Christa Hein 00:03
Hey there. Welcome to the Farm Educatorâs Roadmap. I'm Christa Hein, former non-profit girl turned farm education entrepreneur. I've spent the last 30 years creating hands on programs that connect people to the land animals and the traditions that nourish our daily lives. If you're listening, you probably believe what I do that farm education is needed now more than ever, not just on rural farms, but in suburbs, cities and everywhere in between. In this podcast, you'll hear real stories and practical advice from farm educators all across the country - people who are creating change through their programs in creative and inspiring ways. Whether you're dreaming about starting your first program, are already knee deep in your own farm education work, or are just curious about how others are impacting their communities through farm education, you're in the right place. Let's dig in.Â
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Christa Hein 00:06
Welcome back to the Farm Educatorâs Roadmap. I'm Christa Hein, and today we'll be exploring Coverdale Farm Preserve in Greenville, Delaware, where hands on farm education meets conservation and community. Joining me is Mindy Brown, Program Manager at Coverdale farm. Mindy has had an incredible journey from bringing her own students on a field trip to Coverdale to eventually becoming a key leader in its educational programs. Today, we're going to explore how Coverdale engages learners of all ages, from toddlers to adults, through farm-based experiences that are not just educational but also directly support the farm's work. From summer camps to their breakfast with bunnies program, from farm apprenticeships to birthday parties on the farm, Coverdale is doing it all. They also have a thriving market where they sell farm fresh produce and local products, further connecting people to where their food comes from. So let's dive in. Mindy, welcome to the podcast.Â
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Mindy Brown 01:54
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Â
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Christa Hein 02:02
Absolutely, so you have an inspiring story. Can you take us back to that first moment when you brought your own students to Coverdale, and how that visit led to your current role?
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Mindy Brown 02:16
Sure. So I used to teach like toddler, preschool age children. And when you drive over the hill to come into Coverdale, it is breathtaking. It just, it's kind of like a little hidden gem. You know, I started taking my kids here. We would go through the animals. We would meet different educators that were here. And every time I left, I was like, I have got to find a way to work here. And so I decided that I wanted to change careers. I kind of was tired and done teaching. I had been teaching for 13 years, and I wanted to do something else. And so I had one of the parents of my kids in the class was like, well, what are you going to be doing next? I said that I'm not really sure. And she encouraged me to apply it to our nature society, and to work at Coverdale farm. And so, you know, after like, a little bit of hesitation, I decided I'm just going to do it, and I started just being a teacher naturalist. So I was the educator that my kids used to come see. So it was kind of neat, because I would see some of my other kids come back, or other teachers I knew, and here I was, teaching and doing what I just really was meant to do I think.
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Christa Hein 03:19
That's awesome. So Coverdale farm is part of the Delaware nature society. Can you tell us a bit about the mission behind Coverdale and how it fits into the larger conservation and education efforts of the society?
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Mindy Brown 03:33
Sure, well, so the mission of Delaware Nature Society is really connecting people to a healthy environment, and we do that through education, conservation and advocacy. So everything that the farm does, and every decision that we make, we go through that lens. How are we going to be educating, you know, conserving the land and helping and then advocating for different bills? I mean, we have different departments, kind of in our organization, and they go down into Washington. They go to our state capitol, and they back different bills. So everything that we do, you know, we have to make sure that we're looking through that lens. You know, farming can sometimes be destructive on the land, and we as part of a nature organization, we cannot do that. We have to show that farming can be beneficial to the environment and help the land if it's done right.
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Christa Hein 04:22
Yeah. And so Coverdale is a working farm, and it's a place for hands on education. So how do you balance farm operations with running programs?
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Mindy Brown 04:32
Oh my gosh, that's a great question.
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It can be challenging at times, but really, what we have done is taken what we're doing being a production farm, and just put the education on top of it. So when we have people come to the farm, whether they're little toddlers or whether they're adults or groups of children or families, they're all seeing exactly what we're doing. We're teaching about farming and any projects that we do. So if we are doing a summer camp and they're going to be seeding, well then we're going to take the seeding that they did and maybe transplant into one of our gardens. It allows them to see the whole process, because they can come back in a couple months and see, like, that's what I planted. I did that. And so it, it really just kind of gets them involved and keeps them coming back.
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Christa Hein 05:17
Yeah, and gives them that ownership of the farm too, through their efforts.
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Mindy Brown 05:21
Yes, it's so exciting, especially we do a lot of sunflowers, and so, you know, how tall they get. So when the kids, like plant them, and they come back in a few months and they just see this giant sunflower, it's really in awe. They're just super excited, like, oh my gosh. I can't believe that little seed I planted, you know, months ago, is now this huge flower. It's really exciting to see.
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Christa Hein 05:41
Awesome. So one of the things that makes Coverdell so special is this wide range of programs for all ages. Can you give us an overview of some of the key programs you offer from toddlers to adults?Â
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Mindy Brown 05:54
We're the hub for preschool for the organization, and so we work with children as young as two years old. It's kind of a grown up and me series. So their grownup comes with them, and we explore nature and the farm. Because really the farm and nature work together. So sometimes it's, you know, a little more farm based, and sometimes it's a little more nature based, but it always it all works together. So we have those once a week. We have that preschool toddler group coming. We do a ton of summer camps, which, you know, it's like, just the campus explodes with excitement and children everywhere. And then we have programs every weekend. So we're open to the public, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and so that's when we invite people in. You can come in and just have like, a little picnic, enjoy some lawn games, or you can come in and do a hike.Â
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We have different programs learning about some of our vegetables or animals. So we have those types of opportunities. We also do a program called Chicken Tenders, which is, we do that like two to three times a year. It's super exciting. It's for families. Well, really is for anyone, but it's what they you get two to three chicks, like little like day old couple day old chicks, and you raise them in your home. Or, actually, we've had a lot of teachers be interested in it, where they'll raise the chicks in their classrooms for five to six weeks. So I am there. I walk you through it. You have there's like an education session, and then you take them home, and I meet with everybody once a week just to make sure everybody's doing okay. And then they bring the chicks back, and those chicks become part of our layers, so our egg layer our flock. So that same thing, like we're already producing a lot of eggs. We need chicks because we have to keep that, that production going. So it's, it's something that we're already doing. So it's, either I'm going to raise these chicks or I'm going to have families raise the chicks and the families and kids and schools. They just love it.Â
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Christa Hein 07:50
Oh, absolutely.Â
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Mindy Brown 07:51
That's a really exciting program. We're actually getting ready to start that this week, so it's kind of on my mind. And then we do just events, so like breakfast with the bunnies you mentioned at the beginning, we have two bunny rabbits, and they are super friendly. So we're going to have a little breakfast. That's kind of a little play on Easter you know, no Easter Bunny, but real bunnies. And so you'll get to you actually, you get to take, like a little plant, like a little seedling home, you get to see the bunnies, feed the bunnies, have a breakfast, have a hay ride, and it's a great time. And then we do what's called Fridays at the farm. So a couple Fridays during the summer, we have a band, food truck, well, happy hour, just some games, just enjoy being outside. And it's again, connecting people with nature. So I could go on and on. We have a lot that we do.
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Christa Hein 08:42
I want to learn a little bit more about your summer camps, because farm camps are just so important. So can you share a little bit about what makes your camps unique and how you design them to fit each of the different age groups?Â
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Mindy Brown 08:55
Oh, yes. So we have a couple of different pathways, I would say, for camp, and they start as three years old. So we have a three, four, grown-up and me, so a grown ups coming with them, and then they go all the way up to age 15. And so most of the camps kind of scaffold. So we have a cooking camp that starts with our three year olds. They're still doing, like real cooking. It's not the little ants on the log. They're in the kitchen. They're using some, you know, some of the tools, but age appropriate. So we start there, and then every age has a cooking camp, and it goes all the way up to one of our popular camps called Chops Coverdell style. And it's there, they're creating their own recipes based on ingredients that we get on the farm. So, you know, walking out and getting some of the produce that we had, using eggs and really trying to develop, you know, their style for cooking. We have farm camps, of course. So they're the little ones. Are just starting with the cute little like, maybe they're just feeding the sheep, you know, playing with the wool, the fleece, all the way up to our farm apprentice program, which are for our nine to 11 year olds, who they're doing the farm chores.Â
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I say it's a working camp, so the good, the bad, the ugly, the dirty, all of that they're getting in there and really seeing what it takes to be a farmer. And then we have science camps. So it's like the scientific farmer, the science behind being a farmer. You're doing soil science. And, you know, every camp really does go back to you know, learning something and having like, a meaningful purpose behind it. We do have a couple just get outside and have fun, because you have to do that too. So, but really, they're getting out and getting involved.Â
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We tour vegetable production fields, so they're seeing and trying out new vegetables. It's so funny, like when they try, like kohlrabi, is one that a lot of people haven't heard of. And so the kids go home and they're like, I had this kohlrabi, Mom, we have to get this or I love these radishes. And then, you know, the parents are just like, What? What is that? Why you don't ever eat radishes. So really like connecting with food, seeing like what it looks like when it comes out of the ground, what the seed looks like, and then even just tasting it in different ways, whether, you know, we're using in a cooking program. So it's really just tying everything to what we're doing. Because I think it's really important to really like connect people with their food.Â
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You know, a lot of people just go to the grocery store and you know, why aren't there eggs on the shelf? Well, right now, why aren't there eggs on the shelf, right? But what, when we come, when they come to our market, why are there not eggs on the shelf? And then educating them why there's not eggs. Because chickens have a cycle, and so they don't pump out eggs. But when you go to the grocery store, most of the time there are a lot of eggs because they're using a different type of production farm. Ours are, you know, out you can see our chickens in our little houses. We have about 400 chickens, so no shortage of those.
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Christa Hein 11:54
I love how the programs really seem to build on each other, like starting with the adult and child programs, and some of those adults like may not have had those experiences themselves, and so for you to be sharing with them how they can be interacting with their children in that natural space and then going all the way up into teenage years. So I'd love to hear just a little bit more about your farm apprentices. Are those teenagers? Are those offered to college age? What kind of age group and what kind of activities do they work in then?Â
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Mindy Brown 12:27
Yeah, so it's a little confusing, because we have a summer campus called: farmers apprentice, and that's for our nine to 11 year olds. And then we actually have a program called Farm Apprentices, which are like our workforce, so we hire them from April, March, April to beginning of December, and they do a lot of the work on the farm. So they are working in vegetable production. They're working in our livestock, poultry, they're doing general maintenance, upkeep of the farm. But in turn, we give them a lot of education, not just hands on, like, on the job training kind of stuff. It's, we know, we pull the group out and we do a special session on soil. So why is soil important? Why do we care so much about that? And, you know, why are we not disturbing, you know? Why are we not using big machines? And, you know, so we do water quality, like, why we are so protective of what we put on the crops, because we have a stream and a pond that's right down, right on our property. So it's, that's a whole nother type of education program. It's really training the next farmer.Â
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Christa Hein 13:33
Hmm.
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Mindy Brown 13:34
So, you know, we use regenerative, sustainable methods and training and teaching people why that's important, and how to do it like in a sustainable way and being respectful of the environment, and how we can help improve the environment as well.
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Christa Hein 13:49
So you also have a market. How does the market play a role in connecting people to local food, and does that fit into your educational programming as well?
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Mindy Brown 13:59
Well, I think everything we do here is educational. The way our market is situated is, like in the corner kind of of our farm, like by our parking lot, you can look right outside. It's like these big glass doors. You can look right outside the glass doors and see right where the vegetables are grown. So you can see where they're grown, and then they come in, and then right behind, like, there's big windows even into our like, our wash and pack room, so you can see, like, full transparency, of exactly what's happening to all of your food. So that is one type of education about where your food comes from. You know, meeting your farmers were available. And then we have a great market staff who has really taken time to learn about the different vegetables. We talked about different recipes, that you can use, or how to use different vegetables, because sometimes we have vegetables either you only know how to cook one way, and so you kind of get tired of them, so we have different ways you can use them. You know, we've also done the cooking club or cooking program so that you can take what you buy in the market and actually learn how to you take those ingredients and kind of use it in the market, or I'm sorry, in the kitchen, so you are cooking the materials and the ingredients from the market. I mean everything, there's education everywhere, and it's just about how you use it, and how you explain things to people, and just educating even the people that work here. You know, our market staff only works Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and not even every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, because it's a rotating shift. So making sure that you know you're getting the education out to everybody.Â
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Christa Hein 15:32
So you have the market that's influencing the community, and then you have all these great programs as well. So what impact have you seen these family community programs make to the audience that you're serving?
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Mindy Brown 15:58
We certainly have a little community, and they come back. They're so excited when the market opens. They're bringing back their friends, family to different programs that we have. We we listen to kind of what they're looking for. We have a you-pick flower garden, and so this year, we've decided to kind of expand on that and offer different flower parties because of what the community has asked for or is really looking for, as just one other avenue that we can go to serve more of the community. I think it's just kind of a mutual respect you know, they're listening, we appreciate them. And we listen to kind of what they are looking for. And if we can make some new programs based on their interest, then we certainly do that. Our summer camps are, they sell out real quick, like I'm thinking right now, we're about 80% full, which is great. You know, being at April 1 and almost, you know, a lot of our camps have sold out in another wait list. So, so somehow the word's getting out.
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Christa Hein 16:54
So I want to ask you a little bit about Coverdale land being also a preserve. How does that conservation element work together with the farm?
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Mindy Brown 17:09
Yeah so we do take a look at things that we do on the farm that kind of mimic what is happening in nature. So, you know, we use tarps to preserve like the soil that we're not using which is the same thing, if you look in nature, the ground cover, the leaves and everything that's on the ground there, and how that's preserving and kind of going back into the soil it's the same kind of thing. So we try and mimic different things that then that nature is doing on the farm, and then we point those out when we're doing a hike. So the whole property is 377 acres, and about I kind of get this wrong I think it's 177 is what we farm, and then the other 200 is in Preserve. But honestly, maybe that's flip flop. I should double check that. The Preserve is open for programs, but it's not open to the public.Â
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So we have different naturalists and experts that come that work for the organization, that will come over and do certain hikes. So we have, we know we do lots of bird hikes, and this natural like natural hikes, we're looking at trees or flowers and all kinds of stuff that you find in the preserve. And we have a land management team that that is separate from the farm team that actually manages that all of that property. I think. Did that answer your question?Â
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Christa Hein 18:26
So yeah, you know, I saw on your website that Coverdale is a regenerative farming site. How do you share with visitors, whether through formal groups or just casual, you know, visitors that are coming on the weekend or for a birthday party. How can you share that regenerative farming philosophy or technique that you practice?
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Mindy Brown 18:52
Yeah, I think a lot of us, just even by looking at the fields, the equipment that we use or that we don't use, like there's no big tractors that go through the field. We have a little walk behind tractor that just disturbs, like the top inch or so of the soil. You know, we use tarps. A lot of is, is very manual labor. So even as people are working out in the field, just talking, when you have groups of families or people that come on the property, about what we're doing. Also, I think, going into the market, when you're looking at the produce and how that's and when it's there, and you're talking about where that's grown. Looking at our high tunnels, our different greenhouses, and so I think it's even just looking around on the farm it, looks a little different than some of the big production farms. I mean, we have our chicken houses in big like green houses are, they're cut in half, and we they're movable. And so that's always a talking point, because when you drive in to the farm, you'll see all these houses sitting out in the pastures, and people are curious like, well, what is that? You know? And so we talk about why we, you know, we have 40 to 50 chickens in these houses, and we move them because, you know, the chickens are helping the soil. We're depositing their manure. They're, you know, opening up little like parts of the soil, and then by us moving them, they're also getting fresh pasture. So it kind of works both ways. They're happy and we're happy.
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Christa Hein 20:16
Yeah, I think that's not necessarily an intuitive thing for people to think about that, you actually have to feed the soil, right? So what a great demonstration of that with your portable houses.
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Mindy Brown 20:26
Yeah, we talk about farming this like we're growing soil, right? Soil? You got to grow soil. And if you're not giving back to the soil, you're not going to get anything. You know, eventually it's going to be out. There's going to be nothing to give. So it is really important to do that, and you're rotating different crops and putting different cover crops on to make sure we're getting the soil what it needs as well,
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Christa Hein 20:47
Nice. So what's next for Coverdale farm? Are there any new programs or initiatives coming up that you're excited about?Â
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Mindy Brown 20:54
Oh my gosh, I feel like there's always - the Flower program that we're going to be doing. We've been doing the flower garden, the you-pick flower garden for a couple years, and this year we're starting where you can either like, rent the space and we'll have a little like, it's like, those parties that you had like, a paint and sip kind of thing. Like, you know, you build your flower bouquet, and you can bring, you know, a little sip on your own. So we have those kind of programs you can do. We'll have similar type of thing, but it's going to be a public programs where anyone can come. You don't have to just rent this space. We also are going to be doing different flower or different different salad blends so learning about the different salad mixes and lettuces that we have. One of our big crops is our big sellers is salad mix, so just the different blends that we have. So we're going to be doing learning about those, like little programs, about the salad mixes. Also about tomatoes. There's so many different tomatoes that we grow, and that's one of our big crops as well, which is super exciting. And of course, you know, we have some new summer camps coming up, there's just always, it's, it never stops. I mean, that's just farming in general, and then, you know, you put the education on top of it, and it's constant.Keeps me busy.
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Christa Hein 22:10
Absolutely. So for other farm educators who are listening, what advice would you give them about designing programs that really integrate experiential learning with farm work. What would be that bit of advice you'd want to share?
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Mindy Brown 22:25
I think it's, you know, take what you're already doing and find ways to bring in the community. There's so many things that we as farmers do that people don't realize or would love to have a part of and never have the opportunity. There's times where, you know, I am looking at things and I'm like, Yeah, but I see that every day, like, that's not important to me, or I don't see the joy of that. But then I say, I tell to somebody else, and they're like, oh my gosh, that's the coolest thing ever. And so take, it's this, you know, taking that. I gotta raise these chicks, you know? So let me just get this going to, you know? What if I if somebody wants to help me raise them, then let's do that that helps me, because then I'm not having to raise all of them. And that's giving joy to somebody else. So it's really taking a look at what you're already doing and adding like, a little education unit to it, or adding an experience to it. That's, I would say, don't create more work. Just have people help you do your work.Â
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Christa Hein 23:22
That's great advice. Mindy, this has been such a wonderful conversation. It's just incredible to hear how Coverdale farm blends education, conservation and hands on farm work to create such meaningful experiences for all ages that you're working with. For those who want to learn more about Coverdale farm, where can they find you online?
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Mindy Brown 23:44
You can go to the www.delawarenaturesocietty.org
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Christa Hein 23:49
Awesome. Mindy, thank you so much for joining us today.Â
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Mindy Brown 23:52
All right, thank you so much for having me. It's been great talkingÂ
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Christa Hein 23:55
Absolutely and to our listeners, I hope this interview gave you ideas and inspiration for your own farm education programs. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the Farm Educatorâs Roadmap. Leave us a review and share it with others interested in farm education. Until next time keep growing, keep sharing and keep making a difference.
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Christa Hein 24:17
Hey, farm educators, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Before you go, I've got something special for you if you're ready to build a farm education program that people are excited to book grab my free guide, Five Simple Steps to Growing an In-Demand Farm Education Program. It's packed with the same steps I use to grow my own farm education business, and it'll help you get noticed, attract clients and make an impact.Â
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Just head over to www.farmeducatorroadmap.com/fivesimplesteps to get your free copy. It's quick, easy, and will make your programs irresistible. I can't wait to see what you create.
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Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
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