by Colin Wilkinson

A year has passed since my last entry of The Green Thumb, and in that time so much has changed at Legacy Farms. New apprentices, new mentors, new business opportunities, new board members, and of course new crops. If you haven’t been keeping up with Legacy Farms outside of the Green Thumb, a lot of what I’ll cover this summer could be very unfamiliar to you. So I’m going to take the time to catch you up on some essential details before I cover anything upcoming.

Starting off with the most noticeable change, Legacy Farms greatly expanded their garden space at Temple Hall. Legacy’s plot of land has tripled thanks to a generous donation from Temple Hall. That’s not the only way Temple Hall has helped out, they’ve also helped maintain the land they’ve donated to Legacy. According to Legacy Farms’ Director of Operations, Billie Jo Bevan, Temple Hall has access to tools such as tractors and tillers that are necessary to maintain Legacy’s plot of land. What Temple Hall doesn’t have, is the workforce required to continuously tend a wide variety of specialty flowers, herbs, and vegetables.. Essentially, Temple Hall provides the space in which Legacy Farms can both plant the seeds of their garden and make sure those seeds bear fruit.

One program that has managed to grow in size is the Legacy Blooms CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).. How it works is simple; to support the farm early in the year, you pay for a 8- or 16-week share of beautiful, weekly bouquets that will be grown by the hard working apprentices and mentors at Legacy. Then once the flowers are fully grown, you can pick them up at select locations that have partnered with Legacy. For example, if you’re in the Leesburg area, you can pick up your flowers along with a cup of coffee at the SimplyBe coffee shop. 

The program has become so incredibly popular within its first couple years that Legacy Farms has funneled more resources into it. Firstly, the amount of shares for Legacy Blooms has increased, which means that more apprentices and employees can work on Legacy Blooms. This is important because it allows Legacy to serve more audience members. Secondly, the apprentices that work with Legacy Blooms are taught important skills such as flower farming and bouquet making as well as sales, photography, event coordination, and marketing. All of which are extremely useful abilities that can aid in the business world. 

For example, one of the apprentices (who can be seen in the photo below) has become very knowledgeable of the garden and bouquet-making; he has developed excellent skills in giving tours to visitors and is promoted to an Entrepreneurial Apprentice position. Another apprentice who is a natural leader and mentor has been promoted to Garden Team Lead and Mentor-in-Training. Most importantly, Legacy has been growing a wider selection of flowers to diversify their bouquets. It’s a garden, so of course the most important thing is the produce.

But that’s not the only way Legacy Farms has grown. Between the two CSAs and gardens, they’ve partnered up with twelve businesses this year in addition to local restaurants like Lightfoot Restaurant. For the Summer of Wellness monthly vegetable CSA these businesses include River-Sea Chocolates, Misty Meadow Mushrooms, Gratefully Rooted, Shanholtz Farms & Gardens, Leaflove Farm, and Weird Brothers Coffee.

Legacy works with partner businesses by featuring them in their CSAs and giving produce, herbs, and flowers harvested by Legacy to these businesses. In some cases, these businesses are even hiring or mentoring Legacy Farms’ apprentices. This allows Legacy to form a co-dependant bond with these businesses, which leads to the support of local businesses and a chance to show off Legacy’s work.

Another example of this can be found in the Legacy Blooms CSA program that is mentored by Fleur de Leah, supplies Old Dominion Flower Co-op and Farmer John’s, and delivers bouquets that are ordered through Legacy Blooms to local business partners of Legacy: GlowStudios, 100 Bowls of Soup, and Simply Be Coffee. 

As you’ve read, Legacy has grown a lot since my last article (over 1 year ago *cough* *cough*). But Legacy still has much more room to grow. In fact, they have plans to continue this expansion in the coming year.. They’re always welcoming new apprentices, donations, community service, and anything else that can help them out. By reading this article you’re helping Legacy by giving your attention to it. And if you’re ever looking for something to do on a slow summer day, consider visiting Legacy Farms at Temple Hall, and helping them tend to their garden. The hard working apprentices and mentors would appreciate it, and I’m sure you’ll have a great time!