The Berkshire Farm Center’s Garden Sale and Family Fun Day in Canaan was the first stop on the hunt for spring plants. They had a gorgeous day. The Farm’s greenhouses were filled with color. Bruce Wood had a cast of volunteers scurrying around helping eager buyers select their annuals, perennials, vegetables, herbs, hanging baskets, and planted boxes.  

The annual plant sale is a big event for the Farm. All the proceeds from the two-day fundraising event benefited the Berkshire Children's Fund, established by Berkshire Farm Center & Services for Youth. The Berkshire Children's Fund provides funding for innovative programs that are not funded by other means, programs such as Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, and Adventure Based Counseling.

This year I kept my shopping simple: herbs and no tomatoes. In the past I went crazy and bought every cherry tomato Woody and the boys geminated in the greenhouse. I know I will find some of those volunteer tomatoes popping up in my garden this summer.

Then it was off to the Kinderhook Green to scope out the bounty the Garden Club of Kinderhook had amassed. I got there around the time the sky was getting dark and the club members called “Buy one get one free!”  The perennials, annuals, bulbs, house plants, small shrubs, and vegetables were pretty well picked clean, but I did find some herbs and a blackberry bush.

On Wednesday, May 20, Mary Costa, Connie Mondel and Donna Peterson called for volunteers from the Austerlitz Historical Society to help create the new 19th-century historic vegetable garden. The four beds were established on Wednesday on the left side of the front entrance to the Morey-Devereaux House. The soil and composted manure was delivered and placed in the staked area by Donna Peterson, Mary Costa, and Bruce Stockman. On hand to form the beds, rake, weed and prepare the walkways were Charlotte and Ruppert Fennell, Mary Costa, Donna Peterson, Hal Veerkamp, Connie Mondel, and Stan DeRuggiero. Potatoes were planted.

On Wednesday, May 27, the group will meet at 5:30 p.m. to seed the other beds with tomatoes, beans, peas, and onions. At some point there will be a wooden fence which volunteers will construct to replace a temporary netting protection.

Vivian Wachsberger, Mary Costa, Gai Eckhoff, and Sue Carroll