Building and Growing
As we approach the winter season, our production becomes more concentrated into our high tunnels, therefore we have more time to work on farm improvements and restoration. The past month we were able to start rebuilding the first few of our 200 foot high tunnels. We plan to have 5 or 6 of these houses ready for production this coming spring. Two of these houses have already been leased by incubators on our farm. This month, we helped them get the hoops covered with plastic, after they cleaned them up and reinforced the framing.
This has also been a time where we were able to work on some much needed improvements on the farm. We finished painting our break room and bathrooms. Installed a new workbench and pegboard to keep our tools organized. We upgraded our walk-in cooler with a new layout and gave it a nice facelift, by repainting the old metal walls and mounting new lights. There is still lots to do, but it feels good checking things off our list and seeing the farm evolve. Can’t wait to see what we accomplish in December.
— Alex, Farm Manager
Production
Yes! We are still growing at Sprouting Farms. Here is what’s been accomplished recently…
We’ve been focusing on winterizing the high tunnels. Underneath the doors and baseboards of the high tunnels we see a lot of potential loss of heat, so we added wood mulch and cardboard to ensure more heat is trapped, to get our young transplants through the occasional 20 degree nights.
Similarly we have spent significant time preparing our Asparagus field for the winter. This starts with final cultivation, cutting back the dead fronds, fertilizing, re-mulching, and hilling the rows.
We have also done a significant amount of planting — both transplants and direct seeding. Crops planted include various baby salad greens, spinach, scallions, kale, and radishes. And like we always do, we have spent a ton of time cultivating as we try to slowly decrease weed pressure over the long term.
— Lucas, Production Manager
Community
We had two cooking classes last month! All of our cooking classes are open to kids, adults, and whoever wishes to come learn with us. However, this month we had a cooking class geared specifically towards kids and cooking as a family. The kids made veggie dips and curried acorn squash soup. If you’d like a copy of the recipes let us know! Both classes had great meals with great people. Check out the pics on our Facebook page, where you can find the dates of our cooking classes which are held at the Graham House in Talcott, WV. As always we are cooking with local food from local farmers, thanks to Turnrow: Appalachian Farm Collective. You can check out Turnrow’s online market at turnrow.localfoodmarketplace.com
Also, our very own Ruby Daniels taught an herbal class at Chestnut Revival in Hinton, WV. Chestnut Revival is a lovely coffee shop and restaurant that specializes in New Orleans flavors and has a different baked good made fresh each day. At the class Ruby spoke about the many herbs and herbal remedies traditionally used for cold and flu season. If you would like to talk to Ruby about her herbal business or ask her questions about herbal remedies to what ails you, you can email her at ruby@sproutingfarms.org. If you’d be interested in attending an herbal remedy class in the future, message us and let us know what interests you!
Education
Guy Koenig has been a great volunteer this past month, and he’s only 11 years old! He has helped us with seeding, harvesting, transplanting, and building beds in our high tunnels. As he learns more about food and farming he is beginning to learn and understand how small scale farming is different from what large scale farms are doing. Guy appreciates our small scale and organic practices. He believes we are helping the environment, and says we are “using natural resources to help out plants.” His favorite experience has been seeding in our fields, while his most challenging experience has been harvesting, because of the patience needed to harvest large quantities of greens. Guy hopes that in the future more kids will learn and participate in farming and gardening.
