What’s New
What’s new with the Cape Farm Alliance and Our Members?
Dun Roamin’ Greenhouses on Sawyer Rd. is open for the season (7 days a week) and excited to share with you their gorgeous annuals – just in time for Mothers’ Day, Memorial Day – and for filling up your gardens. Stop by anytime – and help yourself!
Time to Buy your CSA. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares offer the consumer the opportunity to pay now, for farm fresh foods you’ll select during the growing season, and enjoy a bonus credit. By doing so, you’ll be helping our farmers with the resources they need in the spring to purchase seeds and supplies for planting time. Three of our farms offer CSAs: Green Spark Farm, Alewives Brook Farm, and the Wm. H. Jordan Farm. Check for more info. on their websites.
Green Spark Farm is expanding this season with more fields, more organically grown produce for you. And starting in June, in addition to buying their veggies at the Portland Farmers’ Markets, you can enjoy their ‘help yourself’ farm stand right on Fowler Rd. Click here for more information, to sign up for a CSA, order seedlings, or to receive their new e-newsletter.
It’s Lambing Season! Louise and Red Sullivan of Journey’s End Farm on Two Lights Rd. know spring is here when their ewes start delivering – and this year they birthed 13 lambs. The Sullivans are in their 6th season of raising a small flock of Katahdin sheep for meat. They also tend honeybee hives, a handful of happy laying hens and a large vegetable garden – all in their “spare” time.
Cape Farms’ Market Offers Fresh & Local Online. Cape farmers Penny and Caitlin Jordan have created an online ordering system to make Maine foods easily accessible year-round. The Cape Farms’ Market sells a huge range of foods from both Cape farmers and a select group of growers and fishermen from across the state. It’s an innovative way to both support Maine farmers through all four seasons, and to help consumers have ready access to fresh and local foods. Read more here, Cape Elizabeth Farmers Offer Delivery Options for Locavores and go to Cape Farms’ Market.
Enter Our Photo Contest. We’re hosting a photo contest over the course of the next twelve months. Everyone and anyone can submit their amazing photos of Cape’s farms, fields and the people who grow our food to, photo@alewivesbrookfarm.com. We want photos from every month of the year to put together the most beautiful scenes of Cape Elizabeth farm life into a calendar. Submit your digital photos for each and every season, as many and as often as you like. Email your shots, along with your name, email address, phone, and date and location of your masterpiece.
Cape’s Fresh Produce Pantry will Open June 26. Judy’s Produce Pantry will open for its third season on Tuesday, June 26th at the United Methodist Church on Ocean House Rd. We plan to stay open until Nov. 20th this year to offer fresh, locally grown produce to Cape individuals and families with limited resources right up to Thanksgiving. Last season, we welcomed 35 participants, including seniors on fixed incomes, others who had lost jobs or had significant medical expenses, and parents trying to feed their families with healthy food. Produce came from Cape’s two community gardens, gardeners who donated from their backyard plots, and several Cape farmers who generously gave 950 pounds out of the total of over 2300 pounds. The needs in the community continue and we’d like to be able to offer more produce to more Cape families this season. We also wish to reimburse our farmers to help defray the costs of their generous donations. If you’d like to support this fund, checks payable to Judy’s Produce Pantry can be mailed to Nancy Miles, 243 Bowery Beach Rd., Cape Elizabeth. We also hope to increase the supply of non-perishables offered along with the produce. Residents interested in sharing Cape’s harvest either as a recipient or a donor of funds or produce from backyard gardens, or as a volunteer to staff the pantry, can contact Nancy Miles at nmiles@maine.rr.com or 767-1031. In the meantime, we urge you to consider continuing to help neighbors through other food pantries and relief programs that operate year-round. Pantries in Scarborough, South Portland and Portland are all open to Cape residents; for more info., click here.
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