Able Arts Market coming June 17th

Please join us for our second annual Able Arts Community Market on Saturday, June 17th from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. This is a great opportunity to come out to the farm while also checking out beautiful art works and crafts created by artists with disabilities.

Helpers Artisan Boutique will feature art pieces and hand-crafted gift items from the many artists represented at their Union Street location in San Francisco. Works by local artists Shane Tarkington and Ken Muramoto, as well as many others, will be featured along with cards and prints by artists creating at the Monterey Bay Horsemanship and Therapeutic Center.

Consider joining us for a complimentary beverage while you stroll the market. We will also unveil our new outdoor kitchen generously funded by Helpers Community! There will be some participatory art projects and complimentary baked goods offered by the Coastal Haven baking club.

Come join us for a relaxing time and bring a friend! Our community of artists living with disabilities would appreciate your support.

Gardening Club is back!

Are you feeling the springtime itch to get back outside and cultivate? Well, so are our Shared Adventures Gardening Club participants. Stop by the farm any Thursday morning at 11:00 and you will find an enthusiastic group of gardeners helping plant seeds, water raised beds, feed the chickens, and tend our orchard trees. This club is open to anyone. Check the Shared Adventures Event & Activities calendar for more information.

Lily, our volunteer coordinator, looks forward to the gardening club each week so that she can work with the lead volunteers from Shared Adventures to plan fun activities in our beautiful accessible garden. Soon, Common Roots will fulfill the garden’s potential as a Seed to Salad area, where participants can not only grow food crops as they do now, but also harvest and prepare these crops for tasting.

Our new outdoor kitchen is coming and will give participants the opportunity to clean and chop fruits and veggies, prepare healthy treats, and learn basic food preparation skills. Strawberry smoothies, tomato basil salads, and stir-fried veggies are all on the menu this season!

More volunteers are always welcome, so if food prep and cooking is your passion, please email Lily at volunteer@commonrootfarm.org if you have time to offer your skills. Even once a month is great and will help our participants with disabilities better enjoy the full experience of growing their own food.

Earth Day a big success

 

Thank you to the 50-plus volunteers who came to the farm to celebrate Earth Day and show our natural habitat and farm some extra love. We had a lot going on, including composting of planting beds, sowing seeds, removal of invasive plants from along our part of Pogonip Creek, and planting of willow stakes, or baby willow trees, in our riparian zone. Even our established native plant hedgerows got some much needed attention after the winter rains and were carefully weeded and mulched with wood chips. There were treats to keep energy up and fun activities to keep everyone engaged.

We are so grateful for all that got accomplished! Everyone on our farm team was stoked to have so much help. Our volunteers worked hard as our sheep made the rounds greeting everyone while on leash with Joanna and Bella, our shepherdesses.

Thank you to all our volunteers, extra helpers, farm team and especially Lily and Nina for making the day such a fun success!