Potluck Schedule
Pesticide Monitoring Field Day
Farm Update

Potluck Schedule:
Our summer potlucks, open to everyone, started last Friday, on the farm (366 W Ave, Ames, IA 50010)!! Most Fridays we will have a potluck on the farm with dinner from 6 to 7 and a roundtable discussion from 7 to 8 PM. Each potluck includes a fascinating person leading a discussion about some topic that is important to them, and hopefully important and fun for us as well! See list below, scheduled by Shari Reilly:

· Friday, May 25: Valuing others through spirituality/religion Morgan Landon, farm volunteer will help us talk about this topic

· Friday, June 1: no potluck. We are having a Practical Farmers of Iowa field day on Thursday (See next section)

· Friday, June 8: the Occupy movement- some people from the Des Moines Catholic Worker house, who have been quite involved in the Occupy group down there, will come to talk about what's going on.

· Stay tuned to future e-mails for more topics! Feel free to suggest topics and speakers to Shari at shari@staparish.net or 515-509-6851. Thanks!

Pesticide Monitoring Field Day

on Thursday, May 31st we will host a field day in coordination with the Practical Farmers of Iowa and the Pesticide Action Network. Here's information about the field day from Practical Farmers:
Are you concerned about pesticide drift and its effect on your farm business or your health? Have you been affected or had losses that might be due to drift? Attend this field day to learn more about the Drift-catcher Program taught by scientists from the Pesticide Action Network (PAN). Get hands-on details for monitoring drift using the PAN-created monitoring tool to scientifically monitor air samples.Emily Marquez, staff scientist for the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) and Linda Wells, Midwest organizer for PAN will lead this educational activity. Supper will be provided, and space is limited, so please RSVP by May 24 to Tomoko at PFI at: 515.232.5661 or tomoko@practicalfarmers.org.
Practical Farmers will be hosting several events throughout the year, I'd reccomend you attend a lot of them, here's their schedule: http://www.practicalfarmers.org/Field_Guide_2012.pdf

Farm Update
The farm is doing well. Last week we started our deliveries for the year, harvesting lettuce, sorrell, rhubarb, lovage, green onions, and a little bit of asparagus for our workers, and delivering them around town. Our test garden in town is already producing garlic scapes, so perhaps we'll have those soon as well. We've started planting some of our warm season crops, such as beans, and though it's been a bit dry lately, the season continues to go well.

Workday this Saturday from 1 to 5
The workday will be this saturday, May 19, from 1 to 5PM.
In order to keep it going well, we need some help planting out some of our other warm season crops, such as tomatoes, peppers, and maybe some more beans. We'll also likely be doing some weeding of some of our cool season crops, and some other general farm tasks. Come help and see the farm!