Many Hands Make Light Work

Sometimes work on the farm or your garden can seem overwhelming, with tasks piling on one another, especially near the end of a long, hot summer season. In times like this, it’s always helpful to have a few extra hands around to make the workload a little lighter! Recently High Rocks hosted a team of ten Americorps NCCC members to help the Local Foods Team with some tasks around their Ruby Grow site and the High Rocks campground.

What is the NCCC? Well it stands for the National Civilian Community Corps. It’s a team-based, full-time service program helping young adults gain leadership skills to make a difference in communities all across the nation. And during their stay from late August to mid-September, ten members got to make a difference right here at High Rocks.

Led by the High Rocks Local Foods Team the NCCC team helped with many tasks around our farm sites. Being the end of the summer season, it was high time many plants got taken out of production and transferred to the compost pile. Before that, however, they helped with one last big harvest of our corn, kale, beans, cucumbers, and onions.

But just because some things on the farm are ending for the year, doesn’t mean everything is! They also helped weed and maintain our other plants kept in high tunnel production including peppers, tomatoes, and basil. And speaking of high tunnels, the NCCC members also helped out with our Grow Appalachia season extension workshop where we taught our Grow Appalachia gardeners about the benefits of high tunnel production and how it can greatly increase your production even after summer begins to wind down.

All in all we were very grateful for their stay here and all the hard work they contributed. Our transition into Fall has now been a lot smoother thanks to this dedicated and helpful team