Today, Growing for Good visited Fernbrook Farms, which is a farm that has been in business for roughly 200 years, and has continued to grow and teach the community about food, agriculture, and the environment. The farm is used as an educational center for preschool-aged children, weddings, and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Their entire edible crop goes back to the community, either through CSA or partnerships with local food pantries. The property consists of 230 acres, which produces several hundreds of thousands of pounds of food. In addition to crops that are grown for eating, they also grow herbs, flowers, and other decorative plants. A cool part of the farm was seeing the large collection of animals, like cows, pigs, goats, ducks, chickens, and sheep.
When we first arrived, we met two team members named Krystal and Juliana. They didn’t waste any time. We divided into two groups and got right to work. The first group was led by Juliana, a full-time farmer at Fernbrook. She helped us with planting peas and different types of cabbage. Many found this relaxing and enjoyable, but that wasn’t all! She also introduced us to her very cute dog named Lucy (she was very friendly and fast)! After we were finished planting, she took us into a greenhouse that was growing green onions and some nice-smelling cilantro. She even allowed us to take some home!
The second group, led by Krystal, started the day by separating weeds that had grown around garlic plants in the field. We had to carefully pull the weeds so we did not accidentally weed a garlic plant. We found it very relaxing and therapeutic, but our legs hurt after kneeling for a while!
After lunch, Juliana showed my group the river that is the water source for everything at the farm. The last activity that we did, which was my favorite part of the trip, was getting to take home green onions and seeing the very adorable animals. My favorite animal that we saw was the baby goats and sheep.