| Organic Gardening Workshop Students Graduate |
 Six students joined us for the Organic Gardening Workshop held over 10 weeks this Spring at Windcrest Farm. Our classroom was in the greenhouse, in the field, and even included a field trip to a wine tasting featuring organic wines from the Coturri Winery in California. Each student brought a different perspective on gardening to the workshop, which helped us all broaden our knowledge of what it means to grow organically. When it's cold and rainy this January and its time to plant the first seeds for Spring, I am sure there will be a call from someone from the class requesting a "class reunion" in the greenhouse! |
| Union Co. Growers Meet at Windcrest Farm |
 On June 28th, over 30 local growers gathered at Windcrest Farm to enjoy a potluck dinner accompanied by musicians Tim Emore and Dewey Helms. After a farm tour, local chefs from The Club at Longview and Jim Noble and Kyle Krieger from Noble's Restaurant, plus Tim Groody from Sonoma, spoke about the chef /farmer relationship.
Also on the evening's agenda were presentations by representatives of The Kanawha Development, a 350-acre, mixed-use community in development in Ft. Mill, SC that will allow people to combine energy conservation with responsible stewardship of the land. A small farm and farmer's market has been incorporated into the plan with the help of Bill Wolf and Elizabeth Vogel from Wolf DiMatteo + Associates. Bill and Elizabeth work with individuals and companies to develop effective strategies to help organic products and businesses grow.
Last, but certainly not least, there was plenty of good conversation between growers about everthing from weeds to weather, marketing to making ends meet. The last visitors did not leave until midnight (you know who you are!) and we feel like everyone was left with a better sense of community among growers in Union County. |
| Passport Kids Learn about Sustainable Agriculture and Help Around the Farm |
 Windcrest Farm was blessed to have help from Passport campers this summer. Passport is based in Burmingham, AL and operates one of many faith-based camps from the Wingate University campus as well as other locations around the country. Over the past six weeks a different Passways Tree Space mission group composed of young people from as far away as Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Virgina, and Texas, and as near as North Carolina and South Carolina came to tour the farm and learn how they can be good stewards of the earth. In exchange, these eager young people spent several hours cultivating tomatoes, making compost, cleaning horse stalls and buckets, clearing fencelines, and bringing a fresh curiosity and wonder to farming's hard work. If I had any hesitation in turning more than 25 teenagers loose on the farm with hoes, pruners and mowers, it was dissolved immediately when the first group cleared the hoophouse of all the bolted lettuce faster than a swarm of grasshoppers - and LOVED it! One young man from inner city Miami marveled at the horses. When he explained that he had never seen a real horse "in person" before, I knew I was especially blessed to have the opportunity to share the farm with this wonderful group of young people. It just proves that all kinds of good things grow on a farm. |
I hope you are enjoying your summer and I appreaciate the time you take to read our newsletter and support our work.
Keep cool!
Mary Roberts
Windcrest Farm
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the sea.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
All photos in the Windcrest Newsletter and on our website have been taken at Windcrest Farm unless otherwise noted. |
