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Spring Festival Celebrates Farming In Your Own Backyard

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

Mark your calendars for April 27. The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is closing out its final indoor market with its fourth annual Spring Festival. The 9 a.m.-1 p.m. event takes place at the Lincoln Baths Building in the Saratoga Spa State Park, and features four free workshops, face paintings, complimentary beverages, and more.

The annual festival comes just one week after the market’s Easter celebration this Saturday. Like the Easter celebration, the festival’s focus is on spring and farming.

However, the festival will offer more than the products of our farms. It will help you learn what goes into growing, raising, and making some of them, and offer you some useful tips for giving these crafts a try yourself. It is aimed at helping everyone: market regulars, newcomers to the Saratoga area and weekend visitors.

So, have you yearned to keep bees? Would you like to savor the joy of gathering up fresh eggs straight from your coop? Do you need a refresher on growing flowers, fruits or vegetables? Would you like to start your own kombucha brew? If yes – or even maybe – check the workshops out. Attend all four and receive a free Saratoga Farmers’ Market canvas tote.

The schedule includes:
9 a.m. Beekeeping with Rick Green, owner of Ballston Lake Apiaries and a longtime area beekeeper.
10 a.m. Backyard Poultry Basics for Beginners with Andrea Love Smith, a Cornell Cooperative Extension Services educator.
11 a.m. Gardening for Beginners with Lori Bishop, a master gardener with Cornell Cooperative Extension Services.
Noon. Fermentation with Diane Whitten, a food and nutrition educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension Services.

Beekeeping workshop hosted by Rick Green of Ballston Lake Apiaries
Backyard Poultry Basics for Beginners workshop hosted by Andrea Love Smith
Beginner Gardener workshop hosted by Lori Bishop

 

One of the best things about these workshops is their emphasis on basics. The facilitators can answer questions and offer tips to everyone, regardless of whether they’re newcomers to farming or veterans.

The market also will feature its usual lineup of live music, and of course, its array of farm produce, meats, eggs, cheeses, and artisanal goods. A face painter also will be on hand for children.

Every morning, A Farmer Greets His Bees

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By Kara Winslow

Jason Heitman starts his day of farming with a quick stop at the beehive, where he listens to the happy whir within and then greets the bees. The ritual fits into his philosophy of farming, which is all about learning how “to read the land better and influence it less.”

Heitman owns Green Jeans Market Farm, one of the new Saturday vendors at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market. He farms on one-eighth of an acre of land leased from another market vendor, Otrembiak Farm.

The land – uncultivated – was covered with perennial grass, six feet tall. It now hosts rows of intensively cultivated vegetables and herbs.

Heitman was an English major in college. He graduated, landed a job in technology, and then decided he wanted to become a farmer because he saw it as a means of offering safe and healthy food to his community. He wanted to “do it right” so he picked up a book and learned about how food systems operated.

He completed internships at a farm in Denver and with Pleasant Valley Farm, also a Saratoga Farmers’ Market vendor, for a year and a half, “every moment of which was precious.” He also worked with other market vendors to learn how different farming systems worked.

Green Jeans became “certified naturally grown” before Heitman sold his first radish. The designation indicates that the farming is done without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or genetically modified organisms. It is comparable to being certified organic except that the certification relies upon peer inspections and direct relationships between like-minded farmers.

Heitman does his farming by hand and remains attentive to the natural processes of the land. The evidence of his labor is found at his booth at the south end of the market in the array of greens he brings each week.

Heitman credits his ability to farm to the help he received from other farmers. Now, he too wants to reach out and help others. “It’s always on the back of my mind,” he says. “I know this farm is small, but I hope to be able to help others as they’ve helped me.”

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is 3-6 p.m. Wednesdays and 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays at High Rock Park. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and check us out on the FreshFoodNY app. E-mail friends@saratogafarmers.org for volunteer opportunities.

Spring Festival Highlights Local Food Systems

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

 

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market hosts its third annual Spring Festival tomorrow. Between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., the festival will feature hourly workshops and family-friendly activities aimed at helping both market regulars and newcomers gain a stronger understanding of how the local food system operates.

All of the workshops are free, open to all ages, and will offer attendees gifts. The schedule includes:

  • A 9 a.m. presentation on beekeeping by Rick Green of Ballston Lake Apiaries. Green, a recently retired market vendor, will discuss the life cycle of bees and give an introduction to beekeeping. Hives will be available for purchase, and free beverages will be offered to all attendees.
  • A 10 a.m. session on making the most of your CSA with Justine Denison of Denison Farm. This workshop will offer tips on storing and using produce and will outline the benefits of signing up for a CSA share. Anouk Booneman, co-founder of Spring Into Health will offer a live cooking demonstration during this session, using seasonal produce. Attendees will receive a free Saratoga Farmers’ Market tote bag.
  • A 11 a.m. workshop on seed bombs by Cornell Cooperation Extension Master Gardener Lori Bishop. Bishop will demonstrate how to make seed bombs and will send attendees home with seed packets to create these life giving bombs themselves.
  • A 12 p.m. demonstration on succulents by Suzanne Balet of Balet Flowers and Design. Balet will offer information about planting and caring for succulents and offer all attendees to plant their own succulent to take home.

In addition, the Friends of the Market will host a take-home planting activity for children of all ages and abilities, and the Children’s Museum of Saratoga will offer a spring-themed activity.

Over the past two years, the festival has drawn hundreds of visitors, and in 2016 it prompted I Love NY to declare the Saratoga Farmers’ Market the No. 1 Must Visit Farmers’ Market in the state.

The goal, says market director Julia Howard, is to raise awareness of the value of local food and farming in a fun way. “Getting people involved in their local food scene is a great way to get them to participate in it. The farmers’ market embraces its role in this respect as an educator and resource on local food.”

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays at the Lincoln Baths Building in the Saratoga Spa State Park through April. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram; and contact friends@saratogafarmersmarket.org for volunteer opportunities.