Tilly Foster Farm Expands Garden, Bee Hives

SOUTHEAST, NY — The garden at Tilly Foster Farm has expanded, with a new cornfield, sunflowers and beehives adding to the bounty for the 2021 season.

The Tilly Foster Farm and Educational Institute's garden has already produced several orders of vegetables and herbs to the county’s Office of Senior Resources and to Tilly’s Table, the restaurant based at the county-owned farm, Putnam County Executive MaryEllen Odell announced.

“This garden is living proof of how Tilly Foster Farm adds to the quality of life in Putnam County,” Odell said in the news release. “The fresh vegetables grown at the farm help provide healthy lunches to our seniors in the county’s four friendship centers, and they are also sold at market rate to Tilly’s Table. You can’t get more farm-to-table than that. The land is stunning and the public is welcome to come hike the trails and check out what’s growing in the garden. When schools reopen in full in the fall, we expect that students will come back to learn about farm-to-table production.”

This is the fourth growing season for the now three-quarter-acre garden, said Lisa Walker, farm assistant, and every season gets better.

“We have the garden fenced, but people can come and walk on the paths and see what’s growing,” Walker said. “The bees are working in the garden; they are busy pollinating. The beekeeper had to add more housing for our friends. I think they really like it on the farm. The corn patch will be knee-high by the 4th of July and we’ll start our pumpkin patch next week so it will be ready in time for fall.”

The current vegetables that have been harvested so far include romaine lettuce, mixed field lettuce , radishes, arugula, broccoli rabe, zucchini, sage, oregano and thyme.

Growing crops on the farm has been part of the agricultural plan for Tilly Foster since Putnam County took over management of the property in 2014.