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Pennypack Pickings
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March 19, 2013
Volume 11, Issue 4
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Mark Your Calendars
What's Goin' On
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Mark your calendars, the CSA season is just around the Corner. What's Goin' On Orientations: The Highlands OrientationTuesday May 14th, 6:30pm or Wednesday May 22, 6:30pm This year we ask all members to attend one of the sessions. The Highlands is a new location and many of the pickup procedures will be different... Meet your farmers... workshares are asked to attend as well. Horsham site OrientationSunday May 19, 10am or 1pm or Tuesday May 21, 6:30pm Meet Devin Barto, the new farm manager at Horsham. All new members must attend. CSA shares still available. Just a few left at The Highlands... more at the Horsham site. |
Sustainability Film Series
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Thank you to all who attended the screening of King Corn! It was wonderful to see such high participation and support for our event! Please join us for our final film, Ingredients, on Tuesday, April 9
at the Ambler Theater.  American food is in a state of crisis, but a movement to put good food back onto the table is emerging. What began 30 years ago with chefs demanding better flavor, has inspired consumers to seek relationships with nearby farmers. Narrated by Bebe Neuwirth, this feature-length documentary takes us across the United States in a journey that reveals the people who are trying to bring good food back to our tables. |
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Pennypack Farm Needs Your Help...
Please Re-Cast Your VOTES!!!
Thank you for voting for Pennypack Farm but we learned that the voting on the IKEA website had a malfunction. We ask you to please re-cast your votes, because every vote counts!
Voting will RE-OPEN on 3/25
TheLifeImprovementProject.com
Vote for PENNYPACK FARM You can vote once a day from 3/25 - 4/8, 2013
Look for reminder emails when the voting re-opens
Pennypack Farm is still competing for the chance to win $10,000 worth of product* from IKEA Conshohocken to support a charitable community program. Help us take home the prize!
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Join Pennypack Farm & Education Center
in the Fight Against Hunger
April 13, 2013, Saturday | Philadelphia Museum of Art
Visit: www.hungerwalk.org
 On Saturday, April 13, PFEC's farmers and board members will be walking to put an end to hunger in the Philadelphia region by walking in the Stroehmann's Walk+Run Against Hunger. Please help us! Here's what you can do:
- Walk or Run with us on April 13, along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia
- Make a donation to a walker/runner at http://www.hungercoalition.org/hungerwalk/ (be sure to select team Pennypack Farm from the list of teams)
All proceeds raised by Team Pennypack come back to the farm to support our own efforts to provide local, organic, non-processed food to low income families through subsidized shares. Last year funds raised through the event supported 12 families with food directly from Pennypack Farm.
You'll be hearing more about the walk in the coming weeks. However, if you would like to walk with the farm team, please tell us and we'll help you get started. Contact Kristy at nativeplantfamily@comcast.net.
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Do You Have Extra Flower Seeds or Plants? 
by Farmer KatieAs I write this on a brisk late March afternoon that feels more like early February, the thought of summer flowers in bloom takes the chill away. With that in mind, if any avid gardeners or ambitious seed buyers have an over abundance of flower seeds or plants, we'll happily accept them here at Pennypack Farm. Not only are we planning for rows of cut flowers for our members at both sites, we will be planting flowers for their valuable qualities of attracting pollinators and providing habitat for beneficial insects. At the Highlands, we will be planting perennial rows of flowers throughout the rotating vegetable fields. At Horsham, these already established rows will be added to, and there are plans for a Bee Garden. If you have extra flower seeds or old flower seeds, we'll happily accept them. We can also use any perennial flower plants. You can drop off your extras at either Pennypack location. Thank you for sharing!
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 Medicine Herbs Study Group
A shared-leadership self-led group meets monthly (4th Thursday, 6:45 to 8:45 pm) to learn about, make remedies with, and personally use herbs that support our health. You are invited to join us at any point. However, we seek adults with a serious interest and time to learn and to prepare to teach. Costs to reimburse the presenters for materials are different each session and vary from $0 to $15. We ask that you also give time to care for the beds where medicinal plants are growing at the Horsham farm. Someone will be there to guide and instruct as we work. The focus in 2013 is on making our own First Aid Kits. The schedule below is fixed in date but the topics may vary somewhat: Mar. 28 - Body & Home Spring Cleaning
Apr. 25 - Burdock/Dandelion, Stinging nettles, poultices, Elder Flower tea
May 23 - Infusing oils for salves, lotions, balms
June 27 -Insect repellents; and bites and sting remedies
Jul. 25 - Making tinctures; burn salve, lip balm
Aug. when can - Picking elderberries to dry
Sep. 26 - Cough syrups, colds, flu
Oct. 24 - Culinary herbal mixes
Dec. 5 - Personal beauty; bath salts; facial scrubs
To express interest, or get more information, call 215-591-1551 or email suscurry@comcast.net
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Ambler Food Co-Op
From Mila Kilpatrick
Hello Pennypackers!
We at the Ambler Food Co-Op wanted to reach out to you all, to tell you a little bit more about the effort to open a cooperative grocery store in the area! Our group of volunteers have been working very hard this past year to get the ball rolling, and we can use your support. Please consider joining a committee, volunteering, or pledging membership! This will be quite a journey, and we need to know we have community support.
As a former farmer, I know the importance of CSAs, farmers' markets, and community-owned marketplaces. Let's work together on this next piece of the puzzle towards sustainability in our region! Below are some great food cooperative videos, to learn more. Thanks so much!
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Notes from the Edible Classroom
by Diane
Well, we've sprung forward, now what? I, for one, am in a better mood. Having even an hour more of sunlight at the end of the day makes me happier. It also means Spring is just around the corner. I grew up the daughter of a man who loved to garden. He would literally plot out his garden in the winter, just waiting for a chance to get his spring onions and peas planted. He made frequent trips to our local hardware store, a wonderful place smelling of tools, wood and animal feed. I tagged along on many of those trips and I guess it was at the hardware store where I first saw the Farmer's Almanac - a treasure trove of information! In remembrance of my dad, and Spring, I looked up the vernal equinox in the Almanac. It's that day when the lengths of daylight and darkness are exactly the same. From the vernal equinox, March 20, until June 21, the Summer Solstice, the days will get a little longer every day, then BOOM! the days begin to shorten, just a bit until the fall equinox on September 22. The shortest day of the year is December 21, the Winter Solstice. For more info on the seasons, check out this link to the Old Farmer's Almanac.Spring means clean-up time in the Edible Classroom. I've been mucking out the pond, removing dead branches left to overwinter for the birds, removing the overwintered cole crops and cleaning out the sheds. In the next week or so I will prune the blackberries. They are trailing along the split rail fence and need to be tidied up. A sure sign of Spring, I will be planting one of the beds with peas next week! True to the age old saying, "Peas in by St. Patrick's Day.".Thanks to Kirsten Puskar, a Board member and registered Landscape Architect, we have a beautiful  rendering of the new Edible Classroom at The Highlands! (Click here for larger image.) It will be similar in size to the EC at Horsham and will have many of the same features: a discovery pond, annual and perennial beds, small fruits, shaded gathering area, shed for our stuff and a sandbox. It will also have a few unique features including a hen house and a cob oven! Once the deer and split rail fencing are in, we can begin laying out the beds, digging, planting, building and learning about our new space! We will be scheduling a few work days, so roll up your sleeves and get ready to get dirty!!This morning I picked up 10 Pawpaw seedlings for our own little Pawpaw grove. Pawpaws are a native, mid-storey tree and if we are lucky, in a few years we will be able to pick yummy fruits from our grove. The fruit of Pawpaw is a creamy mix of banana and mango flavors, similar in size to a champagne mango. For more Pawpaw information and a few photos, please check out this link to Green Light Plants, the grower of our seedlings.
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Calendar
 Knife Skills
Part 1 - Thursday, March 21, $20.00
Part 2 - Thursday, March 28, $20.00
Mastering the basic knife skills of chopping, mincing and julienne will give you the confidence you need to tackle any recipe with success and open for you the world of relaxed cooking. Register here
Sustainability Film Series
Ingredients - Tuesday, April 9
Sponsor Expo with beer and cheese tasting - 6:00pm
Film Screening - 7:30pm Panel Discussion following the movie
Purchase tickets at Ambler Theater website
 Lip Balm, Salve & Herbal Oils Making Class with Mary Himmer
Thursday, April 25, 7:00-8:30pm
Resurrection Lutheran Church, 630 Welsh Road, Horsham, PA
Cost: $20, plus a materials fee of $5, payable at the class
Join us for this hands-on class! We will learn to make wonderful skin care products from herbs and flowers you can grow in your own garden.
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Hosted by the College Settlement of Philadelphia
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