Bringing Food Back into Focus: Regenerative Grower Training Program

Apply Today: Regenerative Grower Training Program

This week, our greenhouse interns and farm staff installed a new covering on our lower greenhouse. Through teamwork and hands-on learning, they tackled the process step by step, gaining valuable skills in greenhouse maintenance. Their hard work will help create a more stable and efficient growing environment for the seasons ahead!

Meanwhile inside our greenhouses, preparations for the 13th Annual Horn Farm Plant Sale are well underway, with thousands of veggie, herb, and flower seedlings already taking root!

Make sure to save the date for Saturday, May 3rd from 9am to 3pm. All sales will be in-person only at the Horn Farm Center. Stay tuned for updates about our offerings, vendors, and more.

We hope you can join us to *spring* into the growing season this May. All proceeds from the Plant Sale support regenerative practices and ecological education at the Horn Farm Center.

We’ve reached an important milestone and we want to share it with you! Please join us as we break ground on the new Education Center at the Horn Farm. 

Date: March 29, 2025
Time: 10AM-11:30AM
Location: 4945 Horn Road
York, PA 17406

Come celebrate the beginning of the farmhouse rebuild with key stakeholders, community leaders, and special guests, as we continue to raise funds and realize the creation of a beautiful, spacious educational center for everyone in this region.

Your presence would mean a great deal to us as we embark on this journey.

We look forward to celebrating this milestone with you!

Live Stakes Available: March 10-24th

For the first time ever, you can purchase live stakes in our online store starting on Monday, March 10th! 

What are live stakes? They’re cuttings from trees and shrubs that, when planted directly into the ground, re-root and grow into full-sized plants.

Perfect for establishing new forest cover, riparian buffers, and even home landscapes, live stake plantings boost biodiversity, enhance natural beauty, and improve local stream health.

Build biodiversity at home while supporting the Horn Farm Center!

• Limited Inventory! Available March 10–24 only.
• Learn more about available native species & order in our online store.

To learn more about live stakes as a tool for restoration at the Horn Farm Center, visit our Horn Farm Ecosystem blog series on riparian buffers. Also, stay tuned for an educational webpage on the “what” and “how” of live stakes!

Learn More & Order Live Stakes

New Youth & Family Programs

Shake off the winter blues and get your hands in the dirt! Join us for our upcoming volunteer days in our riparian buffer as we prepare for the season ahead.

• Wednesdays, March 12 & 19 (5–7 PM)
• Sunday, March 23 (1–3 PM)

Help tend the land, learn about local ecology and perennial agriculture, and be part of restoring our local waterways—one plant at a time.

No experience needed—just bring your energy! Come get active, connect with nature, and make a difference.

Register to Volunteers

Have you heard the BIG NEWS? Yes, it’s true…starting this March, reconstruction of the Horn Farm’s historic farmhouse and education hub will begin! 

This is a milestone worth celebrating, especially after three years of recovering, fundraising, and navigating the challenges of a project we weren’t expecting!

But there is still a funding gap we need to bridge. As we eagerly look forward to breaking ground this March, we’re asking you–our community–to help us.

This request comes at time that is fraught with other priorities. Recent actions by the federal government are directly impacting farms and organizations across our region. We are hearing from farmers and friends concerned about increasing supply costs, cuts to federal contracts, and new threats to life-preserving conservation practices.

As growers and land stewards, we know we’ll always face unpredictable events. We also know that we can count on hope, hard work, and a community of support.

In fact, if we’ve learned anything from the farmhouse project and the tragic circumstances that lead to it, it’s that our strength – and our resilience – lies in our relationships. 

That is why I am asking that you please take action today:

1) Please call or write your members of congress to let them know you support federal funding for regenerative agriculture and food security. We are including some information below from our partners and actions you can take to ensure our food system and natural resources are stable, sustainable, and protected.

2) Please consider donating (perhaps again) to help build the new Education Center at the Horn Farm. Any amount will help. As a grassroots organization founded in a love for the land, the Horn Farm took a community to build. Now, it will take our community to rebuild!

Reviving our farmhouse will open up an ecosystem of possibilities for enriching what we do best: educating and empowering our community with the skills for healing the land and living in sustainable ways.

With gratitude and in solidarity with our farming community,

Alexis Campbell, Executive Director

Help Us Build a New Education Center

Despite widespread public support for regenerative farming, recent actions by the federal government are directly impacting farms and organizations across our region – including those committed to climate-smart farming, conservation agriculture, and agroforestry.

In January, many federal funding recipients were notified that an Executive Memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget paused action on both existing and future federal assistance programs, including most climate- and equity-related grants. The federal grant freeze is creating unease, confusion, and financial difficulty for many agricultural producers and organizations who utilize federal funds to protect ecological health and provide critical farmer resources.

This week, we welcomed four new interns to our team! Ella, Lucy, Tove, and Yairelis will be spending February through May with us preparing for our annual Plant Sale. Mark your calendar for Saturday, May 3rd from 9am to 3pm!

The seed sowing started right away, with thousands of veggies, herbs, and flowers slated for germination over the coming weeks. While our interns are invaluable in making the Plant Sale possible, their experience is also educational, as they learn the ins and outs of greenhouse management, plant propagation, botany and biology, and non-chemical growing methods.

Stay tuned to see what our interns our up to as the spring approaches!

Bringing Together Community & Land Care

This week, a basketful of brave volunteers worked through the blustery winds to help us complete our willow branch harvest for the season!

Willows are just one piece of the Horn Farm’s transition to farming with productive, beneficial trees and shrubs. This type of farming, called agroforestry, uses tree and shrub crops, like willows, to supply local goods while maintaining ecological health.

What does ecological health look like? For us, it includes:

• Nurturing healthy soils
• Efficiently using and protecting water resources
• Actively supporting a thriving community of bugs, birds, fungi, and more to help our landscape function

Many of the Horn Farm’s budding agroforestry projects are taking root along “wild” edges and streams, called riparian buffers. In spaces like these, with careful management and respect, we can bring together ecological restoration and robust agriculture.

Interested in experiencing this kind of farming as we approach the spring? Consider joining the Horn Farm Center’s Community Crew–a volunteer training program.

Join the Community Crew

If you’re feeling cooped up this chilly winter, we’ve got a flurry of opportunities to help you beat the seasonal blues. From the forest trail to the kitchen counter, join us to learn new skills while connecting with local plant communities that offer us food, medicine, and plenty of fascinating stories:

Thinking ahead to the spring garden is another great way to find some wintertime bliss (besides going outside, of course!). That’s why it’s the perfect time to check out our NEWLY ANNOUNCED Spring Gardening Classes.

Starting in April, join us in the greenhouse and the field to grow your gardening tookit. As we like to say: “stop thinking like a gardener and start thinking like an ecosystem!

Spring Gardening Programs

By the end of this year, our new education center could be a reality – but not without your support!We’ve raised over $900,000 so far but we need to raise $185,000 to complete construction this year. From donations to sponsorships to collective support efforts, there are many ways to help us achieve our goal to Rebuild Horn Farm.

Your gift means more than just a building. With an accessible, versatile, energy-efficient classroom to serve our community, the new education center will be a gathering space for more transformative programming than ever before.

Horn Farm Center is a grassroots organization committed to fostering love for the land and empowering our community to live in sustainable, regenerative ways. Brick by brick, help us make the most of our mission and ensure a blossoming future!

Help Us Build a New Education Center

Calling All Local Businesses!

We are excited to see what the 2025 season of learning and stewarding the land will bring – and we want to share our successes with you!

Whether you’re a large company looking to make a big impact or a small business who loves supporting land-healing practices and education, we want to partner with you!

Your support not only helps us provide engaging learning experiences to over 3000 visitors each year – sponsorship also promotes your important work to our dedicated community and beyond. Let’s partner up this year to make an impact together!

Each season this year, we invite you to explore the meadows and forests of the Horn Farm Center. We’ll tune into the rhythms of the natural world to learn about local ecology, natural history, and ways to better understand the landscape around us.

Walk the Seasons classes invite all ages and experience levels, so whether you’re an avid naturalist or are just beginning to connect more closely with the outdoors, you are welcome!

Interested in learning how to build? Learn by doing in this 3-day, hands-on introductory workshop at the Horn Farm Center! 

Explore how to read plans, review measuring and marking, and practice cutting wood using a circular saw and a miter saw – all under the guidance of skilled carpentry instructor, Alex Catizone. You will also learn the basics of wall framing layout for a small structure and how to cut sheet goods accurately and safely. By the end of the course, you and fellow students will construct a functional, versatile storage shed for our community gardeners.

Please join us on April 4th, 5th and 6th from 9am-5pm at the Horn Farm Center to affirm the joy and empowerment of building from scratch in a community setting – an antidote to our fast-paced culture of outsourced builds and disposable designs!

Register for Carpentry Fundamentals