Pascia's Blog

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #14: (4/26 - 5/2)

110.65 hours / 120 total hours required 

Monday 4/27:

Monday began with the usual task of watering the plants in the greenhouse. I then continued to pot up the remaining eggplant into individual pots to sell at the plant sale. Tommy had been preparing a couple beds outside in field 2 for planting some brassicas into. He tilled them with the BCS tractor, rolled them with the bed roller, and then used the bed marker to create roughly 12” spaces between each plant. We got 4 rows done in a relatively short amount of time, considering the amount of plants that was! Row 1 was broccolini, row 2 broccoli, row 3 cabbage and row 4 cauliflower. The soil was easy to work with due to the recent tillage. We then watered the transplants in and covered them with ultra-fine mesh netting to keep the cabbage worms/ loopers off. 

Wednesday 4/29:

Wednesday, I watered and fertilized the greenhouse, as well as watered the high tunnel. I also went through and organized all of the plants for the plant sale, getting a count of how many trays of each variety we had ready to go. I seeded more greens for salad mix, lettuce heads, and bok choy, as well as zinnias. I also made a really delicious stir fry from the farm bok choy for dinner this night!

Thursday 4/30:

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #13: (4/19 - 4/25)

101.9 hours / 120 total hours required 

Monday 4/20:

Monday there was a scheduled campus tour including the farm area, so we spent some time organizing and cleaning up the greenhouse some more. Then we potted up rosemary, lavender and cosmos for the plant sale. We weeded the high tunnels some more with the stirrup hoes, loosening the weeds and leaving them on the soil for mulch. The key to weed suppression for the season is getting to them early, before they’ve set seed. And the more soil is covered, the less chances for weeds to germinate. Tommy also worked on downsizing the tree nursery next to the greenhouse in order to get the garden shed moved over there. 

Wednesday 4/22:

Wednesday we focused more on potting up for the plant sale. We did calendula, zinnia, & marigolds in packs, and cucumbers, zucchinis, and eggplants in individual pots. I also seeded corn, alyssum, calendula, and marigolds. It’ll be good to have all of these flowers to attract beneficial insects to the crops and/or repel harmful ones.

Thursday 4/23:

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #12: (4/12 - 4/18)

92.65 hours / 120 total hours required 

Monday 4/13:

Monday we spent time potting up tomatoes for the plant sale and for farm use. We did 2 flats with 18 pots each of 4 different varieties of tomatoes: Cherry Bomb, Brandy Wine, San Marzano, and German Johnson to sell at the plant sale at the end of the semester. The remaining tomatoes were transferred to larger cells to save space and give them a little more growing room.

Wednesday 4/15:

Wednesday was spent seeding more successions of lettuce (salanova mixed greens), head lettuce, and bok choy. We also started some basil and parsley, as well as rudbeckia and sunflowers. The sunflowers were planted directly into the containers we will sell them in because they’re fast growers and need lots of root space. We also continued potting up peppers for the plant sale. We spent a bit of time rearranging the greenhouse so that plant families and varieties were together, in order of maturity. This will help when we need a count of plants for the sale. After that, we walked around the orchard and cleaned up some of the piles from cutting brush with the tractor.

Thursday 4/16: 

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #11: (4/5 - 4/11 )

84.15 hours / 120 total hours required 

Wednesday 4/8:

This week was a bit slower and quieter as far as the workload. Wednesday we went out to the farm and checked on the emerging garlic plants. The Sustainable Agriculture class planted them last fall and covered them up with leaf mulch to overwinter. Most of the plants were emerging fine, but some had difficulties popping up due to the thick leaf cover, so we went around and dug some of them out and righted their stems. We also weeded and watered the high tunnels, which were starting to accumulate more and more weeds due to the warm temperatures there. We also seeded some cucumbers, zucchinis and zinnias. 

Thursday 4/9:

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #10: (3/29 - 4/4 )

79.15 hours / 120 total hours required 

Wednesday 4/1:

Wednesday was spent seeding more salad mix, bok choy, lettuce, calendula and marigolds. The calendula and marigold will be for the May plant sale, and the greens will be planted out at the farm. I also transplanted some lettuce and bok choy into the high tunnel. I had to prep the beds with a stirrup hoe to rough up the soil and remove weeds, then use a bed marker which designates spacing, and finally watered them in. I also had my interview with Erin Coker for a little video on the SUNY Adk Agricultural Business Program spotlight. 

Thursday 4/2:

Thursday we fertilized the high tunnel and greenhouse. We also spent time looking into another gothic high tunnel for the farm through a grant program. I also helped Tommy start clearing out the garden shed in order to prepare for it to be moved next to the greenhouse. Here, it will be used as a potting shed rather than a catch-all. 

Friday 4/3:

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #9: (3/22- 3/28)

70.65 hours / 120 total hours required 

Monday 3/23:

Monday we seeded pea shoots for microgreens again and spent some time re-arranging the greenhouse. We grouped like plants together in order from seeded date. We also spent some time removing the old tape residues from the seed trays. We use a wax pencil to write on the trays to indicate date and variety, and the residue makes it difficult to write on. 

Wednesday 3/25:

This day was another big seeding day, starting our first round of cucumbers, eggplant, basil, cosmos and rudbeckia. It started to really feel like spring here, seeding such tender crops! After seeding, we went out to the field and placed a silage tarp to kill the sod in order to create a new row crop bed. We used bricks and cinder blocks to anchor it down. It was quite a windy day to be doing that! (and P.S., it did get blown around after about a week or so… more bricks next time!)

Thursday 3/26: 

Thursday was the Native Plant Symposium hosted by the SUNY Adirondack Agricultural Business Program, planned by Professor Kim London. This event was really interesting, and there was a lot to see and learn about. I listened to the sessions on native landscape design, wild food and medicines, and participated in the demonstration chestnut planting out on the farm. I think this was a really great opportunity for students and community members to learn about the benefits of native plants!

Friday 3/27 /Saturday 3/28 /Sunday 3/29: 

Not through the school, I had the opportunity to accompany one of my gardening clients on a trip to Kennett Square, PA area to visit a bonsai nursery and Longwood Botanical Gardens. Gayle Fiato is a very talented potter who takes inspiration from natural wonders of earth and incorporates these into unique bonsai pots. Nature’s Way Bonsai was hosting an event called Woodstock, featuring bonsai masters and artists Chase Rosade, Jennifer Price, and Jim Doyle. There were a few attendees working on their own trees, pruning, shaping, wiring, and repotting. It was really interesting, and the company was great. Everyone was so kind. I was even gifted a tree of my very own!

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #8: (3/15- 3/21)

62.4 hours / 120 total hours required 

Monday 3/16:

Tommy and I went around collecting the branches and brush from the apple tree pruning lab a few weeks prior. I wanted to do a little experiment to see if the pruned branches would still leaf and/or bud, so we stuck one in water in the greenhouse, and I took one home to keep inside as well. I messaged my boss at the flower farm to see her thoughts and she told me they probably wouldn’t flower, but it was worth a shot! We discarded the branches off the trails by the outdoor education course using the gator. Then with the remaining time, we threw some clover seed down between the garlic pathways as a green mulch.

Thursday 3/19:

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #7: (3/8-3/14)

57.15 hours / 120 total hours required 

Monday 3/9:

During spring break, I decided it would be a good idea to pick up some extra hours to stay on track of my target of 120 total hours. I worked two six-hour shifts at the farm that week. Monday began with watering everything in the greenhouse. By this point, the bok choy looked ready to be planted out, and the microgreens ready to be harvested. The main goal of this day was to get the high tunnel in proper shape for planting into. This included removing crop residues and stubborn roots from the celery crop from last fall. These were pretty tough, I think some of the plants would have even considered coming back if we let them be. I also made sure to go through and pick out the bermuda grass that has started creeping in from outside. This is one of the most noxious and pervasive weeds that can get into your garden. It’s very commonly used as a turf grass due to its high heat and drought tolerance, as well as its rapid and vigorous growth. It spreads via rhizomes deep in the soil, which are really difficult to get out. If you leave even one small section, they will come back without fail. Hopefully I got a lot of them! Tommy also continued boiling the maple sap, and I added more liquid as it condensed.

Tuesday 3/10:

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #6: (3/1 - 3/7)

45.15 hours / 120 total hours required 

Monday 3/2:

Monday began with the usual watering of the greenhouse, as well as “microgreen Monday”. This week was pea shoots, 6 trays worth per usual. Then we checked the sap buckets to see what the freeze/thaw warmer weather had provided us with. Tommy had checked them Saturday and got about a full 5 gallon bucket’s worth of sap. When we checked, they were pretty low and frozen still on Monday. From here, I prepared one of the center beds of the high tunnel for planting “oversized onions”, which are used mostly for greens, or smaller scallion-like bulbs rather than full-sized cooking onions. Bed Preparation involved using the stirrup hoe and breaking up the first 6” of soil to create a light, fluffy base to plant into. After roughing up the soil, I went over it with a stone rake to smooth out the bed. Because it had been tilled in the fall, there wasn’t need for the broad fork (which aids in aeration and loosening the soil), but normally you’d use that as one of the first steps in bed preparation. Then, we planted the onion bulbs in 4 rows, tightly packed together. The dense planting inhibits large underground bulb formation, forcing them to grow long stalks upward due to the competition. We also planted some garlic cloves for early spring garlic, which can be used in the same manner as scallions or leeks. I believe we planted eight feet of each type: a red onion, a yellow onion, and the garlic. 

Wednesday 3/4:

Wednesday was the seeding date for Farao cabbage, so those were started in 72-cell trays. I also spent some time in the high tunnel weeding the existing plants (kale, some lettuces & bok choy) with the stirrup hoe, being careful not to disturb the plants as I wove in between them with the hoe. The greenhouse and high tunnels both were fertilized with the chilean nitrate & potassium sulfate mix, but the high tunnel received one tablespoon extra of nitrate. Leafy vegetables have greater nitrogen requirements than other plants, especially seedlings. I also checked the maple buckets and harvested the sap, which had thawed out and produced more since the day before.

Thursday 3/5:

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #5 (2/22 - 2/28)

36.5 hours / 120 total hours required

Monday 2/23: 

This week was a bit more laid back and slow. Monday began with watering and rearranging the greenhouse. We moved the pea shoots over to the sunniest corner with heat mats placed under them in order to speed up their maturation process. We also removed all of the flats that had already germinated off from the heat mats and over to the other side of the greenhouse to make room for the pea plants. We seeded another succession of microgreens, this week arugula and spicy mix. These are sown directly onto the surface of the soil, watered in and then covered with trays to ensure uniform germination by creating a dark, humid environment. 

With a variety of leftover seeds from previous years, we made a flower & herb mix. This was a good way to use up leftover seeds that may have questionable germination rates. We plan to broadcast them over pots and sell mixed pots for the plant sale come spring. 

Wednesday 2/25:

We fertilized the greenhouse on Wednesday with the same fertilizer mix as last week and filled up the reservoir that supplies our water for the winter. We also seeded three trays of mixed lettuces for salad mix, and one tray of bok choy.

Thursday 2/26:

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #4 (2/15-2/21) 

28.4 hours / 120 total hours required

Monday 2/16: Monday began with watering the greenhouse and high tunnels. There was one tripped trap near the entrance of the greenhouse, but no mice were caught. We may need to position them closer to the entrance holes, as they were able to sneak around them. Baiting might be necessary, too at this point because they might have caught on... After that, I sowed 6 more flats of pea shoots for microgreens. 

Then I spent a bit of time cleaning up and reorganizing the greenhouse space, sweeping and reorganizing the trays to ensure that they all got adequate lighting, heat, and space. 

Then I went inside and worked on the google spreadsheet for the 2026 crop plan, inputting plant varieties, tray (cell) sizes, and number of trays needed. Deciding which varieties to start at a given date is determined by their hardiness/tolerance to heat/cold. For example, we are planning to start a few different varieties of bok choy, and some are more suited for warmer weather due to their slow bolting property, so we want to start those closer to when it warms up outside, usually around the beginning of May. Bolting is a stress reaction to heat or changes in day length that causes the plant to produce a vertical stalk, which results in a tough texture and bitter taste. It essentially is signaling to the plant that its lifetime is over, and it’s time to divert its energy into seed production, and away from leafing.

Wednesday 2/18: On Wednesday, we fertilized the seedlings in the greenhouse with an organic fertilizer mix of Chilean nitrate and potassium sulfate. The chilean nitrate has a NPK (Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphorus) ratio of 15-0-2, which provides plants with an immediate, readily available form of nitrogen. The potassium sulfate at 0-0-50 provides significant amounts of potassium and sulfur. Nitrogen is needed for leafing and photosynthesis, while potassium provides root development, stem structure, and water uptake regulation. For every 2 gallons of water (one watering can full), 2 tablespoons of nitrate and 1/4 tsp of potassium sulfate are added and mixed until fully dissolved. After that, we pruned more of the apple trees in the orchard, removing higher limbs from trees that the students from last week may have missed, as well as the cherry trees, which hadn’t had much pruning over the years.

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #3 (2/8-2/14) 

18.15 hours / 120 total hours required

Monday 2/9: We began this week with a meeting with Professor Cahill discussing the upcoming Agroecology labs. We coordinated the seasonal farm work with hands-on immersive lab assignments for the next few weeks. This week’s focus was on the campus orchard, specifically pruning the apple and pear trees. We worked out a list of the tools we’d need including hand pruners, loppers, hand saws and pole pruners, which we gathered from the farm and nursery sheds. After our meeting, we continued to succession sow microgreens, this time seeding some arugula and spicy mix comprised of red and green mustards. We did three trays of each type in the same type of row trays. Our seedlings from two weeks ago (1/28) had lots of germination, which was a good sign! The bok choy was especially vigorous in growth, followed by the lettuces and rosemary. The celery was taking an especially long time to germinate, which is normal (2-3 weeks) but some very small sprouts finally showed up this week. We also set some mouse traps in the large high tunnel. We went around and checked for new entry points after covering up all their holes last week, and placed unbaited traps at their entrance points. In Tommy’s experience, mice are very habitual creatures and follow the same paths every day, so we didn’t even need to bait the traps, as they’d just walk right into them. He told me that most of them were tripped within a day! Success.

Wednesday 2/11:  On Wednesday, Tommy showed me a prototype he’d been working on for the industrial spinner we use to clean the salad mix. The lid to the spinner has a big hand crank on it that can be unwieldy to maneuver due to the size of the bucket. So he sought to create a solution by designing an attachment that allows him to spin the basket with a power drill using a 3D printer platform. After that, we spent some time in the orchard pruning apple trees. We used small hand-held pruners for removing water sprouts, which are fast-growing vertical shoots usually put out due to stress. Since we had such a dry summer, there were lots of these. But we made sure to save a handful from each tree for Dr. Scherbatskoy to use in a grafting demonstration come spring. For the bigger limbs, we used hand saws, and for the higher branches a pole saw/pruner. These trees hadn’t had a significant pruning in quite a while, so this year we hope to reshape some of them so that their leaves have enough sunlight to produce fruit. 

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #2 (2/1-2/7) 

8 hours / 120 total hours required

Monday 2/2: This week began with “Microgreen Monday”. Microgreens are crops specifically grown for their nutrient-dense sprouts or shoots. The plants are harvested just after the first leaves develop, and will not regrow once cut. So, they must be sown in succession weekly. Tommy sells them to Seasoned on a regular basis. We did six trays of pea shoots on Monday, which will likely be mature enough for harvest in about two weeks. In the summer, this time can be cut in half. Microgreen trays are different than other typical seeding starting trays. They are divided into lengthwise row channels, which allow for denser distribution of seeds, easy harvest and cleanup, and time efficiency. Because these crops are grown only for a short period of time, they can be crowded and don’t need much space for major root development. It makes sense to plant seeds into divided individual cells if your intention is to transplant them, but in this case, that is not the goal. Seeding microgreens involved filling the trays about ¾ of the way with moist potting soil, using about 2-3 tablespoons of seed and spreading it evenly across the surface, and then covering them up with a thin layer of soil. Then, they were watered well and covered with an inverted tray. The darkness signals to the pea that it is adequately buried in the soil where it will get proper moisture levels, a feature called negative photoblasticism. After the peas were done, we set up some supplemental grow lights in the greenhouse where our crops from last week were resting. The greenhouse is shaded out at times due to the surrounding trees and buildings, so this was just an extra measure to ensure that they are receiving adequate light in order to germinate and grow properly. Finally, we met with Professor Cahill and discussed the plan for Thursday’s lab.

Wednesday 2/4: This day, we spent some time organizing and cleaning up in the greenhouse in preparation for the lab. This involved sorting pumpkins and squash from last fall’s harvest, moving some trays around to make some solid workspaces, and getting the trays distributed and placed at each station. From here, we went out to the high tunnels and inspected and inspected them for pest damage. We noticed that there were lots of lettuce plants chewed down to stubs, or missing all together. The mice or voles didn’t seem to bother the kale or bok choy as much as the lettuce. We found lots of holes along the border of the new high tunnel, where the pests had dug through the wood chips, as well as some holes and channels in the beds. We went around the perimeter of the high tunnel and filled in all of the holes to see where the active ones are and hopefully to put out some traps. The smaller tunnel didn’t have any pest damage on the crops, which I found surprising. Then I watered everything with signs of life.

Pascia Offield- SUNY Adk Farm Internship

Week #1 (1/25/-1/31)

3 hours / 120 total hours required 

Having worked on the SUNY Adk. Farm last fall, I feel very excited to have the opportunity to work with Tommy again this spring to get the full picture of market vegetable farming. 

On Tuesday, January 27th, I met with Tommy Donolli, the Farm Manager and Susan Wynkoop, Director of Continuing Education and Workforce Innovation to discuss the terms and scheduled hours of my internship. Working together, we were able to make a tentative schedule that works around my courses, but it’s subject to change due to the seasonality of the work. I was even given the opportunity to assist Michael Cahill in his Agroecology class as a lab assistant/student helper! I feel like this will be a huge opportunity for me to begin to develop my instructional skills, and he seems very excited to have me help out.

On Wednesday, January 28th, I began my internship by meeting with Tommy and  looking over the proposed 2026 crop plan for the farm. Tommy has all of the different crops categorized by their yield, number of rows needed, required spacing between each transplant, tray size, number of trays needed, variety and succession plantings. He decided that today is a good time to start slow-growers (rosemary, lavender & celery) and cold-hardy vegetables (bok choy and salad greens). The seeding dates are determined in accordance with the plants’ days to maturity, recommended transplant date, and our zone’s last frost date, usually around mid-May. 

We began by moistening and amending our potting mix with lime and a balanced organic fertilizer, taking time to ensure that everything was evenly distributed and incorporated. Then, we prepared our trays for seeding. Depending on the type of plant, different sized trays were used. For the lettuce and bok choy, we used 128-cell trays (smaller cells), and for the herbs and celery we used 50-cell trays (larger cells). Tommy uses special air pruning trays, which are made of a rigid plastic that is more durable than the typical flats used. They have large holes on the bottom which aid in removal for transplanting, stronger root development, and ample airflow for the seedlings. We used a white waxed pencil to mark the abbreviated variety names on each tray, along with the seeding date. I really like this practice because there’s no waste. These trays don’t disintegrate from solar exposure, and writing directly on them eliminates the need for single-use plastic plant tags. Filling the trays seems like it would be difficult, given that they have large holes on the bottom, but with adequate moisture, the soil holds together and fills up each cell nicely. It takes a few rounds of re-filling bare spots and tamping the flats before each cell is uniform. The celery and rosemary varieties were double seeded due to their low germination rates, while the other vegetables had one seed per cell. Only the celery seeds were covered, as the rest require light to germinate. 

After seeding, we watered the trays in with a watering can, making sure not to wash away any seeds or soil. Then, we placed them on top of heat mats in the brightest corner of the greenhouse and covered them with frost cloth to insulate them from the cold.

After seeding was complete, we weighed and sorted carrots and onions to be sent to Seasoned, the student-run restaurant in downtown Glens Falls. While we were outside in the shed gathering the carrots, we took a peek in the high tunnels to see how our lettuce, kale, and arugula were doing. We planted them in the fall, around October (?) in hopes to over-winter them to get a jump start on spring produce sales. Most of them survived! ...With the exception of some mole/vole-related disappearances…