Learning About Slugs

I'm finishing up my second week interning on the farm and I cannot even express how much I'm loving it and how much I have already learned! Did you know that those slugs that like to munch on tasty greens are hermaphroditic, so any slug can reproduce since it has both male and female parts. This means that controlling slug populations can be pretty difficult. Also, slugs are nocturnal so they typically only come out at night and they hide during the day. SO how do you get rid of these slimy slugs? BEER! It turns out that slugs love beer, you can set traps around your plants with Tupperware containers filled with fresh stout beer, and slugs will basically drink themselves to death. Unfortunately the beer traps we set out at Woodlawn did not have the greatest success. Maybe the beer we used wasn't fresh enough or stout enough, or maybe the Woodlawn slugs just aren't into binge drinking these days.

-Intern Beverly

Mo welcomes an AMAZING summer intern!

I'm Beverly Hoath a student at Lynchburg College, a small liberal arts school in the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Central Virginia, where I am getting a degree in Environmental Science with a minor in Biology. I play on Lynchburg College's soccer team and am active in our college's greenhouse. I love food and am so excited to learn about growing it in an organic sustainable way. I fell in love with learning about food after watching the documentary "Food Inc" which truely inspired me to become more involved in the local organic food movement. Learning about growing food is so exciting to me. I love the feeling of the dirt between my fingers and I love watching as a plant goes from a seed to something so beautiful and delicious. I could not be more excited about being the farm intern for Arcadia!

Chefin' It Up

Woodlawn/Arcadia hosted our first farm dinner this weekend at the Pope-Leighy House! Chef Tony Chittum from Vermillion and Pastry Chef Tiffany Maciassac chefed it up for an intimate group of 12 using Arcadia's spring harvest (still awaiting pictures, but I know the food was amazing).

I feel so lucky to have some of the best chefs in the DC area come to my farm and am always amazed watching my tiny seeds be transformed in to delicious meals.

Want to experience dinner in the garden? We are hosting a fundraiser on June 19 to raise funds for the farm and the mobile market. Please join us!

Greenway on the Highway Event!

Join us on June 5 at Woodlawn to celebrate all the "green" businesses on the Route 1 corridor! I will be giving garden tours!

I love Spring!

This week has reminded me how much I love spring!

Not only has the garden been flourishing, but it's about to be my favorite time of year-- tomato time! Now that the spring field is up and running, I have been focusing my attention on the summer field and prepping for all the heat-loving plants. Eggplants are one of my favorite things to grow-- I love their large purple flowers-- and the myriad of pepper varieties excite my culinary creative!

I would like to send a HUGE thanks to the volunteers that have come out to help me get the fields ready. I truly couldn't do it without you and I am impressed by all that we have accomplished so far.

A thanks to the Monday crew in particular for coming EVERY WEEK. I am thrilled.

Now, time to plant and enjoy the sun!

-Farmer Mo

Woodlawn

The first lettuce harvest goes to the Woodlawn staff! It's so wonderful to have the estate producing food again! We think George would be proud :)

More to come!

The Crowning of a Queen... or 5.

The bees are in their new home!

I have to admit, I was a little nervous as Jeff from DC Honeybees, poured out large containers of bees in to each hive. They swarmed a bit, but seemed to be too interested in the blooming apple trees surrounding the hives to be too concerned with us!

The most fascinating part was to see the queen arrive in her tiny box "escorted" by nurse bees. She is the essential part of the hive and if she lives through the transition, we may have some happy bees!

The bees will not only provide us with a little honey, but they serve as pollinators for all my vegetable crops and are known to travel and pollinate up to three miles! (you're welcome surrounding trees and flowers!). I'm looking forward to watch them settle in and see the honeycomb form. I just ordered a book on beekeeping to get a little more information. Are there apiary teaching school out there? I may have a new obsession with bees...

All and all, wonderful coronation. Now, what to name them?

-Farmer Mo