June update!

Whew! We Crop Mob organizers have been busy so far this season. Since we last updated the blog, we've had two mobs:

May 14th: Crop Mob at Cayutaville Farm Project 

This farm in Cayutaville is a unique twist on the CSA "Community Supported Agriculture" concept. It's a 100% working member CSA, in which all of the members who receive food from the farm work on the farm in order to pay for their share. They call it an "agriculture supported community." The Crop Mob put up fencing, planted potatoes and _ with the members.

May 28th: Crop Mob at Sapsquatch

At Sapsquatch is a sugarbush in Enfield, we learned a bit about maple sugaring's rich history as a pillar of American independence in pioneer days and talked about climate change's effect on sugaring while bringing in wood for next year. Sapsquatch's syrup is sold exclusively by word of mouth and is also traded for volunteer labor during the season.

We also had the pleasure of being featured in a video by Jim Bosjolie who attended the Kestrel Perch Berry Farm mob. You can check that out here.

We're gearing up for our June crop mob on Saturday, June 26th at Red Tail Farm, a diverse farm with vegetables, bees, chickens and berries. We will be renovating a blueberry patch. Come join us! Send an email to ithacacropmob@gmail.com to get in on the blueberry action!

Rachel

End-of-April 2011 Crop Mob (Kestrel Perch Berry Farm)- Recap & Photos!

Thanks to Sam Bosco for the photos!  Got pictures or stories to share? Comment below or email us at ithacacropmob@gmail.com!   

"When any lagged behind, the cry of "blueberries" was most effectual to bring them up."
- Henry David Thoreau

It's been a wet spring- really. Record rainfall for April (more than double the average) has left many Ithaca farms behind schedule or simply unable to plant anything yet (check out the Ithaca Journal for an article on this subject). Wet soil compacts easily, so even walking on it, let alone driving machinery on it, is risky. All the water and humidity can breed disease too. Thankfully, we're experiencing some sunny, dry days now in the beginning/middle of May.

At Kestrel Perch Berry Farm on West Hill in Ithaca, things were wet (just-dug holes filling up with water, low-lying parts an utter mudslide), but plantable for the most part. It's times like these that give many of us in the crop mob purpose- the feeling that we're delivering some emergency help to a farm in need. On April 30th, the Crop Mob came together to give some love and planting help to Katie Creeger of Kestrel Perch Berry Farm.

April 2011 Crop Mob (Good Life Farm)- Recap & Photos!

Thanks to Sam Bosco for the beautiful photos!  Got pictures or stories to share? Comment below or email us at ithacacropmob@gmail.com!

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now." - Chinese Proverb

 The Good Life Farm in Interlaken, NY

April: after the Latin aperire, "to open"; or, after the Greek aphrilis, "Aphrodite's month." When daffodils started blooming downtown, it seemed that spring and Ithaca had finally reached some sort of agreement. It's easy to curse Ithaca's moderate continental climate--our substantial variation in temperature over the course of the year--in the dark depths of winter and the oppressively hot peaks of summer. But in the spring, most of us are thankful for our four distinct seasons.

The coming of April means the Ithaca Crop Mob is turning two. We're officially perennial! The coltsfoot, winter aconite, and snowdrops along the side of the roads are celebrating with us. The longevity of the crop mob is the kind of truth that astounds me while also being pretty unsurprising and mundane. Well, what did you think would happen? I ask myself, and I shrug. A year ago around this time, ICM's first mob assembled to plant a couple hundred trees at The Good Life Farm in Interlaken, a stirringly earnest investment in the future. Plant trees for those who come after you; plant trees when you're here to stay.

Some outcomes can be pointed out at the end of a hard day's work. 200 pounds of squash harvested, an acre of beets weeded, 2000 cloves of garlic planted. Then there are the outcomes that take a little longer to appear, are harder to measure, and are more easily felt than communicated. Every time I go to a crop mob, these outcomes sort of flicker around me: a volunteer who found a kindred spirit in a nearby farm; somebody teaching others something they themselves learned last year; friends who might never have met if not for the crop mob. These are the indicators of social change. It's something we rarely talk about as organizers of the crop mob- there are always logistics to talk about first, the wheres and whens. Only occasionally do we get a glimpse the what of it all. This year, for continuity, for a more holistic understanding, the Crop Mob came back to The Good Life Farm on April 9th for the second planting of apple trees.

March 2011 Crop Mob (Ithaca Youth Farm Project at Three Swallows Farm)- Recap & Photos!

A special thanks to Mary Brock for the wonderful picture slideshow of this crop mob!

And another appreciative shout out to Carisa Fallon of the local television show Get Foodie for visiting us and filming! We look forward to seeing the show and will post it as soon as it becomes available!

Got pictures or stories to share? Comment or email us at ithacacropmob@gmail.com!

“Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.”
-- W. E. B. Du Bois

March is the first month on the Roman calendar, and in 2011, it's is the first month on the Ithaca Crop Mob's calendar too. Representing the first sign of the Zodiac (Aries), named for Mars, the god of war, this month has a harsh reputation. Perhaps it's because winter winds seem even more brutal and cruel to those restless for spring. Epithets like "the long, hungry month of March" (Newfoundland) also remind us that by this time of year, many cold-climate homesteaders are scraping the bottom of their crocks and root cellars. And there's something sort of fierce about the determination with which the first signs of spring surface- the pungent skunk cabbage, the oniony ramp, the deceptively delicate-looking crocus.

I remember hearing when I was young that March "comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." No such luck this March- Ithaca got hit with a snow day on the 23rd and the bitter cold kept on. With the Ithaca Crop Mob's characteristic luck, though, a warm, sunny streak followed us to Three Swallows Farm on the equinox to lend a hand and learn from the Ithaca Youth Farm Project.

The Youth Farm Project is an innovative (and ingenious) collaboration between the Southside Community Center, the Lehman Alternative Community School, the Ithaca Waldorf School, the Full Plate Farm Collective and other community organizations. Here's how it works: local high school students take summer jobs farming and managing the organic, biodynamic vegetable farm at Three Swallows Farm (funding is gleaned from the Youth Employment Services, the county, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and other sources). Youth from different backgrounds meet, mingle, and bond over farming. The produce they grow goes to LACS, Beverly J. Martin Elementary's Snack Program, Congo Square Market and the Full Plate's U-pick operations. This is IYF's second year, and enthusiasm is as high as ever.

Join us for the 2011 Crop Mob season!

Ithaca Crop Mob is gearing up for its 2011 season. If you'd like to receive updates about crop mobs, email ithacacropmob@gmail.com and we'll put you on our list. You can also join us on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ithacacropmob.

Hope to see you out on a farm this year!

Kate, Sam, and Rachel

November 2010 Crop Mob (Stick and Stone) - Recap & Photos!

 No shade, no shine, 

No butterflies, no bees,


No fruits, no flowers, 

No leaves, no birds - 

November!


-Thomas Hood, "No!"

The Ithaca Crop Mob has come to the end of its first growing season. With the first (and second... and third...) snow having touched ground, and with only three more weeks of the Steamboat Landing Ithaca Farmers Market remaining, farmers are counting down the last days of the season and saying goodbye (or just "see you soon") to their employees and interns. Some farmers are headed to off-farm jobs for the winter in order to make ends meet; others are finishing bringing in root crops for winter markets and CSAs before the ground freezes and the cold sets in. Thanksgiving brought with it a bitter wind that left many only too happy to spend the harvest holiday at the dinner table and fireplace, giving thanks for the bounty of the season. But just a week and a half earlier, the Ithaca Crop Mob was blessed with a final taste of autumn.

 

October 2010 Crop Mob (West Haven Farm)- Recap & Photos!

 In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
-William Blake

 

Autumn's bright leaves and brisk winds have returned to the Finger Lakes. The first freeze struck this month, wiping out the very end of the tomatoes and basil (if blight hadn't gotten there first), beans, eggplants, squash, and more. But October was hardly a slow fade into winter- seventy degree days followed bitter cold sleet in a roller-coaster pattern that left plants as weary as farmers were wary. Now is the time to put the land to rest for the winter- even if, as in West Haven's case, the farmers won't get a break! 

This month, the Crop Mob visited West Haven Farm at Ecovillage in Ithaca, NY, ready to embark on the fall cleaning and complete the cycle of the growing season. We began by pulling up the black plastic mulch- weed controller and soil warmer- from the squash beds, exposing irrigation tubes for later removal.