Granby Drummer (https://granbydrummer.com/category/grow/page/2/)
This spring, take a drive down Simsbury Road in West Granby, enjoy the beautiful barns and farm fields and meadows of Holcomb Farm as they come to life, and give thanks to the Granby volunteers who have helped make it so. Among the many volunteers, there is one, lovingly known as the Posse, worth considering.
Planting has begun, and sales of CSA summer shares are well underway. Thanks to careful nurturing of the soil (as well as new equipment), Farmer Joe reports increasing productivity is making even more CSA shares available, so it’s not too late to sign up.
Holcomb Farm’s trails are always open and welcoming, and spring is a special time. You can visit on your own, any time; the eastern fields are easily accessible from the junction of Simsbury Road and Day Street South, and the views are spectacular.
The Friends of Holcomb Farm’s Fresh Access program joined with one of its institutional partners, Healing Meals, to apply for a “donor-advised fund” grant through the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. We received a $4,000 grant from an anonymous donor fund that will help provide produce and equipment to the Healing Meals Community Project.
Saturday, May 5 is the Annual Progressive Dinner. If you are interested and still without a ticket, contact Cathy at cathy@holcombfarm.org.
If you run across any surplus tractors or crew-cab pick-ups during your spring cleaning this year, please consider a tax-deductible donation of this equipment to the Friends of Holcomb Farm. Any money we don’t have to spend on equipment means more can go toward growing and providing food to underserved populations through our Fresh Access program.
About 25 people turned out at the Emery Farm Sugar House on March 18 for a hands-on demonstration of how maple syrup is made. Granby Land Trust Board Member Dave Emery taught his visitors, many of whom were fewer than three feet tall, about the process of sugaring, from sap collection, to boiling, to the filtering and bottling of the finished product. Everyone was invited to taste some Emery Farm maple syrup—served, deliciously, over snow!
With support from the Town Administration, the Friends of Holcomb Farm have been awarded a Connecticut Department of Agriculture Farm Viability Grant. The project, to begin in April, will bring further improvements to the CSA barn and Farm Store (next to the Church on Simsbury Road) and expand our dry and cold storage to meet the growing demand from our CSA, restaurant, retail, and Fresh Access partners.
The Herbicide and Pesticide Study Committee held a public information session on March 14 to gather input from Granby residents on the use of glyphosate (commonly known as Round-up) by the Public Works Department on roadways and near waterways. The first use by the DPW was in 2017, done with a boom truck whose spray width was five feet.
The community garden plot gardens are located just north of Ahrens Park on Hungary Road and are divided into an organic section and a conventional one. A pump well provides a water supply.