First Annual Local Music on the Farm A Big Success!
Thank you for attending our first fundraising event in support of Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry! We count ourselves very lucky for the perfect day we had for our event yesterday. The beautiful weather, fabulous oysters, great barbeque, and fantastic music made it a fun time to be had by all. We’d like to once again send out a special thank you to our event sponsors and donors:

Coastal Caterers, Clammer Dave’s Sustainable Gourmet  Seafood, GP Sound, Livingston Seafood, High Hammock, McCrady’s Restaurant, McClellanville Rentals, Meadors Construction, Pearl Cadwell, Sun Bay Logic, Town Museum of McClellanville, Trident Tech Culinary Program, Queen Anne’s Revenge, Beth & Jerry Zink, Holy City Sinners, Skye Paige & the Original Recipe, The Hungry Monks, French Toast, the Toasted Beets, Wando High School Special Needs Class, Tom Knisley, Julian Levin, Thomas Beach, Guy Artiguse, the Staff of Our Local Foods, and all our cherished volunteers.

Also a special thank you to all of you who came out and made it a great day – we hope you’ll come have fun with us again the next time we have such a wonderful event hosted here at Thornhill Farm.

Thank you!

Maria

Today was filming day… which is really good because we want to document what’s going on out here at Thornhill Farm. We had SunbayMedia out to do the filming. They captured the planting that’s going on, the new plants in the hoop house, our take on organic farming- the beneficial insects, compost tea, etc. We also talked about how OurLocalFoods fits into the local economy; specifically, we employ local residents, and sell food in the local area.

We really appreciate the willingness of the local chefs to work with us- including Sean Brock of McCrady’s Restaurant (in Charleston), and Frank Lee of High Hammock Restaurant (in Pawley’s Island). To cap off the filming, the crew went up to High Hammocks restaurant, and watched as Chef Lee prepared 3 dishes that included many of our ingredients, as well as crab and shrimp (always local favorites). The crew was lucky and got to eat Chef Lee’s dishes- report is that they loved the dishes so much that they plan on doing more filming in Pawley’s Island around lunchtime.

Maria

We have 300 chickens on the farm now – they arrived last weekend.  We have a chicken tractor for them to live in (see the picture below).  The chicken tractor is a chicken house built on a trailer. Our Local Foods would like to acknowledge the incredible design of the chicken tractor by George and Celeste Albers of the “Green Grocer” on Wadmalaw Island (just outside of Charleston, SC).  The house has booms sticking out on each side with a shrimp net draped over it that hangs down to the ground.  This area is approximately 25′x35′ which is the area the chickens have to run around and feed in.  Each day, while the chickens are in the house, the trailer is moved a bit to a new spot, and the chickens are let out to roam around.  At night, the chickens go back in their house to roost, and egg laying is also done in the nesting areas.  The reason for moving the tractor each day is so there are plenty of new bugs and such for the chickens to find and eat. In a nice symbiotic way, the chickens also dig up the topsoil, add some fertilizer to the soil, and reduce the insect count.

And here’s a picture of one of the hens:

We will be harvesting eggs for the farmers markets at Daniel Island and Park Circle – so come visit us and get some fresh eggs!

Maria

Well, we almost got washed away yesterday.  The report was more than 5″ of rain in 12 hours…  so now we’re trying to dry off.  We’re never ones to complain about rain – sometimes we just wish we could control when and how much comes down.  But, there’s a lot to do in the fields, so we’ll back out as soon as the ground dries enough to get back in there.

In the meantime, we keep working on many other items.  One thing to note, we’ve got a plant sale coming up on Saturday, April 11th.  This will be held just East of Half Moon Outfitters on Coleman Boulevard in Mt. Pleasant (near where the Bridge Run starts).  We have several thousand plants, so come on out and pick the ones you want!

Stay dry!

Maria

Yesterday we got Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry up and running at Thornhill Farm in McClellanville.  This program helps high school students with disabilities by engaging them in horticultural therapy.  The horticultural therapy aspects of the program are handled by Catherine, and Our Local Foods is involved in helping provide infrastructure and support however we can.  The students are from Georgetown HS and they did a great job getting the planter boxes filled with good soil, and then started the planting.  Stay tuned for updates as their garden grows!

…some pictures of the adaptive gardening program

- Maria

Last week we put the potatoes starts in the ground.  In total we put out about 3000 plant starts.  It is about 100 days to harvest, although delayed harvesting is OK too.   So, look for potatoes in late May.  We are also fast & furious on the rest of planting for spring and summer.  If you’re in the area, drop by and see what we’re doing.

- Maria