Alpharetta's own Old Rucker Farm and Park is open to the public, from sunup to sundown, seven days a week. Amanda Musilli is Community Agriculture & Sustainability Services Manager for the City of Alpharetta Recreation, Parks and Cultural Services and develops the vision and goals for the Community Agriculture Program, ensuring alignment with City of Alpharetta regulations.
We caught up with her to talk all things FALL.
What will you be harvesting this month? We will begin harvesting the fall, or cool-weather crops, such as chard, collards, kale, and lettuce. Later in the season, we will begin to harvest the root vegetables, such as beets, turnips and radishes. The majority (about 90%) of the harvest is delivered to NFCC’s food pantry every Friday for their clients to add more fresh produce to their family’s plates. The other 10% of the harvest is sold by Cambridge High School Ag-Business students in their micro-farm business called AGaretta Box.
How can readers help?
Volunteers are essential for Old Rucker Farm to sustain. With over 1,200 volunteers spending time at the farm each year, there is absolutely no way the farm would produce as much fresh food for the food pantry (or look as beautiful) without them. We have volunteer opportunities 4-5 days per week. Some days we are working on field maintenance, and that includes trellising, pulling weeds, and planting. On harvest days, every Friday, we harvest fresh vegetables and herbs, bundle, bag, weigh, pack, and then load into the truck for delivery to NFCC. During peak times of the year, we add greenhouse days to the volunteer opportunities, which involves seeding or potting up the seedlings which will be planted at the farm, distributed to our home and community gardeners, set out for the Grow-A-Row and Homegrown Harvest growers, or delivered to one of our many partner sites, including 15 schools, two giving gardens, and two HOA gardens. In total, we grow approximately 31,000 seedlings from seed at Old Rucker Farm. All of our seeds are either organic or heirloom, and we start them in our germination room before they go outside into our new greenhouse (thanks to the ABA!) or our shade house.
This month, check out these workshops: Hive Set Up, Farm to Table Lunch, Greenville Field Trip - Tour of Rabbit Crest Farms, All About Compost with Britt Simonton.