Funding To A Tea: A Networking Happy Hour Event with Healcrest Urban Farm, The Sprout Fund, and New Sun Rising.

LET’S HAVE FUN ON THE FARM! 

Propelle is teaming up with Healcrest Urban Farm, The Sprout Fund, and New Sun Rising to throw an early-summer garden party for women entrepreneurs!

With tents, twinkling lights, greenhouse and garden tours, local farm fresh tidbits and specialty drinks made from Healcrest’s own line of herbal teas, shrubs, and tea pops this is sure to be the networking event of the summer. The focus for the evening will be women entrepreneurs seeking funding opportunities, resources, incubation & investment. Speakers will include Dana Launius and Maria Graziani of Healcrest Urban Farm and a representative from the Sprout Fund. What you’ll discover:

• Funding opportunities and options in PIttsburgh.
• What funders are specifically looking for.
• What will set your funding application apart from the crowd.
• What Maria and Dana have learned from 5+ years of working with funders.

There will also be funding information on hand from New Sun Rising. Get your tickets today and invite your favorite woman entrepreneurs (and future entrepreneurs) to join you for a very special and informative evening. This event is 21+ only.

We’ll Be Joining Farmers @ the Firehouse this Saturday!

The ladies of Healcrest are excited to bring you delicious Summer refreshment at a new market this weekend! We are so fortunate and grateful to have wonderful new market opportunities.

Visit Maria at Farmers @ the Firehouse for Iced Tea, TeaPops, Loose Tea, and other amazing herbal edibles. Our flavors this week are Blueberry Lemon Balm, Roasted Peach Basil, Fresh Apple Mint, and Cucumber Surprise.

We are excited to see you this Saturday in the Strip at “Pittsburgh’s first & largest mostly organic or Certified Naturally grown farmers’ market.” Read more about Farmers @ the Firehouse.

Voted Best Farmers’ Market in Pittsburgh, Edible Allegheny 2010; 100 Best Things About Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Magazine; Best Farmers’ Market, City Paper Staff Picks.

Fermention Workshops with Cultures Lab and Natalya

Join us at Healcrest Urban Farm for Fermentation Workshops with Natalya. Natalya has been creating, studying, and experimenting with fermented foods for many seasons. This Summer SHE’S BACK to offer more exciting fermentation workshops!

Register here http://www.healcresturbanfarm.com/events.html

Herb Classes and Walks with Michelle

Join us this summer at Healcrest Urban Farm for herbal education with certified Herbalist Michelle Soto!

Register here http://www.healcresturbanfarm.com/events.html

A Rainy Day Photo Shoot!

By Michelle Soto

Meg and I thought we could use this rainy day to our advantage and show some photos of our muscle powered tools that we use to create the gardens.  As we were planning and budgeting to create new gardens and revitalize more green spaces at Healcrest, we made a decision to not rent heavy gas powered machinery and to invest in quality earth moving tools that we can use for years to come.

We still use lawn mowers for grass cutting, but pretty much everything else up at the farm is a hand tool.  This definitely increases the time and energy it takes to build a garden bed, but the finished products are high quality beds that will be around for years to come, completely free of knotweed roots, rocks, and anything else that might impede the growing process.

We’ve found that the beds that we built last year have needed a few wheelbarrows of compost of them and some leaf mulch in the aisles, but are free of invasive weeds.  The hard pan clay that is just right under our top soil was turned with compost last year and has matured into a dark rich layer of soil, perfect for growing.

Planting into these beds will continue for a few more weeks! Official volunteer days are on Sundays from 11-4.  We won’t make you jump on a broad fork for you can help some baby seedlings find a good home!

Michelle loves to use the little digging fork to turn earth

Meg attacks knotweed, clearing a new path through the woods

Michelle jumps on the broad fork, using all her body weight!

Meg is shifting soil with the brand new shifter that Suzy built or the farm

Herbal Energetics Class

at Healcrest Urban Farm
Thursday, May 29 from 6-8 pm

We’re going to learn about recognizing the six tissue states in the body and the corresponding categories of herbs. I’m pulling knowledge from Ayurvedic medicine as well as Southern US Folk Herbalism. Hopefully you’ll leave knowing more about specific indications and what herbs will work well for your constitution and body type.

We’ll spend the first hour tasting plants from the garden and recognizing the movement within our bodies and the second talking about the different energetic systems across the world.

Family Time on the Farm

By Michelle Soto

This past week my family came into town ready to work on the farm!  Many of my memories of childhood involve helping my dad in the yard and in the garden.  Every spring we’d get a load of wood mulch delivered to the house and I would use my child sized shovel and wheelbarrow to mulch the rose bushes and the edges of garden beds.  I loved the smell of the mulch.  It smelled woody and alive and signaled that spring was here.  My dad’s biggest hobby was working in the yard, he’d come home every day after work, take a power nap, change into work clothes and spend the rest of the afternoon outside.  He’s the type of guy who only has ONE kind of grass in his yard, and absolutely no weeds.  Anywhere.

It was reminiscent of these afternoons to spend some days with him at Healcrest.  His assignment: tree stump removal.  And not just any tree stump.  A 50 year old black locust (he counted those rings during a break one day) which was in the middle of our newest garden.  While my dad worked on the stump, my mom and aunt weeded our garlic patch, which had mulched itself with garlic mustard plants.  They caught them all before they went to flower, and the garlic patch is vibrant and sending up what soon will be delicious garlic scapes.

Other areas of the garden are quickly growing as the days and nights are warming up.  The mints: lemon balm, peppermint, horehound, catnip, catmint, and chocolate mint are providing us with new herbs to harvest every week.  About half of our seedlings are moved into the greenhouse and awaiting transplant.  And of course, the lovely wild cherry trees are going to burst into bloom any day this week.

Till next time,

Michelle and the Farm Team

Wishing You All A Happy Mother’s Day

From all of us at Healcrest Urban Farm
Hope your day was FULL of family, friendship, and fantastic fun!

Spring Has Sprung at Healcrest Urban Farm!

Whew! Spring has sprung and we are seeing the evidence of that all over the farm!

The daffodils are in full bloom, the forsythia has one whole garden in a wash of yellow, the hawthorns are budding out the cutest little leaves, and our perennials are coming back from the intense winter hibernation we were all in.

Meg and Michelle have been busy tilling the ground in several gardens to get beds ready for the hundreds of plants we have started inside.  Many herblings are more delicate than vegetable starts so we’ll wait till after the last frost to plant outside.

We are orienting garden beds differently this year in one garden and are breaking ground the what we used to call “the knotweed field”.  Although it does have medicinal qualities: the knotweed root contains high amounts of resveratrol- the feel good chemical in red wine, we are striving to eradicate our pristine piece of land from this invasive creature.  Slowly, but surely.

Suzy has built a rain barrel system to catch rainwater off the roof of our shed so that we can water everything grown on the farm with water collected from the farm.

 

 

As usual, the chickens have the run of a garden during the day to dust bathe and sun themselves.

 

We will post soon about upcoming classes and volunteer days!  Here’s to spring!

FREE Yoga with Meg – SEP SERIES

SEPT SERIES ~ FREE Yoga with Meg

We welcome you to join us in the Healcrest orchard for this series of Yoga 1 practicum classes. Join us at 7pm Tuesdays and Wednesdays in September.

This moderately-paced class will include sun salutations and a wide range of standing and seated postures designed to increase strength, balance and flexibility. For new students with good physical health. Bring water to drink and mat and/or blanket is recommended.

Join Meg Graham at Healcrest Urban Farm 5200 Hillcrest St. Garfield, PA. Register here or contact healcresturbanfarm@gmail.com Facebook Event Here