Cambridge New York

Join people from all across the state for "Potluck Across NY", Thursday, September 23, 6:00 pm at the Cambridge Community Garden.  This event is sponsored by Northeast Organic Farm Association of NY, Hubbard Hall, and the Cambridge Community Garden. If it is raining, we'll eat in the Freight Depot behind Hubbard Hall.

Participants must sign up online at https://www.nofany.org/events/ny-locavore-challenge
The cost is $7 ($5 for NOFA-NY members).

Each fresh, local, seasonal and organic food (without the mileage).  You may sign the locavore challenge for a day, a week, or for the whole month of September:

Day Challenge
$5 NOFA-NY member, $7 nonmember
Week Challenge
$10 NOFA-NY member, $15 nonmember
Month Challenge
$25 NOFA-NY member, $45 nonmember

About the NY Locavore Potluck Night:   On a single evening in September (Thursday, September 23), groups of people will gather over potlucks across the wide state of NY, from Niagara Falls to the tip of Long Island, breaking (local, organic) bread together.  These groups share a common interest in their concern over the current state of the US food system and a commitment to consuming food grown from local organic farms. We hope to eventually have potluck gatherings in each of NY's 62 counties, and have thousands of individuals making this stance together, while remaining in their home communities.

It also benefits NOFA-NY and Local Organic Farms: The statewide potluck is part of the NY Locavore Challenge, so each attendee to a potluck must be registered for one of the NY Locavore Challenges (Day, Week or Month). By doing so the individual has made a commitment to the initiative and has made a contribution to the work NOFA-NY does to help local organic farms thrive in NY State. The challenge is also a fundraiser for NOFA-NY, and fees collected from the challenge directly support NOFA-NY's work to provide education and technical assistance to organic farmers and gardeners as well as to advocate for food and farm related legislation at the state and federal levels.

For more information contact Bliss McIntosh at mcinbass -at- aol -dot- com.

Please stop by the garden to meet Roisin (pronounced Rosheen) and Molly, who are our World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms volunteers.  Roisin will be here all month and Molly until the 19th.  They are doing great things for the garden, getting the kids' patches looking spiffy, and are being real troopers about this dreadful heat.  Yesterday they harvested all of the garlic from the blueberry circle, sat in the shade to clean the heads, and laid them out to cure on the shelves in the shed.  Future tasks will include turning the compost and bringing in well-rotted leaf mold from the Pearl Street town compost piles.

In other news, we now have approval to bring food to the Cambridge Food Pantry any day, Monday through Friday, between 10am and 2pm.  While Roisin is here she will be in charge of gathering veggies to bring over, both from the plots that were filled by the CCS kids and any spare veggies from private plots.  We'll keep a cooler in the shed with some ice packs in it and anyone who wants to add veggies before 10 am can do so.

The Kid's Garden Club has started and will be meeting Tuesdays 4pm-5pm.  A lovely time was had by all at last week's meeting, where the kids enjoyed just slowing down and noticing the bugs in the compost, looking at garlic scapes, heads, and cloves, and at leek flowers.  We also planted collards and radishes (which are already up!) and then walked the magical path through the Nature Garden to look at the beautiful new spirit house.

Today, depending on whether we meet inside or not, we'll plant some carrots and explore some of the smells of the garden: Borage, marigolds, peas, nasturtiums, calendulas, broccoli, etc.  We may also do some leaf rubbings (inside) and get acquainted with galinsoga, otherwise known as Peruvian daisy, and maybe with Purslaine too.

Here are some photos of the Cambridge Elementary students planting their seed starts at the community garden:

During the week of April 12th through the 16th, ten volunteers from the community garden participated in a spring seed starting program in all of the 29 classrooms in the Cambridge Central School elementary program.  We helped the students in grades 2 through 6 make paper pots and used peat pots in pre-K through 1st grade.  Each student planted two pots, one the assigned vegetable for their classroom and the other a flower or vegetable of their choice.  Seeds were donated by the Bentley Seed Company of Cambridge, New York. Potting soil was donated by Alexander's Hardware.  Peat pots were donated by Janet Britt.  Many of the classrooms had prepared for our visit by reading about seeds and some had their own growing projects already in action.  Everyone seemed happy to be participating.  Later in the spring the students will take walking field trips to the Community Garden to plant out their seedlings.