Cooperative Coop Design

As you may or may not know, Spring Valley Student Farm currently has 7 resident chickens living happily in their little coop out in the garden. Recently, though we have begun to feel that 7 chickens simply isn't enough so we have decided to get more of these fine feathered fowl.These additional birds will be kept up at the second house which now means, eggs for everyone!
In order for us to get more chickens however, there has to be a place for them to live. So a few of us farmers took the liberty of drawing up some blueprints for our new chicken coop.
The coop can either be built from scratch or modified from our existing rabbit hutch.

The design includes 6 laying boxes (3 on each side) as well as an enclosed area beneath the coop where the chickens can scratch about during the day. One feature that we thought would be very important is the wide hatch located on the front of the coop. This would make cleaning the coop and feeding and watering the hens much easier.
And hopefully the chickens will love it too.

-Laura

Upcoming NOFA Conference

Howdy All!
It's hard to believe but February is almost over and March is just around the corner. We've been pretty busy at the farm getting things ready for the new planting season but we also have an exciting trip planned that is coming up soon!

March 3rd (next weekend!) we SVF farmers will be attending the 30th Annual CT Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Conference.
http://www.ctnofa.org/events/CAOC/2012/2012_Winter_Conference.html
The conference will be held at the Manchester Community College and will have all sorts of awesome workshops on subjects from permaculture, to bee keeping, to soil management, growing mushrooms, raising pasture fed hens, and even how to brew you own organic beer (Not that we at SVF have any need for that sort of knowledge)! All in all it should prove to be an informative and interesting Saturday and hopefully we will be able to apply some of what we learn at Spring Valley.

-Laura

Getting Down to Business

The semester is well underway and Spring Valley Farm is making big plans for the future.  Each of us is now busy writing up pieces of our new Constitution (Our Purpose, Responsibilities, Conflict Resolutions, Application/Admissions, Commitment to EcoHouse and Uconn, etc).  Doing so will likely eliminate the need for an R.A. next year, and we can thus add more farmers to our community with the newly available room (woo!).
We've mapped out which crops are going into which plot and now all that's left to do is to get all our seeds and plant! (when it warms up of course).  We're also ready to install a brand new Hoop House to grow some of our crops earlier.  Birch Cottage has also gotten approval to get their own chickens and coop; we're planning on making quite a chicken mansion.  With the addition of our huge newly plowed back plot and the plot behind Birch Cottage, we're going to have an intense growing season!

The party we had last week was a great success and we had a surprisingly impressive turnout!  We're planning on regularly hosting more of these parties from now on (two or more each semester).  Our next get-together is tentatively set for March 17th; hopefully this time the weather will permit us to do some fun outdoor activities (contra dancing anyone?) and we'll be able to make it more of a potluck with the addition of more homemade food.                                          

                                       Veggies, Sweet Potato Fries, Garlic Bread, and Cookies, Yum!

Some wholesome after-dinner games: Bananagrams and Spoons! What better way to spend a cold Saturday Night?

-Paul

We the People....

We the farmers here at Spring Valley Student Farm (student title was inserted because apparently there exists a Spring Valley Farm in CT already (Hi other SVF)), are attending to business with farm protocol (seed ordering and what not) but also are looking to set in place a constitution in order to sustain our community and help it develop. Upon meeting with Steve Kremer, director of ResLife, the other day and eating some delicious pizza, we decided to establish a plan and some type of documentation to maintain the community. Incorporating a constitution will also allow us to really determine what our mission is here and how we will go about achieving it. The meeting also laid out a loose plan for what's going to happen in the summer, basically going over the fact that three main farmers will be given positions to do a majority of the tasks and others who live there can help out as sharecroppers part time. Overall it was a rather productive meeting and the upcoming weeks will be very promising in terms of progress for SVSF.

Steve Kremer

The constitution that is going to be worked on by the community's members will delve into all aspects of a community including attending to tasks on the farm, resolving conflicts, and even making amendments and allowing for the system to be dynamic enough to change for the better if needed.
On a more fun note, we held a dinner party on Saturday night where many Ecohousers and some non-Ecohousers were in attendance. Games and festivities were conducted and it was wonderful.

-Chris

Spring is coming!

Hello folks!

It's a new year and we're undergoing some big new changes here at Spring Valley Student Farm. We had a very successful 2011 growing season. From May to November, we delivered over 3,500lbs of produce to UConn Dining Services! Wow!

Here's a shot of the backyard. To the left you
can see our new work-shed and washing station.
To the right you can see our rabbit hutch.
Dispersed around the yard are scarecrows which we made
with EcoHouse students at our autumn farm party

Earlier this month, we met with some of the chefs from Chuck and Augie's, a restaurant located in the UConn Student Union, in order to plan out what produce we will grow for them this year. C&A's is our primary venue on campus. This coming summer, in addition to South Dining Hall and Putnam, we will also be delivering to Northwest! Then, come Fall 2012, you'll find many SVSF seasonal items at Whitney Dining Hall in East Campus.

We are expanding our growing area by approximately 4,000 square feet this coming season, so we've been hard at work picking out seeds and materials from various catalogs as well as planning out our crop rotation schedule.  Some new notable crops will be added to the roster... along with some old favorites.

Here are just a few new & exciting varieties that we are going to be growing:

• Listada di Gandia - an Italian heirloom eggplant (yum!)
• Piel de Sapo - a type of muskmelon (the variety name literally means "toad skin" in Spanish!)
• Rose Finn Apple Fingerlings - an heirloom potato with deep red flesh
• Indigo Rose - a deep, dark red (almost black) heirloom tomato variety with a  high concentration of anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are plant pigments which have powerful health benefits and anti-oxidant effects!
• Bucklunch - a type of sugar beet which produces tubers up to 10lbs; they have a very high concentration of sucrose, which we intend to extract and use for our various cooking needs in an effort to become less reliant on refined sugar derived from sugarcane!
  

We're very excited for the upcoming season. All of the student farmers have been researching various crops and learning about developing rotation schedules to maximize productivity and reduce incidence of pests and diseases. Despite these January days which seem more like early-April, we're not yet ready to get started with planting... but all things in their own time. Time to go hibernate for a bit longer. :)

"Whatchu lookin' at?"

-brown

We have chickens again!

Who wants an omelet?

EcoHouse & SVF: Yale Farm Trip

Here's some pictures from our trip with EcoHouse to the Yale Student Farm in New Haven!

Photo credit: Kayla Bingham

A pleasant hello to all!

After an insanely productive summer during which Spring Valley Farm was practically overthrown by tomato plants, kale, and swiss chard (along with a flourishing of marigolds and a very amusing rectangle of corn) came the dawn of a new era! (cue that semi epic music here for more dramatic effect)

Many changes have fallen, or not so much fallen as waltzed, deliberately stumbled or arrived in place. Two very big ones being:

We have acquired a wonderful Julia! (and by Julia I mean farm manager who brings us bagels sometimes and cooks marvelous wasabi chicken. oh and helps us with planting and stuff, but that’s on the side… kidding, kidding)

We have acquired a second house. (well not so much we as UConn, and unexcitingly it didn’t fall from the sky onto a plot of land but already existing and in need of renovation)

SO! Inevitably that means there are more of “us” living at the farm this year.

We have…

Andrew B, resident coffee brewer and peanut butter [consumer|cookie maker]

Andrew L, resident carrot enthusiast and jam maker

Chris, resident musician and chief goofy dancer

Laura, resident [comic] artist and life commentator

Lina, resident apple fanatic and specialized food burner

Paul, resident painter and chief book reader

Shane, resident motorcyclist and avid “on repeat” music blaster

Tanner, resident early bird and wood burner

Tanya, resident pottery maniac and fish owner

Trevor, resident dreadie and rabbit lover

Andrew Le, resident grad student and marathon runner

Other inventory includes:

• A new shed (non-lead painted)
• Playset style chicken coop
• New fence extension! (without electricity running through it)
• And soon to arrive chickens!

[more to come sooooooooooooon] +[pictures]