August at the Intervale Center

August abundance is here in the Intervale—a time for trees to bear fruit and families to discover new flowers in the People's Garden. Learn how the Intervale Food Hub is increasing food access, the Intervale Conservation Nursery is stewarding healthy ecosystems across the Lake Champlain Basin, and other summer updates below!


Farms


Levy Lamb | Photo credit: James Chandler

The Intervale Center’s Farm Business Services team provides Vermont farmers with a wide range of free business planning and technical assistance, which sometimes includes support navigating grant and loan applications. This year, 10 of our farm clients were awarded implementation grants through the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board! Funding will support projects ranging from sheep handling to storage infrastructure. 


Land


At the Intervale Conservation Nursery (ICN), we not only grow tens of thousands of native trees and shrubs, but our Nursery Crew also provides stewardship services to conservation projects across the state. Stewarding around new plantings in the first few years of growth through tasks like weeding and trimming competing vegetation is critical to help young trees grow into forests. Thanks to funding from the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP)’s Clean Water and Healthy Ecosystems Grant, the ICN is enhancing over 30 acres of riparian forest buffer at more than 25 sites across the Lake Champlain Basin this year. Learn more about the projects we’re stewarding in our blog post!

Fruit trees have myriad benefits for our farms, gardens, and ecosystems, from improving pollinator habitat to increasing food production. Summer is a great time to prune and tend to your fruit trees! Pruning is essential to promote fruit production and healthy growth.

This month, Jacob Holzberg-Pill of Juneberry led a free fruit tree care workshop in the Intervale featuring some of the nearly 100 fruit trees our land stewardship team has planted here. Jacob and Intervale Center land steward, Duncan Murdoch, guided participants on a tour of young fruit trees in the Intervale, including peach, apple, pear, plum, and paw paw trees.  


People


The Intervale Food Hub is an important resource for families seeking fresh fruits and vegetables. Our free Fair Share CSA program starts in July and runs weekly through October. At Fair Share, anyone seeking access to fresh produce can sign up, pick up their share of fresh fruits and vegetables from our Community Barn, and harvest from our pick-your-own People’s Garden. 

So far this summer, we have seen a large increase in demand for food access with an average of 400 households attending our distributions each week (up from 300 in 2024), but through a combination of gleaning, purchasing, growing, and requesting donations, we have been able to provide fresh food shares to all our participants. 

You can support food access in your community by volunteering with Fair Share! We are seeking volunteers to glean fruits and veggies, help members navigate the People's Garden, set up at our distributions, and more. Sign up here!

We were excited to serve as an access point for an impactful meal kit distribution facilitated by Burlington School Food Project and the Burlington School District. They provided weekly meal boxes containing food for 7 breakfasts and 7 lunches for children 18 and under. Through three distributions out of the Intervale Food Hub, they distributed 1,200 meal kits to kids—that’s 16,800 meals! 


Check out the Intervale Center in the news for our statewide impact!

  • See the Riparian Lands Native Seed Partnership at work to restore a former corn field to native forest in this WCAX story.

  • Learn how Vermont Land Link’s new features are helping farmers access land in this article from Seven Days.

  • Learn how UVM Dining is using its purchasing power through the Intervale Food Hub to support local food producers in this article on FoodService Director

Kerri Grimaldi