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Melissa Madden

@openspacescider

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Farmed & Foraged where welcome
🍎Apples, 🥚Eggs, 🦃Turkeys
🍾 PopUp Farm Bars: sober & boozy
👩‍🌾 Nature & Ag ed
🎈 FLX, Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ land

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Something special brewing – now serving BOUQUET TEA 🫖🫚🌼

Fresh ginger & plenty of petals: rose, lavender, two kinds of chrysanthemum, and chamomile take this cozy brew to the next level. Honestly it’s also killer as an iced tea, can’t go wrong. Try ‘em both! Add some honey and take it to the stratosphere!

We’re teaming up with Buffalo Street Books to celebrate Chef Natasha Pickowicz’s book EVERYONE HOT POT with a recipe from the book, and we’re so excited for Natasha’s upcoming Hot Pot in the Greenhouse dinner at @stickandstonefarm, Sunday Oct 18th.

When was the last time you gathered around a warming pot of aromatic broth, surrounded by friends & platters of sliced meats from @autumnsharvestfarm, tofu from @ithacasoy, farm-fresh vegetables, sauces beyond your wildest dreams… drinks by @openspacescider, and live music by @richie.stearns? Come, join us in the coziest greenhouse in town, for a night of broth-fueled reverie!

Best of all, 100% of the profits from this dinner go to support subsidized CSA shares at @fullplatefarmcollective. Let’s make some good soup together 💕

Tickets are still available at fullplatefarms.com/hotpot OR you can just head to the link in our bio. Hope to see you there.

📍 Stick & Stone Farm

🗓️ Oct 18th • 4-7pm

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Have you heard about HOT POT?!

NYC-based chef Natasha Pickowicz (and former Ithaca resident!) will be hosting a Chinese-style hot pot fundraiser for our Subsidized CSA program @stickandstonefarm

Guests will be treated to an opening reception with @openspacescider cocktails, music by @richie.stearns and snacks inspired by her cookbook Everyone Hot Pot, followed by a seated, communal, family-style feast highlighting the beautiful fall produce of the FLX, and so many other local food treasures. Hot pot is the interactive meal where no two experiences are alike: guests will be presented with an array of bite-sized morsels of uncooked food, like mushrooms, tofu, squash, leafy greens, herbs and noodles. Then, the guests will cook the bites of food themselves over a shared bubbling pot of flavorful, nourishing broth. There will be additional dishes to complement the soup, plus flavorful dipping sauces and cold beverages. For dessert, guests will be treated to a light, not-too-sweet array of fresh fruit.

It’s sure to be a one of a kind experience, we’d love to see you there!

Sunday 10/18 from 4-7pm in the greenhouse!

Tickets at link in bio.

100% of the nights profits will benefit Full Plate Farm Collective Subsidized CSA members.

#ithacany #flxfarmers #hotpot

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We’re so excited for these fall events coming up!

Natasha Pickowicz, NYC based chef and author of Everyone Hot Pot, is bringing her culinary delights to Stick and Stone Farm for a farm fresh Chinese style hot pot experience, full of local ingredients and paired with local beverages.

Sunday October 18th at @stickandstonefarm

And our annual harvest pairing at Remembrance Farm will bring together Remembrance Farm cheeses, wine pairings from @damianiwinecellars, and a special pairing menu crafted by chefs Jen Stan of @hereinhector and @just.a.taste.ithaca

Sunday, October 25th at Remembrance Farm

100% of event profits will support subsidies for folks in our community seeking support to access CSA shares, and all the fresh local organic produce, and community that comes with them.

Get tickets on our website today! Link in bio

Community support makes it all possible. Big huge thank yous to @openspacescider @rednewtcellars @hereinhector @just.a.taste.ithaca @damianiwinecellars @greenstar_coop @ithacasoy @high_ground_gardens @stickandstonefarm @richie.stearns, Tree Gate Farm, Three Stone Farm, Remembrance Farm for helping make these events happen!

EDIT: The support keeps rolling in! Thank you also to @autumnsharvestfarm @foodandferments @cafe_dewitt @wellspringforestfarm

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This Wednesday is the last farm to Food Truck of the season, and it’s going to be great!

Wednesday 9/30 from 4-7pm @stickandstonefarm

@stonebendfarm is bringing a fun new menu
House hummus W/ seasonal relishes (red pepper ezme, pickle relish, etc), Twice fired carrots w chimi, Green salad w house dressings, Lamb & beef kebab w/ Arugula/ yogurt / chives/ herbs, House foccacia w/ Butter add ons, Cookies, maybe more?!

@openspacescider Sober/Boozy Bar brining together the best of FLX beverages, plus a featured mocktail/cocktail

Live Music by Crooked Square (5-7pm)
Southern old-time swing band featuring Jerone Gagliano - fiddle, Lloyd Graves - banjo, Valerie Graves - guitar, Molly Kornblum- upright bass

@mazlabseeds Pepper Roast and Squash Talk
Come roast some peppers and nerd out about cool plants and delicious food with guests from Cornell’s Maz Lab.

Matt’s Magic! (5-7pm) - “Matt’s magic will blow your mind. Kids love it, but adults can’t stop talking about it. If you haven’t seen a professional “close-up” magician before, this is your chance. Matt does things with cards, coins, and rope that make the impossible happen right in your hands. Matt will be wandering through the crowd, giving you your own private show. Be sure to call him over to see some magic! Give a follow at @jarman.magic”

✨ as always in support of our subsidized CSA program ✨

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“…it’s an honor to feel this way”
.
The last few weeks have been filled with the highest highs and some challenging lows.
Not quite through to the other side just yet, but thanks to the light shown by this community I am able to see it.
.
My deepest gratitude to the folks who have rallied around this place, around us, around me. I cannot tell you enough that it means everything. That kind of action is what the future of the community we’re all working to build will rely on!
.
Love conquers all.
#powertothepeople

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It’s that time again! Our monthly farm fundraiser is coming up this Weds. 8/26 4-7pm @stickandstonefarm!

We’re excited to have…
🍽️ food from @jojocookflx
🥃 sober and boozy drink menu by @openspacescider
🎶 music by the beloved Lloyds Boys

As always, a portion of all sales from the evening will support subsidized CSA shares for folks in our community 🩷 all are welcome

Bonus! @mazlabseeds and @ny_squash_n_chili_man will be here talking squash and pepper breeding at Cornell. Come nerd out about plants and veggies with us and have some delicious food and drink for a cause. Hope to see you there!

#fullplatefarmcollective #ithacany #communitysupported

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Tomorrow! Weds 6/24! We’re kicking off the season with some of our new favorite food wizards from @farmtofeastny and our beloved beverage wizard @openspacescider at the farm this week!

Come on out to @stickandstonefarm Wednesday 6/24 4-7 for delicious food, drinks, music and community, all in support of our Subsidized CSA program 🩷

(Sorry for the typo in the previous post, too many numbers in my brain these days :)

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Maine Apple Camp is back at Camp Bishopwood in Hope this August! a LOT of fruit heads will be in attendance both on panels and generally attending this fun lil apple fest.

it’s not easy for growers to get away from the farm in August but if you can manage you will guaranteed have a damn good time. more info in the link in bio.

schedule is coming together but not 100% finalized. panels will be focused on genetic work, ex-situ grown seedling fruit, co-ferments, alt. commercial growing, and preservation orchard collaborations. stay tuned for updates.

all ages are welcome! there will be some kids programming.

registration is sliding scale $175-$350 //kids $100. a few scholarships are available as well. registration is limited to 150 people.

reach out w any questions! events@mofga.org

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If there’s a way within all of this for us to connect, I’m here. Especially if you want some 3 Sisters seeds (dm me). Or to thin apples for all of June in a beautiful space and to help me keep from losing my mind.

I think I said in the last post, the harvest potential is promising. With that great possibility comes great responsibility. Overbearing trees risk the possibility of the next year’s fruit, and there is a small window to course correct before the tree decides that it may in fact, take the following season off. Maybe I’ll see you out there!

As a goodbye-for-now, I’m grateful to have been here. It was a personally illuminating exercise in explaining myself. While I was processing my own journey, Jonas was putting up with some serious spring timing and professional angst issues (created by… me). Spray season is so hard, and I cry often. I also don’t quite feel like I belong in the FLX beverage space anymore, but here we are. And I’m glad to be here. Thanks to Jonas for all the different voices featured in this account and for including me.

Let’s go 2026. Here’s to trusting our intuition, being together and doing our best with the risks we each choose. Leap! [8/8]

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Again about kids, learning, farming. At Enfield Elementary, one of the smallest and most rural schools in the Ithaca City School District. Surprisingly and wonderfully diverse. Isolated and somewhat more free as a result. At this school we have land to wander and projects to unfold. 3rd, 4th and 5th grade especially, we produce a defined harvest. 3rd grade I discussed previously.

The 4th graders have put together a guide to sharing their 3 Sisters Garden Seeds (gifted to them by @fruition_seeds in order to spread into our community). We are out and about (at @tcplny, at @honeybeeembassy, at @stickandstonefarm for the @fullplatefarmcollective distributions… more to come!).
We have 3 varieties to share:

Glass Gem Corn- flint type. For flour, popcorn
Nor’easter Pole Bean- climbing Romano-style bean for fresh and dry
Cornell Delicata Squash- winter squash for eating earlier in the cold months

And then, again, apple trees. Each 5th grader has an assigned tree in our school orchard. We draw our trees regularly to examine their shapes and needs. Ultimately, I’ll task each child with choosing pruning cuts in consideration for fruit in 2026 and the years of growth beyond, just as the previous class did for the current one. This current set of 5th graders had a good harvest in 2025, a result of the previous class’s work, who went on to middle school before tasting these fruits. The current 5th grade received and now will prepare to give.

The cycles of school being offset from an orchard year have evolved into an amazing opportunity to explore the “honorable harvest”, as Robin Wall Kimmerer calls it in Braiding Sweetgrass. Robin reminds us that receiving a harvest is a gift of sustenance from the earth to us. Each harvest is worthy of study and ceremony. As I move through the orchards, I remind myself to consider how I might be while here. And how I might help my students see and love the world around them. [7/8]

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After the last few posts of gluing together the Open Spaces agricultural collage, I am pleased to share about my other work. Since March ‘22 I’ve been the farmer educator at Enfield Elementary. I got into it because, apple trees. They have fifteen old trees and I wanted to help. It was a custom spray program at first, during the years of the northeastern spongy moth outbreak. I wanted to help them keep their tiny orchard alive in the face of larval defoliation. I’d go in once and week and discuss my progress with 5th grade.

By December 2024 I started to see every class- PreK through 5th grade- weekly. Through hard work and mutual respect, and with financial support from the Park Foundation, we’ve built a program that addresses NYS core curriculum standards. PreK loves the birds, and we now make our own food. Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades work for the pollinators.

The 3rd graders operate a Spring small-scale chicken hatchery. This project is completed with letters to the area farmers- our “customers”.
Dear so and so. We are Enfield 3rd graders. Your chicks will be ready on xx date. If they all live. We will let you know. Sincerely, the whole class.
I’m their largest customer, but I also do all the brooder work. I still enjoy reading the letter, a different part of my personality steps in to receive it.

4th and 5th grade, I’ll discuss in my next post.

This work fills half of my week, and my whole heart. In the hours of listening I do during spray season, I found Audre Lorde’s book Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984). Her words on teaching as a writer resonates completely with my experience.

“I know teaching is a survival technique. It is for me and I think it is in general; the only way real learning happens. Because I myself was learning something I needed to continue living. And I was examining it and teaching it at the same time I was learning it. I was teaching it to myself aloud.” (p. 85, 2020-2021 pdf edition). [6/8]

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About those apples… I said I have an Apple CSA, but I also said I don’t have an orchard. Yes, I’m stoked to plant one and I think many of my neighbors- for whom I’ve been custom spraying their few yard trees- might join me. It’d be a dream to get a big enough block planted on Iradell Road that my 500 gallon sprayer can do its work at home. And that dream is currently… a dream.

What I do have access to are orchards planted in the past 20-50 years. I offer a neighborhood service where I hump a 3-gal backpack sprayer all over the towns of Trumansburg, Enfield, and Newfield. The neighborhood pocket orchards of 10-20 trees are someone’s careful tending or a lucky surviving seedling. For a while, I thought I could string small orchards together to create a community fruit production scenario. But, in an act one might consider inevitable, while another might see as an unacceptable risk, I’ve taken on a 5-year lease on an orchard requiring 1,200 gallons per spray day. James Cummins planted this spot in Newfield in the 1970’s and ‘80’s. He shared management with Eve’s Cidery, where I worked for years, until his death on March 19, 2025. Rest in Power, James. Thank you for this amazing gift of the bitter-sweet orchard (bso).

The bso represents a personal phase change and a very real re-commitment to scaled-up renovation, maintenance, and production. All this despite the evidence that we are in a poly crisis of radical uncertainty that touches fruit production in every way - material prices, labor availability, weather patterns, etcetera. I will say that as of this writing- mid May 2026- things look decent for a fruit crop this year. Fingers crossed and stay tuned. The picture (4/24) is from after the late April freeze. [5/8]

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