

Gardening Tips: Attracting Pollinators

Variety in a garden is important for attracting pollinators in your garden. Moths, bees, butterflies and birds all play a vital role in spreading seeds and pollinating plants.

Even if you prefer to keep your garden to a few colors on the palette, remember to grow different species of plants with a variety of flower shapes. The more options you have, the more pollinators you will attract! To help you get started, in the farmstand we have bags of bulbs specifically for bees and butterflies.

Interested in learning more about native bees and why we need them? Check out this article about Paige Embry’s book Our Native Bees: North America’s Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them.

Upcoming

May 11 – Norwich Farmers Market, 9-1.
May 12 – Knife sharpening at the farmstand, 10-2.
May 14 – Little Farmers drop in class for children ages 2-5, 10-11 am.
May 14 – Cooking for Middle Schoolers, 3:30-5:15 pm.
May 15 – Homeschool Farm Science, 1-3 pm.
June 1 – Last Day to sign up for a Produce Plus Card!

We took advantage of the few nice days this week to plant artichokes, scallions, broccolini, and more early season greens. They’ll be harvested in the next month or two – plan ahead and get the best deal on produce by purchasing a Produce Plus Card before the signup deadline (June 1).

The production and greenhouse crews are also working on planting the cut flower garden little by little; the next time you’re at the farm, walk out behind the farmstand and check out their progress. It’s fun to imagine wandering through the beautiful field picking flowers to bring home when pick-your-own opens in July.

In the meantime, stop by and visit us at the farm or at the Norwich Farmers’ Market! We’d love to see you.

–From all of us at the farm