We are happy to announce that we will have a website soon for Growing for Skan, Doce Lume Farm and Go Native! perennials. This will help us post the harvest of the week, photos of what is in bloom, advertise events (like the Lawn to Meadow event and upcoming landscaping with natives educational series) and share articles and insights.
Website Coming Soon in 2022!
Changing the Foodsystem: check out the Foodshed Model
"In the modern food system, fewer than 15 cents per food dollar goes to farmers who grow the food, with the vast majority going to corporations that package it, market it, and transport it thousands of miles away to be sold off supermarket shelves.
Foodshed’s model of cooperative ownership and direct sales aims to create a food value chain that instead, gets good food to the people, while also distributing wealth more equitably: 80 cents of every food dollar goes to farmers, 5 cents goes toward regenerative agricultural research, and any remaining profit, up to 15 cents on the dollar, goes into the business and is paid to partner farmers through profit-sharing at the end of each year. “We call it the triple impact,” says Ellee. “Every food dollar that goes to a farmer is nourishing a family, and then re-circulates in the local economy.”
From: https://sdfoodvision2030.org/foodshed-small-farm-distro/
Why Convert Lawn to Meadow?
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Working with Sam Quinn of SUNY, College of Environmental Science and Forestry's Restoration Science Center (RSC), Go Native! perennials has helped create two demonstration meadows on our farm site for Skaneateles home owners to view. Planted in June 2021, native plant seedlings are coming up strong - last week we saw bergamot, black-eyed susan, anise hyssop seedlings - and a lot more!! Sam and Brandy Neveldine, also from the RSC, will host visits to the demo meadows in the near future; stay tuned! In the meantime check out Sam's presentation for Onondaga County's Cornell Cooperative Extension to learn how a meadow can help protect Skaneateles Lake, water quality, promote birds, bees, butterflies and other beneficial wildlife, Transitioning Your Lawn to a Meadow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWtgZxjMg4
Gardening for Life
Gardening for Life
(Source: Wild Ones / Habitat Gardening in Central New York handout:
https://www.hgcny.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Tallamy-Gardening-for-Life.pdf)
By Douglas Tallamy
Chances are, you have never thought of your garden – indeed, of all of the space on your land – as a wildlife preserve that represents the last chance we have for sustaining plants and animals that were once common throughout the United States. That is exactly the role our suburban landscapes are now playing, and will play even more critically in the near future. If this is news to you, it’s not your fault.
We were taught from childhood that gardens are for beauty; they are a chance to express our artistic talents, to have fun with, and relax in. And, whether we like it or not, the way we landscape our properties is taken by our neighbors as a statement of our wealth and social status.
No one has taught us that we have forced the plants and animals that evolved in North America (our nation’s biodiversity) to depend more and more on human-dominated landscapes for their continued existence. We have always thought that biodiversity was happy somewhere out there – “in nature” – in our local woodlot, or perhaps our national parks, or best of all “in the rain forest.”
We have heard nothing about the rate at which species are disappearing from our neighborhoods, towns, counties, and states. We have never been taught how vital biodiversity is for our own well-being. Read entire handout here: https://www.hgcny.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Tallamy-Gardening-for-Life.pdf
NEW Lawn to Meadows Facebook Page!
A message from SUNY ESF Restoration Science Center:
"Hello all! Welcome to the Skaneateles Lawn to Meadows Group and thank you for joining. We started this group to facilitate discussion around meadows in the Skaneateles Lake Watershed. The Restoration Science Center at SUNY ESF has helped implement meadows on properties within the Skaneateles Lake Watershed and encourages more landowners to consider doing the same, if appropriate on their land. Please feel free to ask questions and most importantly, engage in a conversation about your property. Post a photo of an area you'd like to consider for a meadow. Stay tuned for more posts discussing the benefits of meadows and resources available to you."
Check out the page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1251213408662668/