Category: News & Events

March 29: Seed Starting Workshop at Cafecito Social in Brooklyn

Sign up with Cafecito, or just stop by.

Where:

Cafecito Social

296 Bond Street

Brooklyn NY 11231

United States

When: Saturday March 28th from 2pm-5pm, drop-ins welcome!

What to Bring, and What to Expect:

We will be providing: Seed starting compost, undertrays to hold seedling pots, a variety of seeds, wooden seed labels and pens for labeling so you’ll know what is growing in your pots, and our knowledge.

You should bring: small containers (like individual-serving yogurt or small sour cream containers) or home-made newspaper pots (see tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_x6OSKQr4o) for your seedlings to grow in, and your enthusiasm!

There is no charge for the workshop, but any donations will go towards offsetting the cost of our seed donation program which sends vegetable, herb and flower seeds to over 90 food pantries, school gardens, community gardens, prison gardens and seed libraries across the country.

Ian and Lia will be there to help you chose which seeds are best for your growing space, help you sow your chosen seeds, to tell you about the needs of your seedlings as they grow, and generally answer any seed starting or biodynamic gardening questions you might have. We’ll carry on with the workshop rain or shine, so come dressed for the weather!

April 5th: The Quiet Corner Gardeners Symposium

Where: CT State Community College Quinebaug Valley

742 Upper Maple St., Danielson, CT

When: Saturday, April 5th 2025 – 9AM – 3:30 PM

Pre-registration is required!

Join us for a fun filled and informative day as we explore such topics as Pollinators and Native Plants, Herbs, No-Till Gardening, Seed Starting, The Home Medicine Chest, Habitats for Attracting Birds, Mushroom Foraging and more!

Boxed lunches will be catered by Vanilla Bean Cafe and are available for an extra fee. Lunches must be ordered by Sunday, March 30th.

May 23rd and 24th: Annual Memorial Day Weekend Plant and Seedling Sale!

Where: Camphill Village, 1 Ring Rd, Copake, NY outside the Village Green Coffee & Gift Shop

When: 10am-4pm Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend

This seedling sale is a Take-what-you-need, Pay-what-you-can event, with an honor box. Please bring cash or checks.

Seeds, T-shirts and more are available for sale in the Village Green Coffee & Gift shop, along with baked treats, excellent coffee, lunch and more.

May 31st: Open Day at Camphill Village!

Lots of fun, food, tours and music!

Come out and enjoy a day at beautiful Camphill Village, home to Turtle Tree. We’ll have a booth set up in the middle of things at the Village Green, and our seed processing shop will also be a stop on the tours of land areas during the course of the day. For more details, click here: Camphill Open Day 2025

Peppers, eggplants and herbs are springing up in our hotboxes, ready for both our own fields and the May plant sale (Stay tuned!) We’re sowing tomatoes this week, along with ground cherries and Schoenbrunn physalis, a Cape gooseberry type. Lettuces will be sown this week, along with a host of flowers to be transplanted out when the weather is warmer. We’re weeding our onion transplants, and pricking out herbs (sown in February).

Don’t worry, though, if you are planning on planting herbs there is still time (and Thyme!) many herbs such as thyme, lavender, sage and oregano which are perennial and take a while to get going can be sown now, and either planted out later when the plants are bigger, or you can plant them into bigger pots, keeping them outside in the summer and in a sunny, cool place (it need not be completely frost free–a greenhouse or enclosed sunny porch are ideal) for planting out next year. We’ve had great success, especially with lavender, using this method.

Herbs such as basil, chives and parsley can sown now for transplanting out after frost, and dill and cilantro can be sown in a few weeks–or direct sown in the garden a week or two before the last frost. For tender herbs, such as basil, dill and cilantro, we recommend doing several smaller sowings about 3 weeks apart, to ensure a continuous supply.

Did you Know? Poppies and larkspur can be direct sown in the autumn, or as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring! These lovely beauties welcome pollinators and are carefree color to bring easy joy to your summer garden.

Here is the promised list of varieties for our sale– there might be one or two I’ve missed. We have absolutely tons of the cucurbits this year–winter squashes, pumpkins, cukes, zukes, melons, and watermelons! Last year we didn’t manage to grow enough because the chipmunks were such a (very cute) menace, but this year we’ve figured out how to outwit them (for now anyway!) Also lots of okra! Herbs and flowers are in slightly shorter supply this year, but we will put out more each day, so they don’t all get snapped up at once.

CUCUMBERS:

• Shintokiwa
• Boston Pickler
• Boothby blonde 

Melons:

• Golden gopher
• Delicious 51 PMR

Watermelon

• Cherokee moon and stars
• Crimson sweet 
• Early moonbeam 
•  

Zucchini:

• Costata Romanesca zucchini 
• Dark green zucchini 

New England pie pumpkin

Winter Squashes:

• Butternut 
• Delicata
• Red kuri
• Long Island cheese 
• Honeynut 
• Hidatsa 
• Black Forest kabocha 

Tomatoes:

• Ruth’s Perfect,
• Sweet’n’Bright,
• Kimberton Hills Yellow,
• Snow White cherry,
• Black Cherry,
• Matt’s Wild Cherry
• Blush sweet plum,
• San Marzano Paste,
• Striped German

Physalis Species:

• Schoenbrunn Gold Physalis,
• Cossack Pineapple Ground Cherry
• Purple Tomatillo

Parsley:

• Moss Curled
• Giant Italian Plain-leafed

Okra:

• Clemson Spineless
• Bugundy

Sweet Peppers:

• Aconcagua
• Early Red Sweet
• King of the North
• Jimmy Nardello
• Sullivan’s Favorite Frying

Hot Peppers:

• Early Jalapeño
• Hot paper lantern
• Chiltepe

Herbs:

• Lavender (perennial)
• Rosemary (tender perennial, bring inside in the winter)
• Thyme (perennial)
• Lemon Bergamot (also a great pollinator flower)
• Anise Hyssop (Semi-tender perennial—will sometimes overwinter in our area, also a great pollinator flower)
• Valerian (perennial and also a great pollinator flower)
• Lemon Balm (perennial)
• Summer Savory
• Tulsi Basil (also a great pollinator flower)
• Lemon Basil (also a great pollinator flower)
• Chives (perennial and also a great pollinator flower)

Flowers:

• Hibiscus Manihot (annual)
• Helichrysum (annual, great dried flower)
• Purpletop Vervaine (Verbena bonariensis) (annual, but can self-seed)
• Snapdragons panorama mix (annual)
• Cockcomb celosia (annual, great dried flower, easy to save seed)
• Euphorbia Mountain snow (Annual but will self-seed if happy)

It’s a Take-What-You-Need, Pay-What-You-Can Seedling sale again this year! We’ll have lots and lots of plants to offer, including squashes, melons, cukes, zukes, watermelons, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, flowers, herbs and more! (list of specific varieties coming soon)

Where: at the corner of Chrysler Pond and Camp Hill roads in Copake, NY

When: from 10-3 Saturday, Sunday and Monday of Memorial Day Weekend.

We won’t be able to process credit cards, so please bring cash or checks as well as boxes or trays to take home your seedlings!