Veggie: 3 full-share working shares will be offered for the 2011 season. For 2 hours a week of garden help throughout the season, each volunteer will receive a full share. Activities will include prepping beds, transplanting, mulching, weeding, harvesting, and washing vegetables.

Floral: 1 floral working shares will be offered for the 2011 season. For 25 hours of help in the flower labyrinth, this volunteer can pick bouquets for him/herself throughout the season. Activities will include: prepping beds, tansplanting, mulching, weeding, harvesting, and arranging bouquets for the farm stand.

Academic Externships:

A combination of hands-on activities on the farm and academic pursuit. This could be anything from creative writing inspired by activities on the farm, to developing a recipe book for the CSA, or researching the economic viability of organic certification on small-scale farms. The sky is the limit! Together, we develop a curriculum, a reading list, and organize visits to other farms and agricultural institutions. The student is responsible for applying for independent study credit through his or her institution, and must have a supporting faculty member advisor.

Field Trials

If you’re not learning, you’re not growing. It is important to continue to expand our understanding of what is going on in our agricultural fields so that we can build on what works, and develop our appreciation for the complexity of the systems we are working with. To this end, Shoving Leopard Farm is always on the lookout for fun trial to run that might help further the efforts in sustainable agricultural research. Come and be part of the exciting world of data-collection and analysis!

Nutrient Density Trials: For the second year, SLF will participate in an exciting – and possibly revolutionary field trial with Real Food Campaign comparing the nutrition value of crops grown with and without various soil amendments and biological inoculants. We will be following various vegetable crops from seed to fruit, and measuring everything from seed-emergence, to growth-rate, to Brix measurements, to yield. We hope to find out how much feeding the soil and its inhabitants can improve the quality of the food we harvest from it.

The Core Volunteer Group

This is open to CSA and non-CSA members alike. As a Core Volunteer Group member, you will come once a week for an hour or two throughout the season to help out with transplanting, weeding, mulching, and harvesting. This is a way to participate in the Shoving Leopard community.

Garden Party Calendar

Come and get your hands dirty!

Everyone is welcome to participate in any and all of these work parties. We promise a good time, bad jokes, and farmer's tan if the sun is out. If you have them, please bring your own work gloves, and wear muddiable clothes and shoes and hat. Sun screen and lunch will be provided.

Please arrive at 9:30 AM for introductions, coffee/tea/juice, and a descrition of the projects. We will work from 10-12:30, then eat a hearty farmer lunch.

The parties will happen sprinkle or shine - heavy rain will keep us out of the garden. If you plan to attend any of these garden work parties please email so that we can plan activities and lunch accordingly.

Beginning in April

The first and third weekend of each month we will have a garden work party with activities that may include, but will not be limited to, harvesting, weeding, planting, mulching, chopping wood for maple syrup this winter, carpentering, building a cob oven, pressing apples for sweet and hard cider, seed-saving, tilling, and general merry-making.

The Shoving Leopard Seed Bank

Little by little, we are saving more and more of our own seeds. Join us in this learning experience, and help us harvest seeds from vegetable, flower, and cover crops! The saved seeds are primarily for our own use, but as our germination rates increase, we will be able to offer some for sale as well.