| Upcoming Events |
Save the Date!
June Supper Club
June 16, 7pm Josiah Smith Tavern Sam Hunt, our featured chef, is a Weston native and Executive Chef of 15 Walnut in S. Hamilton, MA. For this dinner, he will prepare dishes featuring the finest New England strawberries! Sam's meals are always delicious and the casual dining experience is fun and friendly (bring your own wine and sit family style at our long farm table). To make a reservation, please click here. Our Supper Clubs are scheduled monthly all year long. Please check our website for more information including the full schedule. The menu for this Thursday's Supper Club is as follows: first course Field Greens Salad strawberries, chive blossoms, local goat cheese, honey vinaigrette second course Poached Early Season Striped Bass organic spinach, green garlic emulsion, ricotta gnocchi third course Trilogy of Land's Sake Strawberries Frozen, puréed and au naturel
Save the Date!
Strawberry Festival
June 18
10am-2pm Land's Sake Farm Come for pick-your-own berries, strawberry shortcake, burgers and dogs, live music, hay rides and plenty of farm games and activities for children. Land's Sake strawberries are grown without the use of pesticides. Admission is $4 for adults, $2 for children. Children under two and Land's Sake members are free. Food and activities are purchased separately. |
Did you know?
| Land's Sake has a blog!
Check it out each week for a new post. Our blog is a great way to get the inside scoop on what life is like for our farmers, educators and staffers.
This week, former Land's Sake farmer, Eliza Murphy talks about her art project that looks at the way people relate to farming and memory in two very different places - Boston, MA and Bolero, Malawi.
You can also subscribe to our blog's RSS feed and get the latest updates as soon as they are posted. Just click on the orange RSS button in the top left corner. Let us know you're reading our posts by leaving comments. We appreciate your feedback!
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Wish List
| Help us do our jobs even better! Land's Sake is looking for donations of the following items to assist us in our farming and education work. This spring, please consider a small donation to help us acquire one or more of the following items:
- 4 x 50 foot sections of lead-free hose, the better to irrigate safely with!
See here. - 8 Tubtrug harvest bins, in which we can gather the fruits of our labor.
See these brightly colored tubs here. - Bed for the Education Intern room at the Melone Farmhouse. Ideally we are looking for a Queen-sized mattress and box spring. If you have either item that you would like to donate, please let us know! -Microwave for use by our farm staff. Not a giant old clunker please, just something medium-size that can be used by the farm crew to warm up lunch on a cold or wet day! For more information or to make a donation, contact greenpower@landssake.org
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Hello Land's Sake friends, It's an exciting week here at Land's Sake! The farm season has officially begun with the opening of the farm stand and the first week of CSA distribution. Our new entrance and parking lot are complete, having been moved a bit further down towards Newton St (opposite the Case House driveway). Our Farm Manager, Melanie, and her staff have been hard at work for the last three months positioning the farm for another great season. The fields are full of Strawberries, so I encourage you to come out to the farm this week and pick some for yourself. Call our Farm Stand information number at 781.609.2456 for pick-your-own information. Our strawberry fields will be closed on Friday June 18th, however, as we prepare for our annual Strawberry Festival, which will take place this Saturday, June 18th, from 10am to 2pm. We will have music, hay rides, fun kids activities including flower crowns, our bicycle blender, face painting , great food and of course strawberries! Come early for first picks and stay for lots of farm-based entertainment. This week we are also hosting our monthly Supper Club and there are a few seats remaining. If you haven't experienced an evening with us at the Josiah Smith Tavern enjoying the fabulous culinary talents of Chef Sam Hunt, then you are missing one of Weston's local favorites. We look forward to seeing you at the farm this week and throughout the summer. Best Regards, Eric Kreilick, Executive Director
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Strawberry Festival Membership Challenge
We are running a membership challenge at the Strawberry Festival with a dollar for dollar donor match for new memberships, and free totes to those who join at the $100 level or above. Bring your checkbooks! Membership gets you free entrance to our festivals, like the Strawberry Festival this Saturday. It also gets you a $15 per person discount for the Land's Sake supper clubs, invitations to members-only events, discounts on youth and adult education programs, and the knowledge that YOU support your community farm and forests! Join us at the Strawberry Festival or online!
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Growing the Roots Campaign Update
 Along with a new driveway and a freshly painted sign, Land's Sake now boasts an oversized carrot! Keep an eye on our campaign progress as you drive by the farm. We are more than halfway to our goal, and your support is needed to reach our June goal.
Please visit our website for a pledge form, or contact Eric Krelick (eric@landssake.org) at 781.893.1162 for more information on how you can support our efforts. Help us Grow the Roots and move Land's Sake to the next level of sustainability. Sponsor a reception or BBQ at your home, ask for support from your faraway friends and family, or help us engage more Westonites in this community effort. Land's Sake is Your Farm, and Your Community. Join us! Alyson Muzila, Board President |
Farm Update
by Melanie Hardy, Farm Manager
Before I write anything else, I want to let everyone know that if you are longing to pick a significant amount of strawberries, you should do so today through Thursday of this week! The strawberries are plentiful and delicious, but after the Strawberry Festival (this Saturday!), they are usually pretty picked out and trampled, and thus not great for picking. We will even keep them open in the rain so they don't go to waste. PLEASE COME PICK! One quart of PYO berries is $6. In general, stand and picking hours are Tuesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. We are closed on Mondays.
The weather continues to leave us feeling puzzled, as it has for the past two years. The extremes are mind boggling! Rainy, wet and pretty cold for two weeks straight, then suddenly a week and a half of mostly scorching hot, 85 degree, brutally dry days that lead us to irrigate earlier than usual. And now again back to November-like weather. I know that I am not the first farmer out there to bemoan funky weather patterns, and I certainly won't be the last!  | | Our freshly painted farm sign at our new driveway entrance. So many thanks to Francesca Piper Koss, CSA member and Flower Volunteer extraordinaire, for giving our old sign new life and creating so many other wonderful signs for the farm and farmstand. |
What we do have just a bit more control over is the care we give our crops, and they are looking incredible. We have been joined by more field hands and several volunteers. As a result, we have more hands flying over the beds, weeding and planting. The added bonus of having great crews and volunteers: the laughter and storytelling that is happening in the fields is downright contagious. As a result of all of this, our core crew is in high spirits, and we are glad that we have gotten to the part where we get to show off the results all of our hard work. This is good news... June is one of our most hectic months. We have a number of large and quite involved plantings (melons, cukes, summer squash, eggplant, peppers, sweet potatoes, winter squash) to get into the ground AND the farm stand and CSA are starting up AND the weeds are growing faster by the minute. One of our CSA members, Anisha Palmer, is also a photographer. She has generously offered to document the farm season for us and upload her photos to our Flickr site! Click on the set titled "Early June 2011" to see her first batch of photos of Land's Sake. Check out her own website here. Thanks a bunch, Anisha! So much is new and exciting at the farm! We are truly looking forward to seeing you there. Melanie Hardy
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Education Update
by Douglas Cook, Education Director
Summer is just around the corner, and we're anxiously awaiting the arrival of our Farm and Forest Explorers and Green Power students. Our full-week, half-day Farm and Forest Explorers program for 10-12 year olds has just four weeks left with open spots! Register today for one or all of the following weeks: June 27th, July 18th, July 25th and August 22nd. Students get a chance to care for chickens, sheep and goats, work in the gardens and prepare healthy snacks from farm-fresh ingredients.We are packing our days full of great educational and engaging activities and would love to have your children at our farm this summer! Our Green Power program for 13-15 year olds has a few spaces left, so don't wait any longer to sign up! Monday through Friday from 9:00am to 3:00pm, Green Power participants will earn a share of the profits they earn by helping to cultivate and harvest vegetables for sale at the farm stand. Also during the week, students will take part in livestock care, building projects, community service experiences and cooking a gourmet local meal to share with the farm staff. We look forward to seeing you and your children at the farm this summer. Spread the word that our programs are filling up-and get your registrations in today.
See you on the farm,
Douglas Cook
Education Director
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Keep your Eyes on the Grass
by Jordan McCarron, Conservation Land Manager
Between burning brush piles from spring pruning, battling phantom beavers at the often-clogged Hobb's Pond Dam and installing a boardwalk on a section of trail off Westerly Road, I'm mowing as fast as I can. Like the weeds in our farmer's fields, the grass is relentless in June. For a look at my most recent mows, swing by the Ash Street lawn at the Reservoir or the old orchard on Concord Road (hurry though, it's growing back already!).  | | Burning Brush at the Concord Rd Orchard |
The new driveway construction at our main farm on School Street is making mowing a little tricky, but we are doing our best to keep it under control as we prepare for more visitors and kids on the farm.
Finally, at this year's Strawberry Festival, you and your family can take a ride in our brand new hay wagon. Ben Wilson, Land's Sake's Infrastructure Manager, has stripped down the old one and rebuilt it from scratch. This year, you'll be riding in style! As always, please direct any questions, concerns or feedback about our land management work to jordan@landssake.org. Jordan McCarron |
Foodie Corner
This month, we're profiling Weston's Pigeon Hill Preserves, owned by Afton Cotton. Profiled last year in the Boston Globe, Pigeon Hill has won many fans in the Metrowest area. Afton's all natural jams and jellies, fruit butters and preserves are made with years of experience and the love of 'preserving the harvest.' In partnership with Land's Sake and the Weston Recreation Department, Afton offers numerous canning classes during the growing season, with Blueberry Jam as the focus of the July 23 workshop. Register here. Meet Afton at the Strawberry Festival on 6/18, and experience the tastes of Pigeon Hill Preserves!
"Eating and cooking with local ingredients satisfies me in so many ways. Local, seasonal food tastes better, is fresher and more nutritious, reduces my carbon footprint, and supports many wonderful small farms that follow sustainable practices. I get a real sense of pleasure and satisfaction from knowing exactly where my food comes from, how it was grown or made, and that someone put so much of their time, effort, and love into it. That's exactly what I do when I make my jams and jellies, and I hope that others can taste it and feel it, too. Preserving the delicious foods that grow locally and supporting local farms makes it possible to enjoy the fruits of the New England harvest all year long. It is my hope that through purchasing my products, my customers get that same sense of enjoyment and satisfaction, knowing that they are not only supporting my small, local business, but also all of my partnering farms." - Afton Cotton of Pigeon Hill Preserves
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Portraits at the Farm!
Make (and Keep) a Sweet Summer Memory
Children's photographer Marie Zemler Wu, a busy mom of two (who really knows how to make kids smile), is offering a fantastic deal to Strawberry Festival visitors. For a donation of $40 (or more!) to Land's Sake, you and your family can have professional portraits taken in a 20-minute session. Proofs are shown online following the session and no print purchase is required, but believe us when we say that her clients from last year's Fall Festival were thrilled! We can bet you'll want these displayed in your home, shared with your relatives, and featured on your holiday cards.
Marie has space for just ten families to participate. To reserve a time, contact Marie at marie@zemlerwuphotography.com or 617.290.3486.
Additional details, clothing suggestions, and sample images taken on the farm last fall are on her blog .
Hurry, spaces will go fast!
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