Nuestra Tierra

After working in the on-site Classroom garden at the Food Bank for the last few days, I took some great pictures to share with you. Enjoy!

I am working in the Community Food Resource Center, which targets long-term food insecurity by teaching and enabling residents to grow their own food. To this end, the Food Bank has created the Nuestra Tierra classroom garden to show people how to efficiently grow vegetables.

Vegetables such as the eggplant, okra and squash pictured above are also sold at the Food Bank-sponsored Farmer's Market on Thursday nights. My co-worker Audra helps local small farmers consign their veggies at the market to supplement what we can grow. In this way, the Food Bank helps residents grow what they need and sell what they don't.

Staff at the Food Bank support local growers with tons of different workshops to help get a garden started.

With the Home Garden program, the Food Bank really facilitates growing throughout the community. A family that meets a few stipulations can get free seeds, compost and even sprouts of vegetables that can be transplanted into their own garden. We start growing these in our greenhouse, and people can come by and get them when they are ready for transplanting.

Lately, I have been watering plants, taking care of chickens, digging beds and doing renovations to the greenhouse. Take a look at the Food Bank's web site for more information-- the Community Food Resource Center is doing really great things!