Join Us for a
Flower Farm Tour!

Join Farmer Molly and flower farm apprentices for a guided tour of the HSPS Youth Farm, with a focus on the flowers, on Wednesday July 6th.

When: Wednesday July 6th
Time: 5:30-6:30 pm
Where: HSPS Youth Farm (meet at the CSA pick-up tent, 600 Kingston Avenue).
Come early to purchase yummy Youth Farm fresh vegetables and Red Jacket Orchards fruit at our farmers market (2:30 pm - 6:30 pm, every Weds.)

Molly and her apprentices are growing 55+ varieties of cut flowers at the HSPS Youth Farm. On this tour, you'll learn about the farm as a whole, as well as information about the various varieties of flowers grown and the work involved in growing cut flowers organically.

Bring your friends and family!

Please RSVP to molly@bkfarmyards.com

A Youth Farm Flower Update!

*Carroll Gardens Patch covers our upcoming flower sales at Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain: Check out the article here!


*A flower farm update from flower apprentice Chelsea Newson:
The past couple weeks—especially this past Wednesday, at the farm’s first Farmer’s Market—have made me so excited to be a flower apprentice. I have very little previous gardening experience, so it’s wonderful to be able to say that I’ve already learned so much about growing flowers, from how to make an organic insecticide (using water, vodka, natural soap, and garlic oil) to how to encourage more productive flower growth by “pinching” young plants to produce off-shoot growth. It was so exciting and inspiring to see how quickly our flowers sold at the market last week and how happy they made our customers (the cosmos and larkspur bouquets were my favorite), and now I’m all the more eager to keep growing more flowers and making more bouquets. I’m looking forward to harvesting new varieties and focusing in on a couple varieties that I will “specialize” in and research on my own, and also hope to learn more about soil identification, health, and care.

*A word from flower farmer Molly Culver:

At the Youth Farm, we’re breaking into new ground on a weekly basis! While we are growing several beds of flowers on the main “field” of the Youth Farm along Kingston Street, the majority of our flowers are being planted in a smaller, 2,500 sq. ft. area on the Wingate Campus along Rutland Street.

At the moment, we are doing a lot of intensive sod-to-garden bed conversion work by hand, using garden digging forks, spades and rakes. Flower apprentice Ethan Gallagher and I have been making roughly one more 4’x50’ bed every Tuesday (see photo above). The constant wave of new flower seedlings in our cold frames urge us along in our work, as they will soon need more space to spread their roots.

This past week was exciting as flower apprentices Chelsea Newson, Paola Sanchez, Whitney Richardson and I harvested our first Sunflowers (see a photo of a ProCut Orange "Sunny" above), Zinnias, Cosmos, Larkspur, and Calendula for our first market. We can’t wait to cut more this week.

There is a constant flow of work around this time of year -- from digging new beds, to weeding recently planted ones, fertilizing young transplants with fish emulsion (a rich source of Nitrogen that aids in early vegetative growth), trellising maturing flowers and now harvesting, we've got our hands full. I'm delighted to be working with such a hard-working and impassioned group of adult apprentices. The work of growing and maintaining this small, but intensively-planted flower farm would be very difficult without them. I also look forward to the imminent arrival of our troupe of Summer Youth, all students from the High School for Public Service.

Stay tuned for more next week!

Apply to Become a Flower Apprentice!

Youth Farm Seeks Flower Apprentices!

APPLY NOW to be a flower apprentice with Farmer Molly Culver at the Youth Farm. We are growing 60 varieties of cut flowers for our farmers market and a 15-20 member flower CSA distributed locally in Brooklyn.




Flower apprentices will learn many basic sustainable farming techniques used on organic farms, as well as some specific flower production techniques. These skills include:

• Selecting cut flower varieties
  
• Flower propagation and seedling care
• Bed preparation techniques (we used permanent raised beds, no lumber!)
  
• Crop management including weeding, pest/disease ID and maintenance and trellising
• Irrigation techniques for water conservation and soil health
• Cut flower harvesting and marketing
• Bouquet making
• Weekly workshops on above topics and more!

If you have a desire to learn about sustainable agriculture, and specifically cut flower production, please apply today! Download an application here. Applications are due June 17th at 5pm.

Please apply soon: apprentices will be selected based on desire to learn, demonstrated commitment to past projects, and timing. It's June, so there's lots to be done! Applicants will be selected on a rolling basis.

For any questions about the Flower Apprenticeship, please contact molly_culver@hotmail.com.

Read more about the Youth Farm here.

FLOWER SHARES
from the Youth Farm:
New this year!

Flower CSA basics:

• Receive a weekly bouquet of fresh cut flowers
  
• Flower varieties will vary each week
  
• Weekly deliveries: July 6th - October 5th
  
• Cost: based on a sliding scale
  
• Proceeds benefit the farm and the school!

About the flowers:
These flowers are not dyed or grown using pesticides. Our assortment of "heirloom" varieties might remind you of the flowers you grew up with in your mother's or grandmother's garden. Better yet, they will last longer in your vase because they are grown and harvested locally.

Find Out More & Sign Up! (Application & Brochure)

For more information on the flowers, please email molly_culver@hotmail.com.

Urban Cut Flowers are Here at the Youth Farm!

Hi! My name is Molly Culver, and I am a new face at the Youth Farm at the High School for Public Service in Crown Heights. I have been invited by Farmer Bee and Farmer Stacy to pilot what I proclaim as the city's first urban cut flower farm, on 2,000 square feet of lovely sandy loam soil.


I am hoping that the flower farm will serve as an educational plot for urban farmers, students and local community members who wish to learn more about growing flowers for market. I hope that the beauty, color and creativity that working with flowers requires will inspire a new wave of young flower farmers interested in cultivating heirloom varieties... These flowers will look a lot different that the flowers you find being sold at the corner store, which are often dyed, treated with chemicals and grown using pesticides and herbicides that are unsafe for the laborers who apply them.

I am growing 50 varieties of cut flowers this year, ranging from classics like Sunflowers, Zinnias, and Snapdragons to lesser-known essentials such as Larkspur, Mignonette, Scabiosas, and more... My hunch is that these VERY locally-grown cut flowers will hold up longer in the vase than the average bodega bouquet, and due to the rareness and unique beauty of the varieties, will sell themselves! The flowers will be sold at the Youth Farm farmers market on Wednesdays beginning June 22, and also to a restaurant or two. Flowers may be available for special events.

Our Saturday workdays on the farm are a great way to learn more about propagating, planting, fertilizing, trellising, watering, harvesting and marketing cut flowers. Please join me!

Stay tuned for weekly blog posts on the progress of the flowers at the Youth Farm. At the moment, we are busy turning over sod and building four new 70'x4' raised beds, while hundreds of baby flowers are growing steadily in our cold frames. Stock, Bells of Ireland and Zinnias are ready to be hardened off and planted next week, while Sweet Peas, Calendula and Bachelor's Buttons are already nestled in beds around the farm, awaiting their first foliar feeding and second bed weeding.