Horn Farm Center for Agricultural Education

Happenings

Horn Farm Happenings – May 30, 2025

From Farm to Theatre: Willow Arts

For those who joined us this winter and spring for the painstaking work of harvesting, pruning and sorting our basketry willow, our efforts are already paying off in a beautiful way! Seattle-based visual and willow artist Sarah Kavage, in collaboration with the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, reached out to us this winter to purchase specially-selected basketry willow for a unique project.

Hundreds of branches from our willow harvest will now weave their way into sculptural installations for an outdoor theatrical dance piece called TERRA: Bodies and Territories – taking place in June!

This is our first major contribution to community art-making with our basketry willows, and it would not have been possible without volunteer support: from winter harvests all the way through spring sorting. THANK YOU for helping to ~choreograph~ this cool collab!

Photos: Silvana Cardell, TERRA choreographer. Left: Sarah’s willow haul from the Horn Farm, Right: Horn Farm willow masterfully crafted into an artistic set piece.

 

Celebrate Summer with Us!

Join us on Saturday, June 21st from 10am-2pm for a vibrant day of seasonal abundance and community joy featuring fresh produce, native plants, artisan goods, and tasty food—all set in the beautiful surroundings of the Horn Farm.

In addition to organically-grown produce and late season garden starts from the Horn Farm Center, enjoy unique offerings from our Solstice Market partners:

Food will be available for purchase from Locally Seasoned, or bring your own picnic! We have space to hang out, socialize, and share in community!
Enjoy kid’s activities and free farm tours throughout the day and discover how we’re growing food, restoring ecosystems, and building resilience together.

Claim Your Spot: Free Farm Tours on Saturday, June 21st:

It’s more than a market—it’s a celebration of regeneration, connection, and the longest day of the year. We are looking forward to seeing you at the Horn Farm!

Learn More About Solstice Market

Endings & Beginnings

Last week we waved goodbye to our 2025 Ecological Gardener Training Program and said hello to the first cohort of our new Regenerative Grower Training Program!

Guided by our partners at Waxwing EcoWorks Co, Ecological Gardeners spent 16 weeks learning how to design, install, and care for resilient plant communities that support local biodiversity and ecology. After visiting regional landscapes, connecting with our plant allies, and exploring possibilities in their own spaces, students concluded their learning with eco-plantings at the Horn Farm. Students also presented on a range of personal projects, showcasing how our growing community of creative, empowered land stewards will continue to make an impact.

At the same time, our Regenerative Growers got the lay of the land, visiting our demonstration spaces while learning the foundations of regenerative farming and agroforestry. Over the next 22 weeks, they’ll dig deep into the craft of growing annual and perennial foods that build ecological health. Stay tuned for check-ins throughout the growing season to see what our RGTP gets up to!

Registrations for our 2026 training programs will begin later this summer. In the meantime, check out our upcoming classes and workshops.

  

Something Wild & Uncommon is Ripening…

Get ready to savor the flavors of the season at the 21st Annual Pawpaw Festival—coming to the Horn Farm Center on Saturday, September 20, 2025! Enjoy local crafts, artisans, food, pawpaws and more—fun for the whole family.

Tickets go on sale June 15—mark your calendar!

This beloved event is the highlight of our 2nd Annual Wild & Uncommon Weekend, a celebration of regional food, art, and nature held September 18-21, 2025.

More details coming soon! 

Wild & Uncommon Weekend

Help Your Garden Thrive

Grow with confidence this summer in our hands-on Gardening & Growing Classes—designed to help you cultivate a thriving, resilient garden!

Led by our Farm Manager, these hands-on sessions in the field will explore how to garden with ecology in mind—using the gifts nature provides to nourish both the land and ourselves.

Whether you’re aiming to grow more organically, frugally, resourcefully, or regeneratively, these classes offer practical tools and timeless wisdom to support your growing goals.

Spots fill quickly—early registration is encouraged!

Horn Farm Happenings – May 9, 2025

Thank You for Growing with Us!

This week, we’re sharing a flowery bouquet of gratitude for our community! We’re so thankful for the incredible support we received during our Spring Plant Sale and Give Local York!

On sunny Saturday, May 3rd, we welcomed hundreds of local gardeners to the Horn Farm to shop and enjoy at our 13th Annual Plant Sale. There’s nothing sweeter than watching people come together to celebrate and share in the abundance of local, organically-grown plants. With every purchase, you helped sow seeds for a thriving educational landscape here at the farm.

In addition to the joyful energy of the Plant Sale, our community showed up in a big way for Give Local York. In just 24 hours, friends like you helped us raise $23,365 – 67% of our $35,000 goal! We are incredibly grateful for every gift, share, and show of support.

Thanks to your generosity, we’re building strong momentum for Farming Like an Ecosystem with our new Agroforestry program in the season ahead. And the good news doesn’t stop there – our Board of Directors has extended their $10,000 match through the end of May. We have $4,245 in matching funds left, so there’s still time to double your impact and help us reach our goal!

A special thanks to our Board of Directors for their $10,000 match and to our annual sponsors who helped make both events possible:

Whether you shopped for plants, spread the word, or made a donation, you helped us raise vital funds for another season of regenerative land stewardship and community education. Thank you for being part of the Horn Farm community—we couldn’t do this work without you!

Donate to Double Your Impact

Spring Learning in Bloom

Springtime energy is in full bloom across the Horn Farm Center’s teaching landscape! As leaves unfurl and flowers blossom, we’ve been thrilled to see so many of you out on the land—tending, learning, and connecting with nature.

Here are a few recent highlights:

Ecological Gardeners | Students in our 2025 Ecological Gardener Training Program with Waxwing EcoWorks Co. are hard at work designing a new planting space. Recently, they got their hands dirty tending pollinator gardens planted by a previous cohort—removing weeds and trimming back last year’s flower stalks to spread seeds and make room for new growth.

Greenhouse Interns | Even while caring for thousands of seedlings for our Spring Plant Sale, our amazing interns found time to help in the field—prepping beds and doing some planting themselves! They tucked in root divisions of cutleaf coneflower (also known as “sochan” by the Cherokee), an edible perennial now growing beneath mulberries and cherries in our Forest Garden demonstration field. These plants are helping to expand one of our many agroforestry systems and honoring the traditional knowledge of the Indigenous people who’ve long stewarded this land.

Foragers-in-Training | This week kicked off our Forager Training Program—just in time to start observing and identifying wild plants! From sketching and studying to comparing lookalikes, our new cohort is beginning to build the skills they’ll need to safely harvest and care for edible plants. We’re excited for the next seven weeks of exploration through the ecosystems of the Horn Farm!

Save the Date: June 21, 2025

Celebrate the height of the growing season at the Horn Farm Center’s first-ever Summer Solstice Farm Market!

Join us for a day of seasonal abundance and fun featuring fresh produce, native plants, artisan goods, local vendors, and land-based experiences – all set against the beauty of the summer solstice. It’s more than a market, it’s a celebration of community, resilience, and connection to the land.

Stay tuned for vendor announcements and special activities—we can’t wait to see you at the farm this summer!

Learn More About Solstice Market

Last Chance to Apply: One Spot Left!

Are you ready to take the next step in your journey as a land steward, grower, or ecological farmer? Applications are closing soon for the 2025 Regenerative Grower Training Program at Horn Farm Center!

This immersive, hands-on program is designed for aspiring growers who want to build practical skills in sustainable agriculture, soil health, and ecological growing practices—right here on the land. Whether you’re dreaming of a garden, a farm, or a future rooted in food and community, this program will equip you with the knowledge and experience to grow with confidence.

Apply Today – the Regenerative Grower Training begins on Tuesday, May 20th! 

Apply for the Regenerative Grower Training Program

Farming Like an Ecosystem

More than five years ago, we embarked on a journey to grow a new kind of agriculture—one  where the way we farm helps to revitalize the health of our landscapes.

The seeds of that vision have taken root and our ecological farm system is starting to bloom.

With knees on the ground and hands in the soil – 468 community members came together between 2021 and 2023 to plant over 17,000 saplings at the Horn Farm. Today, those trees are growing strong, bearing hazelnuts, elderberries, live stakes, and a world of possibilities for creative collaboration and learning.

Each tree stands as a living testament of what we can accomplish when people come together to care for the land. These trees are also the foundation of our new agroforestry program.

Agroforestry—what we like to call “Farming Like an Ecosystem”—is a powerful way to grow food while caring for the planet. 

By growing trees and shrubs as crops, we build healthier soil, protect our waterways, create wildlife habitat, and even help to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Even with all its benefits, agroforestry is used on just 1% of farms in the United States. At the Horn Farm Center, we’re working to change that by:

  • Helping gardeners, farmers, and aspiring growers learn to cultivate food sustainably for themselves and their communities through our signature training programs – like the new Regenerative Grower Training Program, launching this month.
  • Creating York County’s first community “Forest Garden” alongside our vegetable beds, transforming our demonstration field into a learning space and farming ecosystem.
  • Adding new classes and workshops about agroforestry, like how to grow mushrooms in the woods, the basics of making your own elderberry syrup, and basket-making.

There are so many fun, hands-on ways to explore how trees and farming can work together. We are just getting started. 

Through practices like agroforestry, we’re helping people rediscover essential skills, understand their role in the natural world, and take part in the regeneration of our local ecosystems — growing stronger, more resilient communities.

Together with your support, we can ensure that everyone in York, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and beyond has the opportunity to get their hands in the soil, learn from the land, and become part of a more hopeful, regenerative future.

Please consider donating to the Horn Farm Center to support our new agroforestry program. 

This year, from May 1st to 2nd, you can double your impact during Give Local York. Thanks to over $13,000 in matching funds from our Annual Sponsors and our Board of Directors, every dollar you donate will go twice as far.

Contributions will be matched online starting May 1st at 9:00pm and will continue for 24 hours—until 9:00pm on May 2nd. You can make your donation on our Give Local York page, or if you prefer, by mailing a check to the Horn Farm Center.

Together, we can continue to grow this vision of regenerative agriculture and create a lasting impact for our community and environment. We are so grateful for your support and belief in our mission.

With deep gratitude,

Alexis Campbell, Executive Director

P.S. – I know you’ve heard from us recently as we work to complete the final stages of fundraising for the farmhouse. If you’ve already contributed to the Building Fund—thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Your generosity has carried us through!

As construction wraps up this year, we’re so close to opening a new chapter. If you’re able, we invite you to also support the programs and mission that will fill this space with life—education, restoration, and deep connection to the land. Let’s keep growing together!

2025 Annual Report: Rebuilding & Growing for a Regenerative Future

Last year, we hit a big milestone—20 years of the Horn Farm Center!

It was more than just a celebration—it was a moment to reflect, reconnect, and dream big about what’s next. We shared stories, got our hands dirty, and gathered as a community to honor where we’ve been and where we’re headed.

As we look ahead, we just want to say thank you—to everyone who’s supported our work, shown up, donated, partnered, and believed in our mission. We couldn’t do this without you, and we’re so excited for what’s coming next.