CRAFT
Farm interns are farmers-in-training. A good internship program is as committed to education as it is to hands-on experience in the field, so that interns can learn all of the skills necessary for good farm management.
The Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training (CRAFT) is a model for sharing supplemental farm training in cooperation with a number of participating farms. The Mid-Hudson Craft program is based on the Western Massachusetts/Eastern New York CRAFT program that was formed in 1994. Participants visit a host farm for a tour, a talk or demonstration on a specific topic. These visits to other farms offer farmers-in-training a chance to see how different operations work, to develop practical skills and to network with other farmers and farm interns.
To see the schedule for the Mid Hudson CRAFT group, with visits ranging from Ulster to Putnam Counties, please click here. If you would like to join Mid Hudson CRAFT, please contact Wendy Burkhart-Spiegel, Farm and Program Manager, Poughkeepsie Farm Project at wendy@farmproject.org.
To see the schedule for the Lower Hudson CRAFT group, with visits ranging from NY City to Putnam County, please click here. If you would like to join Lower Hudson CRAFT, please contact Maryellen Sheehan, Market Farmer, Hilltop Hanover Farm at mes9@westchestergov.com.
To see a list of helpful farming resources, please click here
Mid Hudson CRAFT – 2011 Schedule
If potluck is indicated, then the potluck will go from 5-6pm and the farm tour/visit always goes from 6-8pm.
May 2 – Kick-off meeting @ Wild Hive (POTLUCK)
http://www.wildhivefarm.com/
Tim, of Common Ground Farm, will likely introduce the season to the group, and then turn it over to Amy for an overview of Wildhive. Amy will discuss Wildhive Farm, including their education program which consists of fermenting, putting up the season’s foods, and winemaking. Wildhive will supply the bread and sweets for the potluck, so it’s up to the CRAFT members to supply the savory foods!
May 19 – Farm safety @ Stone Barns
http://www.stonebarnscenter.org/
Our CRAFT visit will be led by Jim Carrabba of New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health (NYCAMH). He’ll be covering:
- Safe Equipment Operation
- Personal Protective Wear
- Organizing and Managing a Safety Program for the Farm
- Hand Signals
- Farm Stress Management
- Rabies, Lyme, Poison Ivy
- First Aid Kits
- Heat Illness
- Safe Lifting Techniques
- Slips, Trips, Falls
- and more!
The lesson will be combined with a farm tour.
June 2 – Livestock @ Glynwood
Please join us for a tour and overview of our livestock operation, which includes cows, goats, sheep, hogs, pastured meat birds, and layer hens.
June 16 – High tunnel growing @ Common Ground
http://www.commongroundfarm.org/
Last season we built a high tunnel (also known as a passive solar greenhouse)! We’ve been harvesting nourishing greens from it all winter and plan on harvesting tomatoes weeks before field tomatoes. We’ll have a hands on tour of the early summer crop and describe in detail the structure and plan for an extraordinary harvest 52 weeks a year.
June 28 – Beekeeping @ Anarchy Apiary
http://anarchyapiaries.org/
July 4 – Farming olympics @ Phillie’s Bridge (POTLUCK)
http://www.philliesbridge.org/
Who can toss a garden fork the farthest or catch the most chickens in a minute? You’ve been sharpening your skills for months, here’s a chance to show off! This is a mid-summer get together with games, delicious food, and a short tour of Phillies Bridge Farm, who will host this gathering.
July 14 – Starting a farm: from small CSA to big CSA @ Hearty Roots (POTLUCK)
http://www.heartyroots.com/
The farmers at Hearty Roots will share how the farm went from being a 3/4 acre 30-member CSA to a 20 acre 440+ member CSA in six years, without owning land or having any major start-up funds. We will share our budgets, timeline of equipment purchases, and general reflections on the process. Afterwards, there will be a potluck gathering at the farm to celebrate the changing of the seasons.
July 28 – Organic no-till system @ Four Winds
www.bestweb.net/~fourwind
We will take a look at our Organic No-Till system, in place here for 15 years. Jay will talk about benefits, drawbacks, and give participants an idea of how they can duplicate our system.Sam and Erin, my interns from 2 years ago, will also be on hand to talk about their experience of working with this system.
Aug 25 - Cover crops and soil management @ PFP
www.farmproject.org
We at PFP like to plant cover crops. We have trialed a lot of different crop types, timings and combinations to get the most organic matter and nitrogen fixation we can with the windows we have in our crop rotation. We will start our visit with a brief overview of soil science basics and take a tour of the farm that focuses on soil management and an overview of different cover crops and their uses.
Sep 8 – Root cellar use and thoughts on farming from a first-time manager @ Brook Farm (POTLUCK after tour)
www.brookfarmproject.org
Sept 22 – Seed saving for the Nor’easter/Closing Meeting @ Hudson Valley Seed Library (POTLUCK)
http://www.seedlibrary.org/
We’ll do a farm tour focusing on seed saving practices for diversified small farms in the Northeast. We’ll touch on isolation techniques including hand-pollinating, caging, and timing as well as talk about the full life-cycles and needs of the different plant families. We’ll wrap up sharing some seed processing skills. Depending on what’s ready, we may also get to do some hands-on seed harvesting and cleaning.
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Lower Hudson CRAFT – 2011 Schedule.
All visits are 6-8pm.
May 10 – Social Opener and Potluck at The Farm at Eden Village in Putnam Valley NY
www.edenvillagecamp.org
This is an opportunity for us to get to know each other. We’ll take a look at the farm and then spend most of our time socializing and talking briefly about the coming CRAFT programs.
Please bring a dish to share. The camp keeps kosher and so will not be able to offer the use of any equipment, kitchen, or cutlery/plates for this meeting. Everything will have to be brought in by our CRAFT attendees (plates, serving utensils, eating utensils) and taken home to be washed. We can provide compostable cups and pitchers of water for drinking. We are also a dry facility – so no alcohol. When you’re considering what to make, please do not include any shellfish or pork. Fish is fine as long as it had/has scales, but no bottom feeders (like catfish).
The Jewish Farm School and Eden village Camp established the Farm at Eden Village in 2010. JFS works with EVC to oversee the organic educational farm for the summer program and also runs a wide variety of programs (retreats, day-long and week-long workshops, school programs) in spring and fall at Eden Village when camp is not in session. The Farm is about 1.8 acres, with a little over ¼ acre of organic vegetable production, ½ acre in cover crop, and over ½ acre in permanent educational gardens. The farm is managed by Debra Rich.
We are located in the heart of Putnam Valley. Our address is 392 Dennytown Road, Putnam Valley, NY 10579. Our road is directly off of Rt 301, which can easily be reached from either Rt 9 or the Taconic Parkway.
May 24 – Building Agriculture Relationships with Private Landowners with I&Me Farm and the Westchester Land Trust
www.westchesterlandtrust.org
(914) 241-6346
403 Harris Rd, Bedford Hills, NY 10507
Join Eileen Hochberg of Westchester Land Trust and Farmers Mimi Edelman and Eileen Zidi of I&Me Farm to explore forging private landowner/farmer partnerships. We will take a look from both the landowner and farmers perspective on how to find each other then create a fair and sustainable arrangement.
June 7 – Biodynamic Farming at the Pfeiffer Center
www.pfeiffercenter.org
(845) 352-5020 x20
260 Hungry Hollow Rd, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977
We will do a ‘walk-talk’ description of the biodynamic approach as we tour our greenhouse, small orchard, garden, compost yard, and apiary. If there is time we will visit our draft Haflingers—Captain and Eva.
July 5 – Urban Rooftop Farming at Brooklyn Grange in Queens, NY
www.brooklyngrangefarm.com
37-18 Northern Boulevard, in Long Island City, Queens 11101
Brooklyn Grange is a commercial organic farming business located on New York City rooftops. We grow vegetables in the city and sell them to local people and businesses. The goal is to improve access to very good food, to connect city people more closely to farms and food production, and to make urban farming a viable enterprise and livelihood. We will talk about the challenges and rewards of growing on rooftops at our first site in Queens.
July 19 – Farm Infrastructure at Hilltop Hanover Farm in Yorktown Heights, NY
www.hilltophanoverfarm.org
August 2 – Sheep at Stone Barns Center in Pocantico Hills, NY
www.stonebarnscenter.org
We’ll talk about how we raise them here: pasture rotation, breeding, lambing; then we’ll have a hands-on component of putting the sheep through the chute to check body condition, some hoof trimming, and check their eyes.
August 9 – Greens and Raspberry Production at Amawalk Farm
www.amawalkfarm.org
(914) 245-2319
42 Wood St, Katonah, NY
Amawalk Farm is a certified organic vegetable and berry farm with Farmstand and U-Pik. We will go over our greens production from seeding to bagging as well as our raspberry culture including trellising and pruning methods for both summer and fall berries. We will also cover our cover crop and rotation systems if time allows.
August 16 – Tomato TLC at Queens County Farm in Queens, NY
www.queensfarm.org
73-50 Little Neck Parkway
Floral Park, NY 11004
We love eating tomatoes almost as much as we love growing them. Though every farm has its own ways, we’ll give you an overview of how we do it here. There will be a hands-on trellising and pruning demo as well as a tasting, all after a tour of our vegetable and livestock operations.
August 30 – Flower Production at Ryder Farm Cottage Industries in Brewster, NY
www.ryderfarmorganic.com
(203) 300-6230
400 Starr Ridge Rd, Brewster, NY, 10509
This CRAFT visit will feature the cultivation, harvest, and bouquet of mixed flowers with host Betsey Ryder, who has been an organic grower on her family’s 1795 homestead since 1978. Initially Betsey was the flower and herb sidekick to a larger vegetable operation marketing at NYC Union Sq Greenmarket. During these early years that her business developed the niche marketing of the mixed flower bouquet, growing to serve wholesale clients including Dean and Deluca, Hay Day and Sutton Place along with a variety of grocers, florists and farm stands. This line called “Flowers from my Garden” was so named such that clients, who wished that the flowers were from their own garden, could take claim for them. Her bouquet arrangements are constructed of her cultivated annual and perennial flowers and include a wild streak of flowers harvested from her farm meadows. This CRAFT event also provides the opportunity to visit the 4-5 acres of Certified Organic growing of vegetables and herbs that Ryder Farm Cottage Industries has grown to become, serving farmers markets, CSA, wholesale and custom orders and the roadside farm stand that is located on the farm.
September 13 – Lessons from a Young Farm at Growing Heart Farm in Pawling, NY
September 27 – Closing Social/Tour at Glynwood in Cold Spring, NY
Please join us at the boat house for a potluck and closing social. We’ll reflect on the season, review our CRAFT experience, and take a stroll around Glynwood if there’s still daylight.
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