A sizable work force showed up at the farm this morning.  A light, misty rain from nine to ten made for a very muddy work day, but we persevered.  More tomatoes, basil, and leeks were planted in the U-Pick garden, but we also planted lots and lots of peppers in the LACS section!  Work continued on and in the hoop house as well.
 
The work force this week included an enthusiastic student from Ithaca High School who "can't wait to go back!" and expressed a wish that IHS had a local food/farming movement.  The usual LACS localvore crew was there as well.  As an interesting note, LACSers are apparently barefInterestingly, all of the LACSers discarded their muddy shoes at some point during the morning.

One final note: the Youth Farm Project was officially approved for a grant from the Park Foundation!  Now that we have an assurance of funds for the summer, the project can really take off.

Yesterday morning, a group of serious farmers ignored the Ithaca Festival and the approaching storm and showed up at the farm.  They braved the torrential downpour to plant more flowers and basil.  Now, that's dedication!

In an effort to get students working on the farm, Dan spread the word about an emergency planting session.  It was a success!  More than twenty LACSers showed up to plant flowers for the U-pick, many with friends and family in tow.  We planted two rows of zinnias, snapdragons, chrysanthemums, and more, and a half row of tomatoes.

Yesterday was a very important day for the farm.  A work day was organized, and we had excellent turnout: community members associated with both LACS and Southside were there, as well as a couple LACS students, alumni, and even parents.  We accomplished many very important tasks in the span of the morning:

1)  Dismantling old electric fences around the farm perimeter.  Collecting electric twin from all around the field was tedious, but important.  Now that the old fence is down, we will be putting up new fencing ASAP so that planting can begin deer-free.
 

2)  Plowing and turning the fields.  Jeff and Ann took care of this part.

3)  Laying the foundation for the hoop house and building the hoop house doors.  LACS alums Max and Joseph built the hoop house doors while others drove PVC pipes into the ground to establish where the hoops will be.  The hoop house isn't fully assembled yet, but the skeleton is there.

4)  Covering the rows with plastic and setting up irrigation - another very important job.  We had a machine to lay down plastic and drip tape simultaneously.  All the workers had to do was follow behind the tractor with shovels and make sure the edges of the plastic were buried so the plastic won't blow away.  The plastic we used is biodegradable, imported from Italy.