CANTON -- Join TAUNY for the next Grow and Tell garden tour of the season. In 2021, TAUNY and littleGrasse Community Farm are partnering on the Grow and Tell Project, highlighting the local food and food traditions that help sustain us, through a series of garden tours, kitchen demonstrations, and more. After wonderful visits at littleGrasse and other gardens around the region, the next tour will return to littleGrasse Community Farm (Canton) on Friday, Sept. 17 from 10 a.m. to noon, to learn about their and other community members’ focus on growing and preserving delicious and healthy food to last through the long North Country winter.

This tour will focus on how littleGrasse farmers Flip Filippi and Bob Washo plan and manage dozens of vegetable and herb crops in a subsistence gardening model that feeds participating shareholders throughout the year. Responding to challenges and opportunities presented by the land and seasonal rhythms, they’ve spent years building the gardens, and their engagement with the community, to offer their mainstay Free Choice Fresh Share along with a Homestead Share that gives people the chance to get bulk produce to preserve and enjoy throughout the year. Join us to learn more about this approach from farmers Bob Washo and Flip Filippi as well as special guest speakers with their own homestead gardening and preserving experience, and about how this way of growing food fits into long-standing regional traditions of living off the land. Guest presenters will include Erica LaFountain (Potsdam), a Community Horticulture Educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County, who among other gardening and preserving experiences keeps busy on the homestead she established with her own family in 2013, right next door to the one she grew up on herself. Another presenter will be littleGrasse Homestead Shareholder Phil LaMarche (Canton), who will talk about how he actively engages his kids in preservation activities that brighten their meals throughout the year. TAUNY Folk to Table Director Camilla Ammirati will also share highlights from the Grow and Tell project over recent months.

There is a “pay as you will'' suggested donation of $0-25 for this event to support TAUNY’s ongoing programs and projects, including the Grow and Tell Project. Spots are limited and registration is required at tauny.org/shop under “Programs.”

Following this tour, the final garden visit of the series will be a seed-saving-focused walk and discussion at littleGrasse Community Farm on Saturday, Oct. 10. Learn more about the ongoing Grow and Tell Project and related programs and features at tauny.org, and drop us a line to share your own stories of the food you grow or get locally and how it connects to your traditions at camilla@tauny.org.

The TAUNY Center is located at 53 Main St. More information is available at tauny.org.