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Seeking New Food Preserver Volunteers

For 3 straight days in 2017, the burners of the Harvest Kitchen were filled with pots of bubbling jam and canners of pickles. This was the birth of the volunteer program teaching food preservation to the St. Lawrence County region and beyond. The intensive training was attended by 21 educators and community members passionate to learn more and serve their neighbors with preservation education. While trainings had been held in other parts of NY and US, this was new for our county. It was only my second month in my new job as Local Foods Program Leader and I was excited to bring a lifetime of homesteading experience into this role.

Flip teaching preservation class
Flip teaching an online version of “Fun with Fermentation: Vegetable Transformation”.

Over the years a core group of us have taught a variety of classes, that share recipes, food safety and preservation of fruits, vegetables and meats by various methods including: dehydration, fermentation, freezing, water bath canning and pressure canning. Many classes were held in person and were interactive, then we moved to live online classes in 2020 with multiple cameras to keep the spirit of food preservation education alive.

Tomato preservation class
Volunteer Carol Budd during the hands on class “Tomatoes: Sauces and More”.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 5 years since that first training, but our Master Food Preserver Volunteers have a positive impact in our region in many ways including teaching workshops in the Harvest Kitchen and offsite, tabling at events and answering 1-1 consumer questions. With a larger pool of volunteers, we would be able to offer additional classes and programming, so this year we are ready to inject a fresh batch of energy into the volunteer program. Read more Seeking New Food Preserver Volunteers

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First Ever Ag and Food Producers Academy: Complete!

 

On March 12th at the Learning Farm, we wrapped up the first ever Ag & Food Producers Academy. Over the course of 8 weeks Academy participants had the opportunity to attend a variety of business and marketing classes tailored to small scale food and farm businesses. Four courses were held online during weeknights for 3-4 weeks. Topics led by specialists and educators included, Social Media Management, Business and Financing, E-Commerce For Producers and Food Businesses and Making Food Products in New York State. As a fairly new Educator here at CCE, who works with food producers and farmers looking to boost their marketing, I found myself teaching and leading the social media course. It was a great opportunity to blend the online social media marketing world with the realities of running your own food and farm business. You can read more about the specific topics and instructors HERE. While the majority of the learning took place online, the closing event allowed us to meet each other in-person and share conversations over some delicious food. 

Participants talking over some freshly brewed tea

We had a wide range of guest presenters and speakers such as Lissa Goldstien of Wild Work Farm talking about her ECommerce platform and Chrissy Claudio of Simply C Farm explaining how she organizes her finances. Participants were also able to watch an interview with Food And Ferment co-owner Carly Dougherty explaining how they’ve scale their value added food business and hear from Dillion Kleepetar of Farmstead catering talking about how to best approach a social media strategy, just to name a few. It was a pleasure to hear all of their insights and stories and allowed for some great questions and conversations, and proved to be some participants favorite part of the classes. One participant shared,  “The guest speakers were very inspiring, and hearing how they incorporated different e-commerce platforms into their businesses was very informative.” 

Read more First Ever Ag and Food Producers Academy: Complete!

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Start Seeds Outdoors Now with Winter Sowing!

Winter Sowing means starting seeds outdoors in Winter.  Yes, even here in zone 4, you can winter sow seeds from January through early April. I had heard that winter sowing was an easy and inexpensive way to start plants without the expense of an indoor growing setup. And that winter sowing produced sturdy plants and eliminated the time-consuming process of hardening off (transitioning your plants from indoor growing conditions to outdoor conditions). And it also helps cure that itch to be gardening when the world outside is cold and white.

It may sound crazy to sow seeds in winter but if you think about it, lots of plant seeds overwinter outdoors and then germinate when conditions are right. And not just cold-hardy plants.  How many times have you found “volunteer” tomatoes or squash or annual flowers growing in your garden from the previous year’s planting?

To show winter sown jugs in the snow
These jugs are each winter sown with different seeds.

Curiosity got the best of me, so I decided to do some research and give it a try.  I’ve been starting seeds indoors for several years, so I am eager to compare the results of some winter sown seeds to those started indoors under lights.

As this is my first year to winter sow, I can’t share my experience, but I’d love to share some of what I’ve learned from my research. As with any gardening method, there are various opinions on the best way to accomplish a given task but I hope to give you enough basic information in this article and additional resources to enable you to try this on your own.

There’s still time!  As of this writing in mid-March, one look outside tells you it’s still winter!

Read more Start Seeds Outdoors Now with Winter Sowing!