Awesome Interns

Our new interns are here and working hard. We're grateful to Alison and Emily for jumping right in, being willing to do what needs to be done from packing seeds, shipping orders, bed prep, cleaning the barn, and, of course, starting seeds. You'll be hearing from each of them them throughout the season in their blog posts and have the chance to meet them at events.

Alison

Emily

Here's Emily's first post. Alisons's is on the way!

Starting Small

This is my first time in the Hudson Valley; I'm excited to be here! I moved from a city of 2 million people to be part of this community and to learn about gardening at a different scale than I've known in my urban upbringing. In cities I always found tiny spaces on fire escapes or in community gardens to grow things. Tending to my herbs and tomatoes relieved some stresses of city-living, but also introduced some uniquely-urban gardening frustrations: overcrowded containers and rats! I'm looking forward to having more space on the Seed Library farm (and the bigger skies and mountains will also offer a nice change from city-life). The farm is beautiful, but right now there are a lot of empty beds in the fields waiting for seeds and seedlings (and compost, and intern labor!).

Already we've started on small tasks, using small tools: toothpicks for seating seeds in soil (small squishing sounds audible) and small scoops for spooning seeds into their packs (we use spoons labeled “dash” or “pinch” for measuring the tiny Lettuce Mix and Broccoli Raab seeds). Soon tillers and shovels will replace these tiny tools to prepare the beds, and hopefully the temperature here will also increase in size! The temperature is still dropping below freezing overnight – a bit of a shock for me, coming from a more southern city. Doug and Ken have given us a warm welcome, though, and I can't wait to meet more gardeners in this area. My favorite vegetables: all the brassica (cabbage family) varieties!

Prepping beds for planting.