Foxhaven Farm Field Day

 

Curly says, "Hello" from the Foxhaven Farm field day.

There was plenty to do from 10:30-2:30 at the farm's field day in Jefferson, MD. There were three stations, the first was a walking tour of their organic garden area, the second was under the tent to hear about the farm and some of the programs that they participate in and the third was a short walk to the environmentally friendly house on the property with a short stop to hear about the American Chestnut program on the farm.



There were a pair of Alpacas and a group of pack goats on display to touch and of course the children couldn't pass up the chance to touch and talk.

The things that I was most impressed by were their gardening practices and the house. We use companion planting but they had the marigolds growing in the same cage as the tomatoes. I had never thought of doing that. The other I-never-would-have-thought was to sew a combination of cover crops in the same strip, all mixed together. They use soybean, two types of clover and buckwheat.

The house was very cool, using quite a few passive solar ideas. They used concrete siding and composite (recycled plastic) decking. The interior floors were reused wood from another building and there was a greenhouse room that used flagstone for the floors and is well heated in the winter time by the wall of windows (currently shaded by the leaves of a tree). They use rain water gardens to handle the roof runoff and graywater. They also use a composting toilet system that was very interesting but not allowed in our state (yet). The home was well insolated with continuous insulation around the staggered studs. Very interesting!