ROCKINGHAM — Laurel Green and Steve Crofter of Singing River Farm welcome the community to the farm's second annual Pansy Festival on Saturday, April 30, from noon to 3 p.m.
“Looking into the bright face of a pansy can bring happiness to anyone,” says Green.
For three years, she has been cultivating an heirloom variety of field-grown pansies. Last July, she saved enough seeds to start about 1,000 plants for this year. In September, she transplanted them into growing beds where the young plants overwintered with only a thin blanket of pine needle mulch.
As the days lengthened, each pansy plant put on a burst of growth, and they began blooming in early March.
Unlike most pansies that are grown in commercial greenhouses, these field-grown pansies have root systems that are substantially more developed. Their root clusters are usually 6 to 8 inches long and eager to be transplanted to the location where they will continue to bloom and grow all season.
Besides the sale of pansies, the festival will include a variety of entertainment, facts about pansies, and activities for all ages such as face painting “and a chance to take your photograph posing with the giant pansies,” the farmers note.
New for this year's festival, the Putney Mountain Morris Women will perform ritual spring dances to bless the fields and farm, in an ages-old tradition from the Cotswold region of England.
This form of dance celebrates the return of the growing season and ensures good crops for the coming year. Dancers wear a “kit” or costume that includes bells on their shins. The dancers accentuate their movements with large, white hankies or clashing sticks. Between the dances, everyone can join in singing seasonal songs and playing cooperative games.
Also new this year, the festival will feature a “Cause Way” where several organizations from the region will provide educational activities and materials related to social justice, environmental restoration, and community resilience. Singing River Farm has recently registered with the state as a low-profit limited liability company (L3C) with goals of furthering environmental and social justice, and this “Cause Way” will be a way of showcasing some of these goals.
Guests may bring in food or purchase lunch prepared by the farm's neighbor, María Valadez, a professional cook and caterer who still cooks in the traditional style of her native Mexican state of Michoacán.
This celebration of spring will happen rain or shine. The event will take place outside in a meadow, and organizers suggest that guests wear sturdy shoes and dress for the weather.
There is no smoking or use of alcohol on the property. Singing River Farm also has a “no dogs allowed” policy for the safety of guests and farm animals.
“We've designed the festival to deepen our collective sense of community,” said Crofter. “We're aware that the word 'pansy' is sometimes used as a derogatory term for a gay boy or man, but we're proudly using the word, not only to refer to our flowers, but to emphasize that all kinds of people are welcome here.”