CAASTLC's Seeds of Hope Farm

11/14/2024

Thanks to everyone who came out and celebrated our Fall Fest. We had a great time with a Trunk or Treat, decorating pumpkins, enjoying some hot dogs and cider, potato sack racing, and touring the fall veggies around the farm!

09/24/2024

09/05/2024

Who is eating all our corn? Who, who, who? The raccoons are eating all our corn.

08/29/2024

Our new Farm to Fork date is Tues, Sept. 10th. We hope you can join us!

08/27/2024

The heat is on! Our Farm to Fork community dinner and cooking class is POSTPONED for safety's sake and we will announce a September date very soon. Stay tuned! Stay cool!

08/24/2024

This Weds! Come join us at the farm for our Farm to Fork community cooking class and dinner.

07/13/2024

I don’t find weeding eggplants to be very interesting but, being outside, a lot else can happen around me that fascinates me and teaches me new things. For example, I looked up to meet the gaze of a red-tailed hawk from a nearby power line. I decided to sit as still as the bird and watch for a few minutes. The red-tailed hawk is our most common hawk, in Missouri, and also North America. It spends most of its time 'still hunting' which is what I observed, just being still on a perch high over the ground, waiting for some kind of prey to stir beneath it, and then swooping down to catch it. It mostly eats rodents but its diet includes a great variety of animals, fish, birds, reptiles, insects, worms, bats.
Soon I saw a pair of mockingbirds harass the hawk in an activity called 'mobbing', by dive-bombing it, scratching at its back, and squawking in its face. But the hawk didn't bother to react in any way. Then a hummingbird flew close to the hawk and seemed pretty carefree about it too. Wow what a contrast! A hawk weighs nearly 200 times more than a hummingbird. I decided I wanted to learn more and read this article from the Audubon Society that describes how breeding hummingbirds choose to nest close to hawk nests because the hawks do not bother to eat them and deter their predators from approaching and raiding their nests.
Remember to look up from the weeds every now and again.
https://www.audubon.org/news/why-hawk-hummingbirds-best-friend
https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/red-tailed-hawk

06/27/2024

Hope you can join us today for a free cooking class and farm-fresh lunch!

06/24/2024

06/08/2024

Thanks to the folks at HDIS for your help at the farm on your Team Universal Caring Day. We did a lot! -transplanted okra, weeded out the pepper patch, picked up brush, planted raised beds, and helped create our first wildflower garden for visiting STEM students. The energy and enthusiasm you brought really made our day!!

06/02/2024

Are you sick of fighting weeds in the garden? Come check out our Herbicide-free W**d Management Demo!

05/18/2024

Have you ever noticed these growths on evergreen trees in springtime? They’re called candles and they are where the plant’s new growth for the year comes from. Basically that’s how much bigger the plant will get this year. If you want to limit the growth, or “prune”, the tree, just pinch off ½ to 2/3 of this new growth. But be careful! If you pinch off the whole thing, that branch may not be able to put on new growth in future years.

Below is a link with more info on pruning your evergreens. Or just watch the candles grow!

https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/pruning-evergreens/