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What are Winter Squash?
Winter squash is a group of several species of annual fruit in the genus Cucurbita, including the popular butternut, acorn, delicata, and spaghetti squash. What we call “pumpkins” are also winter squash. Winter squash is different from summer squash, like the zucchini, because it’s harvested and eaten when the seeds are matured and the skin has hardened. Due to their hard rind and sweet dense flesh, they can be stored for long periods in cool dark storage, up to a year from harvest.
Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Essex County was awarded a $385,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as part of the Local Food Promotion Program. Funds will be used to expand CCE Essex’s existing Farm to School program into a Farm to Institution program, working with schools, hospitals, senior centers, retirement homes, correctional facilities, colleges and universities, and early child care centers.
Learn about how high-quality cultured butter is made, 
Adirondack Harvest and our annual Harvest Festival supports community businesses, the local economy, and fresh food access by creating awareness and understanding about farms, forestry, fiber and flower businesses in the Adirondacks.
With more people stuck inside during the pandemic, DIY projects have spiked and local contractors have also seen their services in demand.
One thing is sure: all of us have learned that the world can change overnight. So far, supply chains within the global food system have not been totally disrupted. Hopefully they won’t be. But food resiliency means a community has farms growing food on the soil surrounding community members. If supply chains break, your neighboring farms are growing food nearby. But in order for community farms to survive, they can’t be a last resort. Community members have to see the value in knowing that security is there, every day, and support it… or farms don’t survive.
The Annual Adirondack Harvest Board Meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday, March 3rd, and the Southern Chapter Meeting will be held at the Warren County Soil & Water Conservation District office on Schroon River Road in 
Farmers Markets (marketplaces where people gather to buy and trade goods and services, exchange news, and share stories with one another) can be traced back 5000-years, to Egyptian villages and towns along the Nile.
In this age of global markets and marketing, more often than not, the food we eat is grown on large industrial farms; then shipped across the country, or from central or South America, or overseas, to huge distribution centers, where it’s sorted, packaged, processed, and then trucked to chain supermarkets, convenient stores, and fast food outlets.
Last weekend, I attended the Adirondack Harvest Festival, which was held at the at the Essex County Fairgrounds and adjoining Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) office in Westport. The family-oriented event had something for everyone and proved to be a marvelous opportunity to see the diversity of small agriculture in northern New York, and to meet and speak with area small-agribusiness owners and Extension agriculture researchers and educators. And with free admission, free music, and free educational demonstrations, including gourmet mushroom cultivation, soap making, beginner beekeeping, cider pressing, and much more, CCE, along with participating farmer-presenters, and numerous sponsors (Thank you so much!) made it as inexpensive as possible for the hundreds who were there, to attend, learn, and generally make the most of the afternoon. 
Adirondack Harvest is co-sponsoring an educational workshop in Cross Island Farms’ Edible Forest Garden on Saturday, June 18 from 1 pm to 4 pm.
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