The students are engaged with the farm operations
Monday through Friday (and occasional weekends). Students are
primarily in class on Mondays and Wednesdays. When not in the
classroom, students are at the farm both in a learning capacity
as well as a working capacity. For example, they may be involved
in a demonstration on thinning carrots, building a compost pile,
beekeeping, operating a tractor, harvesting flowers and bouquet
making for market, or transplanting seedlings.
A sample day may look like this:
First thing in the morning the students are
all together at the farm to do the weekly farm walk where they
assess, along with the farmer, the needs and priorities at the
farm. Collectively, the group will make a plan for the week, and
discuss who will do what and when.
Next comes a demonstration on proper transplanting
techniques followed up with actual transplanting. Then the students
go to the compost class where the instructor lectures for the
first half of class about the compost piles they built last week
and follows that up with a discussion on the way the SOF incorporates
compost in to our farming operation. After class, a group of students
have lunch together and they eat a quinoa salad with tomatoes,
zucchini, olive oil, oregano and thyme, and carrot soup. The produce
came from the farm.
After lunch, they help to get ready for the
CSA distribution, finishing up any harvesting or wash-packing
that needs to be done. After setting up distribution, they spend
the afternoon split into three groups- one group weeds crops that
were identified that morning, the second group works in the hoop
houses seeding and transplanting, and the third group runs the
CSA distribution, keeping the pick-up table well stocked, greeting
and talking with members.
That evening, there is an optional discussion
and lecture on medicinal herbs that a few of the students organized
and about half of the students attend before eating a group dinner
which they prepare with vegetables from the farm and other items
from the local co-op. After dinner, a group of students meet to
discuss the homework for the compost and greenhouse classes.
