Blog

The Prospect Heights Community Farm crew welcomed the official changeover from summer to fall with a seed saving workshop. Our master gardener Traci led the group through a two hour session on how to make origami seed packets with the chance for everyone to take home seeds.

Seed saving is an important way to maintain and safeguard seed and heritage varieties, which are important for a robust and diverse ecosystem and food culture. In the last century or so, the world has lost 75% of its edible plant varieties. Seed saving also makes sense economically. Saving seeds is free and seed libraries and exchanges are a great way to offer seeds at a lower price (or free) to folks who need them.

Some featured seeds from the garden’s workshop were Zinnia, Cosmos, Okra, Fennel, and Arugula!

If you’re curious about saving seeds, check out these resources:

• Seed Savers Exchange – How to Save Seeds
• Civil Eats – Gardening is Important but Seed Saving is Crucial
• The Old Farmer’s Almanac – How to Save Vegetable Seeds

Author: Judith Sackoff

PHCF hosted a Compost 101 Workshop on Open Garden Day 2021, an annual event sponsored by GreenThumb.  The workshop covered the basic science of composting and then treated people to a tour of our 4-bin system which takes in about 20,000 pounds of food scraps each year and turns them into compost, aka black gold, the gardener’s best friend.

Author: Judith S.

Prospect Heights Community Farm is now home to two native bee condos courtesy of The Bee Conservancy.  With the help of garden members and their families, we installed the homes in two bee-friendly locations in the garden with plenty of morning sun and ample bee forage. Native bees are different from honeybees. They don’t produce honey or wax, they live solitary lives (no queens here!), don’t sting and are even more efficient pollinators than honeybees.

Come visit the condos and see who has checked in.  We are expecting several varieties of native bees including mason, leafcutter, and carpenter bees.

See the photos from the event and of the bee condos

Dear neighbors –

The Prospect Heights Community Farm (PHCF) welcomes you to this year’s edition of our annual Pumpkin Smash on November 7th from 12-4 pm.

Because of the unprecedented times and to preserve the safety of community members, we will not be having our usual potato bake or refreshments this time around. However, you are still welcome to bring your pumpkins to smash your COVID blues away and to enjoy the garden.

Hope to see you there!