The new tractor, manure-spreader and backhoe have already been put to work, moving manure and reducing the piles on the back fields, to add fertility to the Windmill Field.

The farm crew has been working hard to transplant dozens of seedling varieties from the greenhouse into the field, and CSA volunteers are assisting the crew with planting on Saturdays. Most recently, tomatoes, summer squash, and even peanuts have been planted.

The post New equipment arrives, plants in the ground appeared first on Sylvester Manor.

Our newly renovated Mobile Chicken Coop!

The post Livestock out on pasture appeared first on Sylvester Manor.

The post Back fields clearing complete appeared first on Sylvester Manor.

This past Saturday, the Sylvester Manor farm crew ventured to the South Fork to participate in the Peconic Family Fun Day. Hosted by the Children’s Museum of the East End, the event brought together local farms, nature preserves, schools, museums and community organizations to educate young children and their families about environmental stewardship and agricultural sustainability. Produce Coordinator Steven Shepsi Eaton and Farm Interns Lev Darkhovsky, Susan Paykin, and Megan Swenson participated on behalf of Sylvester Manor.

The Sylvester Manor crew hosted a farm-fresh tasting table, featuring vegetables and herbs from our field and foraged foods from the Manor property. Our goal was to pique children’s interest in where their food comes from, as well as inspire support of local, sustainable agriculture. And who can say no to delicious, seasonal snacks?

Earlier that morning, we plucked some oregano, lemon thyme, and sage from the perennial garden in the Windmill Field. Megan grabbed a garlic scape from our garlic beds. Hakurei turnips and three varieties of radish, ranging in color from deep magenta to neon pink to white, were harvested from the high tunnel. At our tasting table, the vegetables’ and herbs’ distinct flavors and colors highlighted the bounty of spring. What’s more, children and their families were surprised to learn that some of the weeds commonly found in their backyards, such as dandelions, sheep sorrel, and garlic mustard, are not only edible, but delectable on their own.

The star of the morning (and, truly, our past week) was the raw asparagus, which is currently thriving in its peak season. There is little else that can match the vibrant flavor of asparagus cut from the ground in early May!

Showcasing the Manor’s musical inspiration, Steve, Lev, Susan and Megan also performed and led worksong sing-a-longs to tunes such as “Ida Red,” “Blackbird Get Up,” and “Sheep Sheep.” It is always fun to share with others what we sing in the fields at the farm.

We had a rewarding experience connecting children with nature at Peconic Family Fun Day, and hope others left as inspired as we were. If you are interested in farm-based educational opportunities for your child, click here to learn more about Sylvester Manor’s Youth Programs that run throughout the summer.

Thank you to the East End’s Children’s Museum and its partner organizations for hosting a fantastic event – we look forward to seeing you there next year!

The post Connecting Children with Farming at Peconic Family Fun Day appeared first on Sylvester Manor.

“This is an especially exciting time for me and for the organization as we put in place the next chapter in the Manor’s history — one which includes both my family and the people of Shelter Island,” Mr. Ostby said.

In 2012, Mr. Ostby donated over 83 acres of land to the educational farm, a transfer that allowed the nonprofit to receive the proceeds of community preservation funds in exchange for protecting the fields forever as farmland. Mr. Ostby’s offer to donate the bulk of the remaining property to Sylvester Manor Educational Farm will bring another 140-plus acres and all of the historic structures — including the 1810 windmill, barns and 1737 Georgian Manor House — into nonprofit ownership. The family plans to retain a small acreage, which will not be fully subdivided from the manor lands, to continue the 360-year legacy of Sylvester descendants on the property.

To lead the effort to transfer the property and prepare for the demands it will create, certified planner Sara Gordon, formerly of the Peconic Land Trust, will join the manor’s staff as Strategic Director, working alongside Executive Director Cara Loriz.

“Since I inherited Sylvester Manor several years ago,” Mr. Ostby explained, “we have established a nonprofit to take on the mission of the farm, the manor house, and its role in the community. I believe that the nonprofit is now strong enough to handle ownership of the property, so our next priority is to transfer the manor and its land to this organization. We’re working on the execution of this and are hoping to conclude the ownership change this year.”

He spoke at a preview of an exhibit of historical records preserved at the manor and donated by Mr. Ostby to NYU. Entitled “Sylvester Manor: Land, Food and Power on a New York Plantation,” the exhibition will be open until July 15 on the first floor of NYU’s Bobst Library on Washington Square in Manhattan.

Sylvester Manor Educational Farm was incorporated in 2009 and received its nonprofit determination from the IRS in late 2010. Its mission is to cultivate, preserve and share Sylvester Manor’s lands, buildings and stories, inviting new thought about the importance of food, culture and place in our daily lives. Sylvester Manor works to meet community needs through educational programs, preservation efforts and access to truly local food.

Mr. Ostby’s offer to donate the bulk of the remaining property to Sylvester Manor Educational Farm will bring another 140-plus acres and all of the historic structures — including the 1810 windmill, barns and 1737 Georgian Manor House — into nonprofit ownership.

The post Manor House to be donated to nonprofit farm appeared first on Sylvester Manor.

Local beekeeper Mike Loriz explained each step of the installation, which begins with ordering swarms of bees from a supplier, delivered to the Shelter Island Post Office in mesh boxes.  Each package includes a queen and over 10,000 worker bees, along with a food and water supply for their journey.

In the field, the wooden hives are opened and a few frames of honeycomb are preloaded along with empty frames.  The honeycomb provides for the new bees while they begin to make their own honey and comb as well as brood to keep their population strong.  A feeder tray is also added to each hive, full of sugar water that will be processed into honey by the bees.

After opening a mail-order package, the food can is removed and so is the queen, who travels in a screened compartment within the package. Intern Lev Darkhovsky donned a veil and helped with the next step — shaking the bees out of the package and into their new hive.  The feeder tray is then placed over the hive and the queen is dropped into the hive through a slot in the feeder tray.  Once the queen is in, the hive cap is placed and the new colony begins its work, which initially involves keeping the queen happy in the hive so she will start laying eggs.

Four new colonies were installed, two with help from Lev, and one assisted by Produce Coordinator Shepsi Eaton.  The colonies are located in the fields adjacent to Manhansett Road.

The post Honey bees find a home at the Manor appeared first on Sylvester Manor.

Who ever thought that a Jersey girl from the heart of mall country would find herself, years later, on dirty hands and knees, planting peas beside a windmill on an island?

As full-season intern at Sylvester Manor Educational Farm, I am learning how to grow good food on Shelter Island in a way that is beneficial to the land and the community. Before this year, however, I had spent little to no time on a farm, most of my interactions with vegetables having occurred while seated at a table, not in the soil. Growing up in suburbia, I gave little thought to agriculture. Food was always available to buy; I had no reason to think about the long distance traveled by a bag of carrots before landing on a grocery store shelf, no reason to think about the confusing additives in my favorite box of Cheez-Its.

L-R: Susan, with fellow farm interns Lev Darkhovsky and Megan Swenson, planting spring crops in Sylvester Manor’s Windmill Field. Photo: Susan Paykin.

This eventually changed. As a young adult newly forced to do her own grocery shopping, I began to question how my food choices impacted others and the world around me. I learned about the tremendous contribution that the industrialized food system makes to climate change, accounting for nearly 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and how the mass-production of goods has led to homogenization of culture and cuisine, replacing traditional recipes with store-bought “easy-to-prepare” meals. It became all too clear just how unequal our country’s food distribution networks are, dominated by corporations that centralize food production and access into the hands of relative few. (In a tragic illustration of this point, while the United States ranks as the largest exporter of agricultural goods in the world, there are still 50.1 million Americans currently living in food-insecure households.)

Many of these issues are due to a lack of transparency and public understanding of how our local and global food systems operate. As a first step in counteracting the detriments of industrial food and agriculture, I wanted to educate myself on how, where, and by whom food was produced. The education I sought started in one place: on a farm.

After graduating from college, however, I followed a more conventional route of employment indoors, working for a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. Although I was writing and teaching about environmental policy issues, work felt unfulfilled: Instead of actively contributing to the sustainable agriculture movement, I was following it from behind a computer. When it came time to think about my next steps, I thought of a famous quote from the Jewish philosopher Hillel: If not now, when? If I didn’t take the opportunity to see if farming was a viable long-term option for me, would I miss my chance?

After one year in D.C., I left my office job to work on a farm in Tuscany, Italy. Arriving with virtually no agricultural skills or experience, I spent the next three months cutting my chops in the vegetable beds, seeding, weeding and harvesting. I loved the work and soon decided that I wanted to spend a full season farming. When I returned to the U.S., I searched for apprenticeships across the country and on farms of all sizes and markets; in the end, I was thrilled to land at Sylvester Manor.

On the farm in Tuscany, September 2012. Photo: Fannie Watkinson.

After only six weeks of living and working at the Manor, I have learned a great deal about the work and care that goes into growing food. Our farm managers, Julia Trunzo, Steve Shepsi Eaton, and Fox June, are a trove of knowledge and experience in sustainable agriculture. Notwithstanding an unusually chilly early spring on Shelter Island, there are already dozens of varieties of vegetables, herbs and flowers thriving in our greenhouse and in the Windmill Field. But through all the work that our Sylvester Manor farm crew has done thus far to prepare for an amazing upcoming season, one of the most resonant lessons for me has been that no one can do this work alone; it takes an alliance of farmers, consumers, and members of the community to build and support a local food system. Because our need for food is universal, everyone can and should play a role in shaping the future of his or her fodder.

What role do you play? The answer might forever be changing. I started at the table but found my way to the farm. Now at Sylvester Manor, I am excited to join the tradition of producing delicious, healthy food and engaging the local community, one pea seed at a time.

Susan Paykin is a 2013 Full-Season Intern at Sylvester Manor Educational Farm. She is originally from Oakland, NJ.

Seeded in early March, the onions have already sprouted and grow larger and stronger every day. Pontiac yellow is just one of several onion varieties the farm is growing this year. Photo: Susan Paykin.

The post Intern Profile: Susan Paykin appeared first on Sylvester Manor.

The post Our thanks to Deena Siegelbaum appeared first on Sylvester Manor.

Read the online version of the article HERE.

The post Sylvester Manor in the NEW YORK TIMES appeared first on Sylvester Manor.

The workshop was packed with young farmers from both forks (and everything in between!): Quail Hill, Amber Waves, Browder’s Birds, Biophilia, Invincible Summer, and Sylvester Manor all in one room.

While the presentation was very effective in communicating the pertinence of environmental and self-awareness when working on a farm, it reminded us of these lessons in our everyday lives off the farm too. Mixing cold, hard facts with real-life cases, we all walked away with a healthy fear of the power of machines. But through that knowledge, we are empowered with cognizance of past mistakes.

Dan Heston, North Fork Stewardship Manager of the Peconic Land Trust, instructs Lev on the basics of operating a tractor. Photo: Susan Paykin.

Best part: we got to drive a tractor! Once you got passed its initial novelty, it was simple enough, which makes the lessons that much more pungent. Not to say that you shouldn’t invest years of intent training before considering operating full-scale projects, only that the controls are all at your fingertips.

Overall, it was a great way to spend a few hours off island, even if it was a bit chilly! Thanks to Peconic Land Trust for hosting the event at the Charnews Farm!

Lev Darkhovsky is a 2013 Full-Season Intern at Sylvester Manor Educational Farm. He is originally from Los Angeles, CA.

The post Safety Rundown: Tractor Safety Workshop at Peconic Land Trust appeared first on Sylvester Manor.