Save these dates

Here are two great events this month! We hope you will join us!

Downtown restaurant walk

The Capitola Coast Lions Club is hosting a 2023 Santa Cruz Restaurant Walk to benefit Common Roots Farm!

On Wednesday, June 14 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., 15 premier downtown restaurants will open their doors and provide a sample of their exquisite cuisine for you to taste! All are welcome and it promises to be a great time. Passports are only $40 here.

Thank you to the Capitola Lions for all your support of Common Roots!

 

Able Arts Market

Enjoy supporting local artists? Want to see shop the Helpers Artisan Boutique but haven't been to San Francisco? Curious about Common Roots Farm? Then please join us on Saturday, June 17 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. for the Able Arts Community Market.

Come see and shop for art, crafts and farm-to-bottle gifts, all featuring the work of artists and farmers with intellectual/developmental disabilities. We hope to see you there!

 

Sharing our green thumbs

Thanks to all the seed sowing and pricking up of seedlings that’s been happening in our greenhouse and Seed to Salad garden for the past few months, several local organizations are now growing vegetables and flowers donated by farmers with disabilities. Grateful Gardens in San Jose and St. Clare Apartments in Redwood City both received tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, calendula, zinnias, sunflowers and more!

Thank you to all our farmers who have worked hard growing healthy vegetable and flower starts for our neighbors in need. We are especially proud of our WorkAbility students from Pajaro Valley School District who have honed their greenhouse skills so much this season. Fantastic job, guys! Those plants look great.

Spring gardening takes off with day program participants

Common Roots has always wanted to be a destination for our community members with disabilities who attend day programs. We know that being able to enjoy a beautiful outdoor setting that is focused on experiencing nature, animals, and growing plants is good for well-being.

Volunteer coordinator, Lily, has been working extra hard this season to welcome our local day programs with fun garden-based activities. Seed sowing to grow fodder for our chickens is fun, involves learning new skills, can be done with a partner, and helps our laying hens stay healthy and productive.

Each week we see our farmers growing in their skills and confidence as they become part of this cycle of growing seeds. Watering our raised beds, adding compost and mixing it in, and eventually harvesting and sampling fruits and veggies is also part of the farm experience. It's also great to watch day program staff help to engage everyone in enjoying our farm campus while honing their own gardening skills.

Sheep shearing season is here

Thanks to all the atmospheric rivers we had this past winter, we’ve been delayed in giving our sheep their annual buzz cut. Without a barn to keep our sheep dry, we had to delay their shearing until this past week. With the help of Mendocino Headwaters Sheep Shearing, all three of our Babydoll sheep are now ready for summer weather.

We had quite an audience out to watch and cheer them on, including neighbors from Coastal Haven, trainee Ryan, our farm volunteers, and our WorkAbility students. It was fun to watch Ruth, our shearer, do her job so quickly and skillfully. Thank you to Joanna, too, for always caring so lovingly for all of them. We can report that Peter, Pan, and Tinkerbell are all doing well, even if they are a bit harder to recognize now!