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Author: Kacie Cotter-Harrigan

Seed Starting …timing is everything

Written by Kacie Cotter-Harrigan on . Posted in Home & Garden.

Gardeners are buying seed packets for the plants they’ll want to grow once planting season actually arrives. To get a jump on the season, we need to start some seeds indoors so they’ll be perfect transplants when May arrives. It’s pretty easy to get ahead of ourselves when it comes to seed starting, so it’s a good idea to make a seed starting schedule.

There are a few vegetables with a long growing season that need a head start indoors. These include tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and a few others. Cucumbers, beans, squash, carrots, lettuce, radishes…indeed most of our favorite vegetables need no head start and actually do better when grown from seed sown directly into the garden. This is something newbies need to understand about vegetable gardening.

How do we know which need to be started indoors?

This is where the seed packet comes in real handy. On the back you’ll usually find directions. If they include a statement like “Start indoors 6-8 weeks before frost free planting date”, then you know this plant requires a head start in our climate.

When is my frost free planting date?

The average last frost date for the Albany Airport is May 5. That date seems wildly optimistic to me. We often get frost after then. Remember, it is the average last frost date. After spending weeks growing your transplants, you sure don’t want to lose them to frost or have them struggle in the cold. For our area, I think the week after Mother’s Day makes more sense, and there’s no reason to rush planting. Tomatoes and peppers stall when temperatures go below 50°F, so waiting to plant them in late May often results in an earlier harvest than you’d get from plants subjected to too many cold nights early in the season. In my garden in the Glenville Hills (elevation 800ʹ or so) I generally shoot for planting tomatoes and peppers even later…the week before Memorial Day.

The next step is to use a calendar to combine the information on the seed packs and come up with a logical schedule for starting seeds indoors.

First mark ‘Planting Week’ (May 9-15…the week after Mother’s Day) on your calendar. Then mark the week previous to ‘Planting Week’ “1 week” meaning ‘one week before planting’. Mark the week previous to that “2 weeks” and so on until you’ve marked up to “10 weeks” before planting. 10 weeks before planting should end up being the first week of March (February 28 – March 6).

Now look at the information on the seed packs to see how many “weeks before planting” we need to get the seeds started indoors. With that information, you can start to fill in the calendar so you can see when to start the seeds for that crop.  To make things easy, I just tape the seed pack to my seed starting calendar. When I get to the week the seeds need to get started, they are right there.

Wouldn’t it be better to start them all as soon as possible? Some plants, like geraniums for instance, need a long time (10 -13 weeks) to reach the size we want for planting. Others, like tomatoes, only need only 6-8 weeks.

If you give your tomatoes lots more time indoors, they indeed will be larger. Growing for too long indoors, your tomatoes will get long and leggy reaching for the light they need during these still-short days. Leggy transplants will have a harder time adjusting to the outside, and you’ll end up burying that leggy stem anyway. You want a compact, sturdy transplant that grew in the longer days of mid March through April.

The other issue is space. If you start everything too early, you’ll need more space to spread out your seedlings as they grow…space you may not have, and your seedlings will suffer as they compete for light. Choose carefully what you want to start indoors and stick to a seed starting schedule. 

THANKS FOR THE READ!

Builder’s Corner: Time to Spring Forward

Written by Kacie Cotter-Harrigan on . Posted in Home & Garden.

On Sunday, March 14, 2021 collectively as a community we will “spring forward” by setting our clocks an hour ahead. This means yet another adjustment to our busy daily lives. But springing forward has other implications like sprucing up our yards and homes for spring. There are so many projects like spring cleaning, roof and gutter work, and many basic repairs that come from the harsh northern winters. It is also a time where dated siding, broken roof shingles, and interiors like kitchen cabinets start to show the timeworn flaws that you would rather not see. 

This is often where you may spring into action and say that is it! I want a new kitchen! Have no fear as spring is a great time to get those bigger projects going like kitchen installations, additions or for some even building a new home. 

Spring gives us the renewed and rejuvenated feeling of things blossoming and growing and thriving once again. If you are thinking about starting a big project, I recommend using the momentum from our yearly ritual of turning clocks ahead to get going.  But where should you begin?

The first step when deciding to take on a project is to come up with a realistic budget. You may want to find out how much equity you have in your home in order to get a baseline for taking out a home equity loan. Rates are at the lowest they have been in many years. There is no time like the spring to make this happen. 

Depending on the project or projects you are considering, you will want to do your research. Start with Google searches and look for reputable contractors that serve your local community. There is no sense in getting interested in a builder who is 100 miles away. Proximity matters and most contractors work within a 30-50 mile radius. Once you narrow down a few contractors, then pick up the phone and schedule a consultation. Tell them what you are thinking about doing and they can give you some immediate feedback that will assist you with obtaining your home equity loan. What you think a project may cost and what a builder determines based on your material preferences are often two different things. They can also steer you to the right project based on your budget.

Once you’ve narrowed down your choices you must make that final choice. Look for an experienced builder and ask good questions about their process, procedures and timelines. You can also ask for references from other clients. Also talk to friends and family about who they have used for additional recommendations.  Someone will stand out above the others and you will know it is a good fit to move forward. 

BEST OF LUCK WITH YOUR SPRING PROJECTS!

– Lou Galarneau, President Galarneau Builders

Like “Buttah”

Written by Kacie Cotter-Harrigan on . Posted in Food.

Hello my Foodie Friends! 

I love watching vintage SNL (Saturday Night Live) shows. Among my favorites is a classic skit of Mike Meyers playing Liz Rosenberg in “Coffee Talk.” During the “Coffee Talk” sketch featuring Mike Myers, Madonna, and Roseanne Barr; Barbra Streisand made a surprise appearance! In the skit, the three ladies from Queens had all finished saying that Barbra was “like buttah.” Barbra poked her head out and said, “All this talk about food’s got me hungry, girls!” 

With all of the talk about butter, brings up how to store butter. I came to realize that while I use butter quite frequently with my cooking, having soft, spreadable butter was a missing component. I wanted my quality butter at room temperature from time to time, and I did not want the spreadable tubs found in the refrigerated section at the grocer which also (or only) contained margarine. My mind drifted back to my introduction to the butter pot from years past. The pottery container consists of two parts: a lid which resembles a bell, in which you pack the butter into; and the base, which the lid is placed into which contains water, about 1/4 inch to a 1/2 an inch depending on how big your butter keeper is. The lid combined with the water creates an airtight seal which keeps oxygen out, thus negating the need for refrigeration, and thereby allowing the butter to remain spreadable. The beauty of the butter keeper is that it serves as a presentation dish as well. Simply take the bell out of the base, flip over and place on the table. It looks as though it was intended to be a bowl holding butter. And when finished, no need to dirty another dish, just flip it back over into the base.

How to use a butter pot:  Make sure the butter is soft enough to work into the lid. If it is too hard, then air pockets will develop within the butter in the lid, which creates a suction affect when the lid is removed from the base of the crock. We recommend using the back of a spoon to push the butter into the lid. Make sure the butter is smoothed around and no air pockets are found. The butter must adhere to the inside of the lid, meaning there should be no space between the butter and the lid. By smoothing the butter internally within the lid, this should ensure that it properly adheres to the insides of the bell. Add the cold water to the base, and replace every 3 days with fresh water. If you carefully follow these directions, you should have no problems with the butter falling into the water.

Store the Butter pot away from heat.  Once your butter pot is packed with butter and ready to use, do not sit it next to the stove or store in direct sunlight. If the crock becomes heated, the butter can melt and fall out of the lid.

Change the water in the base of the crock. It is recommended to replace the water in the base of your crock every 3 days, with fresh, cold water. In warm summer months, we also recommend adding a few ice chips to the water to retain its coolness.

Wash in between uses. Your butter pot should be cleaned in between uses. It is very important to make sure that the lid of the crock is thoroughly dry before packing butter into it – otherwise the butter will not adhere properly to the inside of the lid.

At Compliments to the Chef, your Neighborhood Kitchen and Cutlery store, we carry marble and stoneware butter pots. We also carry butter dishes for those who like to refrigerate your butter. Storing butter is a preference. I know I like soft butter especially when making toast on Sunday mornings, having a cup of coffee, and maybe even watching or listening to Barbra Streisand. Her voice is like “buttah”. Remember my Foodie Friends; “Life Happens in the Kitchen.”

 Take Care,
John & PaulaREARDON ButterCake

Copy of Snow Fort Army Chow

Written by Kacie Cotter-Harrigan on . Posted in Food.

Hello my Foodie Friends!   

This winter is certainly giving us plenty of snow. As I glance out into the white wonderland and watch the children in our neighborhood play, I reflect on some of my own fondest childhood memories playing in the snow. I enjoy sharing this story with you each winter. I grew up during a time when the average was at least four children per household and you were literally thrown outdoors to play and told not to come back home until the street lights came on. Playing in the snow included making homemade sleds to slide down the golf course hills, making snowmen, and of course, building the best snow fort in the neighborhood.  In our house we divided up the tasks to ensure that our “fort” could withstand repeated attacks of snowball wielding elementary school kids. In the creation of our snow fort, my brother Danny was the engineer and he mapped out how high and thick the walls should be. My youngest brother Billy was the builder and shaped the inside of the fort for the chairs, refrigerator and snow TV. The baby of our family Patty was support staff.  Since I was the oldest of the Reardon children clan, I was the recruiter and went door to door finding my soldiers and builders.  We were not allowed to use the phone back then (adults only), so when I came to the door and knocked you could hear a stampede of children in the house trying to get to the door. To get them to work on the fort I would tell them that my mother was making meatball sandwiches!  My mother’s meatballs were the envy of the neighborhood and far exceeded the bologna and spam the other kids were getting. My first stops were Dave and Karl’s houses and they lived next door to each other.  They were my age but already almost as tall as most of our fathers at the age of six. Dave turned out to be 6’8” and Karl is 6’6”. If you want your walls to be the highest, I thought, get the tallest kids.  My mother would grimace when she saw them coming as she knew she would need a lot more meatballs. Our first forts were wrecked at night by teenagers until my brother Dan came up with the idea to put water on the outside walls and it would turn them to ice.  You could hear the howls of the mean teenagers when they kicked the walls and they didn’t give so easily. 

To this day, when I talk with some of my childhood friends, they join me in reminiscing about the fun snow forts, and the reward of my mother’s meatball sandwiches. To this day, her meatballs remained unparalleled. However, Paula’s meatballs are on target with them especially since my mother did share her “secret” method with Paula. 

At Compliments to the Chef, your Neighborhood Kitchen and Cutlery store, we carry skillets to make your meatballs in, saucepans to make your sauce, baking sheets to pop your meatball hoagies into the oven with, and other really “Cool Tools for Cooks.” Meatball Hoagies are a great way to deal with these frosty winter days.  The neighborhood kids will love you!! Remember my Foodie Friends: “Life Happens in the Kitchen.”

Take Care, John & Paula

REARDON MeatballSub

CSA’s Help Us Invest In Food and Farms

Written by Kacie Cotter-Harrigan on . Posted in Food.

This time last year, we learned that a secure food supply could suddenly turn into shortages. Buying from local farms, which have a much shorter supply chain, is a great way to be assured of getting freshly harvested, quality food. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) provides an even better guarantee.

By purchasing a CSA, customers make an early investment to help farmers get their season started, quite literally giving them seed money. Then, CSA members reap the harvest season’s benefits by receiving produce at a discounted price. Saratoga Farmers’ Market’s Wednesday and Saturday outdoor markets, which begin in May, will offer several CSA options.

Owl Wood Farm is one of the farms offering CSA subscriptions. They have traditional ‘Box Shares’ that run for 20 weeks, starting in June, for $450. Each share has a salad green, a cooking green, a root crop, an herb, a type of onion, and seasonal items, like strawberries, beans, or summer squash. The ‘box share’ is an excellent option for weekly shoppers who like variety and enjoy creative cooking. A second option is the ‘Market Share’: customers get “Owl Bills” to use at the farm’s stand whenever and for whatever they want. Any prepaid dollar amount over $200 receives a 10% credit added to it. Customers may purchase shares on Owl Wood’s website or learn more at the market when they return in late April.

Gomez Veggie Ville is also offering vegetable CSA shares to customers this season. Shares last for 24 weeks and consist of a variety of fruits and vegetables. Full shares include 8-10 items per week, depending on the season. Half shares have 4-5 items per week. Customers can opt for pre-packed boxes at $600 (full share) or $300 (half share) or choose the pick-your-own option for $650 or $325, respectively. Gomez Veggie Ville is already taking sign-ups at the Saturday farmers’ market. Contact them by phone for more information.

Other farms offer more specialized CSA options, like 518 Farms’ mushroom shares. Customers are sent a rotating list of available mushrooms two days before market day and can choose their mix to pick up on Saturdays. There is a small (½ lb per week for $140) or large (1 lb per week for $260) option; both run for 13 weeks. For more information, visit 518 Farms’ website or inquire at the winter market.

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is open Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Find us online at saratogafarmersmarket.org and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. For online pre-ordering and curbside pickup, visit localline.ca/saratoga-farmers-market.

FM SwissChardAndKaleGratin

How to Become an Effective Leader

Written by Kacie Cotter-Harrigan on . Posted in Education.

When education and experience meet, effective leaders are born. 

Because her shoes were full of holes, Heather Kinkel stuffed them with paper when she was a kid.

“I grew up in a household where we didn’t ask for very much help but we one hundred percent needed the help,” she said. 

The people that went out of their way to help her family back then inspired Heather’s lifelong habit of looking for ways she too could help others. 

“I couldn’t provide everything someone needed but I could provide something someone needed.”

PAVING THE WAY
The community provided help when, as an adult, and a mother of four, Heather’s family lost everything in a house fire.

“I decided at that moment that there are a lot of really tremendous people in our community. It motivates you to start doing a small thing that becomes a great thing. I can’t be a superhero but I can do something,” she said. 

For four years, Heather led and encouraged kids to challenge themselves on the Saratoga Regional YMCA ropes course. Last fall, when the SRYMCA decided to restart a teen Leadership Club for the first time in eight years, Heather became the group’s leader. 

“People don’t always understand what the Y actually does – they don’t realize we help a lot of people who are in need and struggling,” said SRYMCA Youth Director Kristi Savage. 

LEARNING LEADERSHIP SKILLS
An effective leader is someone who inspires cooperation through communication, not domination. 

Conversation is encouraged in the Leadership Club. 

Heather asks the group questions that allow them to build relationships, set goals, and solve problems. These leadership skills are then put to use to help people in the community. 

Leadership Club projects have included hosting holiday crafts, successful food and coat drives. To reach those in need, they’ve worked with the Home of the Good Shepard and community agencies including LifeWorks Community Action and the Harvest Distribution Centers.

“You don’t know what other people are going through so you work harder to help them,” said Saratoga Springs High School freshman Rob Shontz.

GAINING A BROADER PERSPECTIVE
Many of the students in the group have discovered that volunteering comes with unexpected rewards. 

“Some people need more help than others and helping people feels good,” said Natalia Soong, a sophomore at Saratoga Springs High School.

They’ve built friendships and new interests outside of school and sports.

“It’s fun to talk to others, get out of the house and get a break from everything,” said Saratoga Springs freshman Hannes Lohse.

They’re also gaining the confidence that comes through a broader perspective of the world and the variety of challenges that the people within it are facing – now, and in the future. 

“Instead of therapy, this is what I did. I can get depressed. It helps when I do something for someone else and that’s not just for me,” said Sam Strohl, a freshman at Shenendehowa High School West. 

DRIVE-UP FOOD DRIVE
SRYMCA Leadership Club is holding a drive-up food drive on Sunday, March 14 at 2 p.m. in front of the Saratoga Springs branch, 290 West Ave. Saratoga Springs. For more information, follow the SRYMCA on Facebook.

Saratoga County Street Outreach Model Guides Homelessness Effort

Written by Kacie Cotter-Harrigan on . Posted in News.

We are all guilty of compassion fatigue and frustration at times. Witnessing a persistent community problem —or need— depending on your vantage point, with little insight into the solution can exhaust even the most empathetic. This exhaustion can lead to disengagement or taking on the issue ourselves without the structural knowledge to properly drive real change. Here in Saratoga, many see a growing “problem” with street homelessness and ask what exactly is being done to help these neighbors in need while also driving sustainable outcomes.

Thankfully, in Saratoga County, we have an inter-agency street outreach team funded by COVID-19 CARES Act funding set to drive real change. The Saratoga County Alliance to End Homelessness brings together five agencies tasked with achieving aggressive street outreach goals and outcomes. 

Not just a hand-out: from the street to independence, CARES Act funding for the Saratoga County Street Outreach program began in fall 2020. In December, “Marc,” a local teenager experiencing homelessness, was connected to the Healing Springs street outreach team by local police officers after surviving an overdose. Having already started weekly collaborative meetings with the other four Street Outreach Program partners, team members from Healing Springs quickly identified that Marc did not have substance use issues but rather needed mental health support. An informed hand-off to CAPTAIN Community Human Services (CHS), connection to DSS services, and ultimate placement with Shelters of Saratoga (SOS) meant that Marc got connected to the right support services at the right time without having to tell his story over and over again. Working with SOS case management, Marc is now employed, pursuing his GED, and eligible for rapid-rehousing (another component of the CARES Act program) as soon as he is stable enough to transition. “Each week, we go over 30+ cases together at our inter-agency meetings. This funding has created a level of collaboration we’d not seen before. All five agencies have now increased our referral capacity and understanding of services between agencies. For clients like Marc, it’s a game-changer,” said Stephanie Romeo, Program Director, Shelters of Saratoga.

“We often think of personal belongings or a house as the first thing an individual experiencing homelessness may lose. I truly believe it is one’s sense of self. In street outreach, we welcome individuals to express themselves freely through the storytelling of their pasts and desires of the future, and there is a turning point when their story becomes a living narrative as each day our clients are writing their future story and walk with us on a path to their new home,” says Bri Phillips, Street Outreach Program Manager at CAPTAIN CHS, talking about the core element of building trust through street outreach work.

What is street outreach?

Street-based outreach is part of a “no wrong door” approach. Street outreach workers, trained to connect with individuals experiencing homelessness, can build trust before these individuals may be able to walk into a social service agency on their own. Street outreach workers search for these individuals in uninhabitable situations like in cars, tents, abandoned buildings, known encampments, and under bridges. 

According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, effective street outreach has several core elements, all adhered to by our inter-agency effort:

Efforts are “systematic, coordinated, and comprehensive.” In plain language, this means that no agency or person goes it alone. This must be a community effort.

Efforts are focused on housing. The goal of street outreach does not end at meeting one need. The goal is to establish trust, provide for immediate needs, connect to services that ultimately move someone into housing. 

Efforts are “person-centered, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive.” More harm than good can be done by well-meaning, untrained outreach efforts. Our teams have the expertise needed to cause no harm while providing services.

The ultimate goal of street outreach is to connect undomiciled individuals with shelter and permanent housing. It may take many attempts to engage participants. Persistence and inter-agency collaboration are key to encourage participants to seek shelter or go directly to a permanent housing arrangement. 

Ultimately, this new inter-agency program will support 190 individuals in its first year and hit a bold goal of moving 60% of those individuals to permanent, supportive housing or shelter. We have incredible, skilled, collaborative teams working with unprecedented funds to address this growing crisis. Please contact any of the street outreach program partners to learn more about volunteer and donation opportunities. The community plays a vital role in supporting these teams of experts. We will continue to report out here each month of progress, success stories, and outcomes.

Brooke McConnell is one of the founding members of the Saratoga County Alliance to End Homelessness and a SOS and Saratoga Institute Board member. Professionally, she works on national issues related to social determinants of health through her company Unite Us.

1820 Religious Revival in Malta, NY

Written by Kacie Cotter-Harrigan on . Posted in History.

The Great Awakening was a wave of increased religious enthusiasm led by evangelical Protestant ministers that first swept through the American Colonies in the 1730s. It made Christianity intensely personal to the average person by fostering a deep sense of spiritual conviction and by encouraging introspection and a commitment to a new standard of personal morality. While the Great Awakening was very effective in reviving religion, the emotion burned out quickly after the first generation and there was much “back sliding.”  So in the 1820s conditions were ripe for what became the Second Great Awakening. They were particularly ripe in Malta. 

A “moral wild” and a “waste place” were among the terms used by churchmen of the time to describe Malta in the early nineteenth century. (If you think that is bad, wait till your hear what they said of Stillwater). Religious life in Malta at the time was described as “a very small Methodist church in one corner of the town, and two or three of God’s children in another corner, there was neither piety nor prayer, no means of grace nor desire of salvation.”

Redemption, however, came to Malta in the person of Rev. Asahel Nettleton, a well-known revivalist from Connecticut. Few have heard of Nettleton today but he was the Billy Graham of the 1820s, his name familiar in every New England household.  It has been estimated that more than 30,000 converts responded to his call.

In the summer of 1819, Nettleton’s ministry shifted from Connecticut to the Saratoga area. Although he came for a rest and to restore his failing health, local ministers pressed him into service.  A “Mr. Hunter” was credited with persuading him of the need to start in Malta. Responding to this call, Nettleton preached to crowds estimated to be as large as 1,400 in Malta.  To put that in perspective, the population of the town in the 1820 Census was 1,518.  People came from Stillwater, Galway, Ballston and Saratoga.  It was estimated that he was responsible for over 600 converts during the seven months he spent in Saratoga County before moving on to Union College in Schenectady where he led another successful revival with the assistance of Dr. Eliphelet Nott, the famous president of the college.

Ministers came to Malta to see what was going on. What they saw so impressed them that they carried the revival spirit back with them to their own towns and villages so the rival flourished in Saratoga, Stillwater, Ballston, Galway and Charlton and many other smaller places.

And it was not a moment too soon for those sinners in Stillwater who were described as “boatmen, tipplers, tavern haunters, gamblers, infidels and atheists”. What was going on in Stillwater?  In 1817, the State had begun digging both the Erie and the Champlain Canals with the latter passing through the Town of Stillwater. The work attracted rough, mostly Irish and Catholic immigrants, to an area that had known few immigrants before the canal project. Nettleton preached there on February 27, 1820 and reported that “one hundred and three publicly presented themselves a living sacrifice to the Lord; and about one hundred more rejoicing in hope, and expect soon to follow their example.” 

The revival was so significant that the Albany Presbytery appointed a special committee to investigate the matter.  It stated in part: “From the very commencement of his (Rev. Nettleton) labors, the work of the Lord’s spirit became more powerful and rapidly progressive. It was but a little while until weeping and anxious distress were found in almost every house; the inhabitants of sin; the families of discord; the haunts of intemperance; the strongholds of error; the retreat of pharisaic pride; the entrenchments of self-righteousness, were all equally penetrated by the power of the Holy Ghost.  It commenced there in Malta, and with such display of the power of God’s spirit in crushing the opposition of the natural heart to everything holy, as are very seldom seen. The Deist, and Universalist, the drunkard, the Gambler and the Swearer, were alike made the subjects of this heartbreaking work. Four months ago, Christ had no church there. It was a place of great spiritual dearth—and like the top of Gilboa had never been wet by rain or dew. But the Lord has now converted that wilderness into a fruitful field.”

Paul Perreault has been the Malta Town Historian since 2009. He served as principal in the Ballston Spa School District from 1978-1998 and as a history teacher at Shenendehowa High School from 1967-1975. He is a member of the Association of Public Historians of New York State, the Saratoga County History Roundtable and the Ballston Spa Rotary Club. Paul can be reached at historian@malta-town.org.

Saratoga Grad Accepted to West Point

Written by Kacie Cotter-Harrigan on . Posted in Education.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Eve Crossett, a 2020 graduate of Saratoga High School, has been accepted to attend West Point in the fall.

Eve has spent this year at Marion Military Institute in Alabama, the nation’s oldest military junior college, prepping for her next “assignment” at West Point. Congratulations Eve!

Eve Crossett WestPoint

Eve Crossett. Photo provided.