August and September at the Organic Farm School offer such inspiration to resident and visiting foodies. Having made it through a chaotic spring, an early hot summer, and confusing post-Covid market/tourism trends, students are now rolling out a beautiful abundance vegetables. Each week, as they set up their pop up farm stand and market booth, they talk about mouth watering recipes that incorporate sun ripe tomatoes, eggplant, leafy greens, zucchini, cucumbers, cilantro, and so much more. 

Core Program students, Tommy and Jasper, toast the end of a long, hot week with an ice cream float with a cherry on top.

You’ll often hear us say “we teach what you can’t learn on-line,” and August provides so many examples of this!

“It matters what we eat now more than ever — we will determine the health of future generations.” Those are powerful words, don’t you think? I heard them in conversation with Bethany-Lynn Rodriguez, one of the two Nutritional Therapists we had speak at a recent Dishing Up The Dirt.

Farms are amazing, productive, fast-moving places! All at once, they are:

• geologic sites with specific legacies from the previous thousand years;

• biological units with crazy dances between things living in the soil, on top of the soil, and in the air and water all around;

• meteorological and climatological landscapes over which farmers have no control;

• and human systems that rely on individual and collective physical energy, mental health, complex planning, clear communication and good humor.

It’s been a busy season up at Keystone Farm & Forest Preserve! A dedicated band of volunteers, “Farm Stewards,” worked for weeks to remove all of the horizontal boards from large creosote treated posts so those could be removed. Thanks to all the connections the Whidbey Camano Land Trust has, the appropriate machinery was available to actually pull the very heavy posts out of the ground, and the Department of Natural Resources came and took them away for responsible disposal as part of a grant funded project. Teamwork!!!!