Community | November 05, 2011 | 34 comments

Sandoval County (New Mexico) Master Gardeners' receives international award for Food Pantry Garden work; harvested more than 30,700 pounds of produce to pantries that provide food to the needy

source: http://www.sandovalsignpost.com/html/up_front.html#4

And they did it using 1.5 acres. Knowledge (easier to get than most would think) volunteers, a bit of work and water (learn to harvest that too!) can go a very long way toward helping others who are in need. Gardening is a healthy activity, reduces stress, and is a fantastic way to raise children with the understanding that they do not need big corporations to live better.

http://www.sandovalsignpost.com/html/up_front.html#4
  1. groups:
    Community,   Green,   Sustainable Agriculture,   KB723's Den of Iniquities,   1 more
  2. tags:
    Gardening,  feed the poor,  community food banks
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34 comments // Sandoval County (New Mexico) Master Gardeners' receives international award for Food Pantry Garden work; harvested more than 30,700 pounds of produce to pantries that provide food to the needy

  • Frosty46
    • +1
      Frosty46  

    • Grew up on a hobby farm.
      Chickens, cows, pigs, very large garden, orchard, row crops, haying and wheat/beans. The only way to live on this planet!

    • 7 months ago
  • attilatheblond
  • Frosty46
    • 0
      Frosty46  
    • attilatheblond:

      It's a big step. Doing well takes time and dedication. Take one project at a time and do that one as well as possible. Good luck--it's very do-able! I'd syill be on ours but for Ronnie Raygun--------

    • 7 months ago
  • Cruzankenny
  • attilatheblond
    • +1
      attilatheblond  
    • Cruzankenny:

      das a fact! When I lived in Tucson, we LOVED seeing the chili vendors show up from Hatch. When wooden frames decked with ristras showed up on busy corners, it was a time to rejoice: Chilies have arrived from New Mexico; summer heat is on the way out!

    • 7 months ago
  • Cruzankenny
  • Kelly_Balthrop
  • KB723
  • PressCore
    • +3
      PressCore  

    • Article voted up emphaticly ! New Mexico & Colorado are home
      for me. It's genuinely wonderful to read such sacred Peaceful
      activity, and the charitable motive to provide for others. My 1st
      job in life at age 10 involved my brother & I working for our
      Sicilian grandfather in our organic garden at home. Being out
      in the fresh air & Sunshine, tending growing things, consuming
      our own vegetables was the right way to grow up. My grandad
      was a cook on an Italian Navy Battleship at the turn of the 20th
      century. I learned Italian recipes and how to cook that cuisine
      from Giovani Narduzzo. It's the 125th aniversary of his birth this
      November in 2011. From having a green thumb to creating dinner
      with the results, I'll bet both native Americans & caucasians of
      New Mexico would have liked him. Exerpted from a song sung
      by one of the original Woodstock hippy groups: " Doesn't every
      body know, Love is the high sign...the high sign of a lifetime "
      Viva New Mexico !

    • 7 months ago
  • attilatheblond
    • +2
      attilatheblond  
    • PressCore:

      Your granddad sounds like a man after my own heart. He gave you great power, didn't he? When he taught how to grow and cook food, he linked you to the most sacred human rite and gave you a power not enough have these days.

      For his birthday, I will work harder to entice more people into the joys of raising food to share and to teach.

      Light a candle for him for me if you observe such traditions. I shall lite one for him on my alter for the dead that I leave up for one week and one day past All Souls Day, though I am anything but a Catholic. The alter is more in keeping with my affinity for the Hispanics I know in the Southwest. There are some really wonderful traditions we do well to adopt, are there?

    • 7 months ago
  • PressCore
  • Wyley_Wombat
    • +2
      Wyley_Wombat  

    • Thanks for posting this. I volunteer at a Food Pantry and wish we had the space to do something like this. I grew up raising a lot of our own food.

    • 7 months ago
  • attilatheblond
    • +1
      attilatheblond  
    • Image
    • Wyley_Wombat:

      Contact your county extension agent office and see if there are some gardeners who might be interested in starting some urban community gardens. Might find some helpful ideas from this site: http://www.communitygardensoftucson.org/main/

      There was an elementary school in a rather un-wealthy neighborhood just outside of downtown Tucson which started a little garden plot. It gave teachers a great venue for teaching age appropriate life sciences/biology to the kids. Gave some city kids an idea of just where food comes from and how to make it appear themselves. Plus, they had a harvest feast.

      It spread. Kids went home and pestered parents and grans about doing gardens. Tiny lots with tiny houses, but you know what some enthusiastic youngsters can do! Yep, little gardens sprang up. People got better food without spending too much money. Older people were reminded of the good ol days and found out they had much to offer by helping guide the youngsters. Knowledge was handed down which probably made the older folks realize they could still contribute and younger folks realize geezers aren't just cranks.

      It was really a great little exercise, that school garden plot that got expanded each year.
      Teach how to raise food. Build some pride and community. Show youngsters that the ugly they may see is not what they have to accept. Show them they can change a little in their corner of the world and maybe some of them will get brave enough to change the world.

      My daughter just told me about the libraries in Tucson doing seed 'lending'. What a great way to encourage more local gardening.

      Thank you for the work you do at your food pantry. Don't fret. You WILL find ways to get some community gardening going to provide even more help to those in need. What you do has great power. Just invite others to carry it a bit further in your area. You might be surprised.

      Blessings.

    • 7 months ago
  • attilatheblond
  • Wyley_Wombat
    • +1
      Wyley_Wombat  
    • attilatheblond:

      Thanks for the information. I will check out what the county extension service has to offer. I have dealt with them on several other issues in the past. I really do not do facebook.. My wife does so maybe I can get her to help me with that. Thanks

    • 7 months ago
  • attilatheblond
    • +1
      attilatheblond  
    • Wyley_Wombat:

      Found another resource link for urban farming ideas: http://www.urbanfarming.org/about.html

      Gleaned via twitter, where Keith Olbermann announced that TheRichardLewis was now on twitter. Being a Lewis fan from way back, I took a look into his tweets. Looks like this group is a pet project with him. Any way, it might give many a starting place for trying to bring wholesome food to urban populations with little means.

    • 7 months ago
  • attilatheblond
  • letsliveinpeace
  • attilatheblond
  • squarethecircle
    • +2
      squarethecircle  

    • proof that industrial farming is not the answer and more food can be produced on smaller localized, diverse farms than can be grown by trying to beat nature into submission.

    • 7 months ago
  • Incredulous
  • attilatheblond
  • KB723
  • attilatheblond
    • +2
      attilatheblond  
    • KB723:

      'tweren't me what grew all that food there! (but I am known to make sure some elderly neighbors get fresh greens they can actually digest, and tomatoes, along with many many veggie seedlings in planting time) No, I just follow some news in areas we are considering for retirement. A place with a group like this scores high on our local values and culture meter! Been following news in several N.M. communities. Community actions count highest in our reviews of where we would like to spend our last days.

    • 7 months ago
  • KB723
  • attilatheblond
    • +2
      attilatheblond  

    • With all the community building OWS/Occupy America/Occupy the World is bringing, some hobbyist gardeners might find some fertile ground to get people involved in community gardens. Great stress reliever, great exercise, great teaching opportunities for showing kids surviving with little dependence on corporations is possible. That is the lesson corporations do not want people to learn.

      Many communities have such garden programs. If not, get one going. Tucson/Pima County has some great community gardens going and the Library system got into it, offering 'seed lending'. You can go to the library, get seeds, grow, harvest, then bring some seeds back for the next guy to use the next season.

      Grow, and share food. It is a very human activity.

    • 7 months ago
  • PressCore
    • +1
      PressCore  
    • attilatheblond:

      If every human knew the taste of organicly grown tomatoes, then
      they could readily understand why it's biologicly classified as one
      of the berry family, which are normaly associated as fruit. The
      fructose in the tomato makes it sweet. The mildly acidic taste
      of a natualy grown tomato makes it special. Italians know. The
      native Americans had a custom of fertilizing corn stalks by pre
      fertilizing their seed planting. They'd take the entrails of fish,
      heads, and tails, then bury them in the Autumn to let the Winter
      rains/snowmelt dissolve them into the soil to enrich it's mineral
      base, and to increase the micro organisms that thrive in soil.
      The corn the Indians planted in that naturaly fertilized soil is
      as as naturaly tendersweet as one could ever immagine. All
      these things were intended by nature to make people healthy.
      Once a person's body is flushed of all toxins which denaturized
      polluted food deposit in it, the natural sugar content in fresh
      produce is more than enough to satisfy anyone. And eating
      an orange becomes more satisfying than candy ever could be.

    • 7 months ago
  • attilatheblond
    • +1
      attilatheblond  
    • PressCore:

      Found a great tomato and have grown it here in Montana past 3 years. It is a Russian heirloom and well suited for far north zones. Talk about sweet, and complex fruit/berry taste! Yep. Black Prince is the tomato and you are right, more people need to experience real food, left on the plant until it should be eaten.

      I remember a young neighbor, who at age 5 read about the native peoples using fish to fertelize corn. She INSISTED on planting popcorn and carefully laid three tiny fish with each kernel planted. (we lived on the coast at the time, tiny fish easy to come by) Her father thought the whole project silly. The corn towered over all of us in short order, and a prouder five year old you could never find!.

    • 7 months ago
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • attilatheblond:

      Wow. Great story. Thanks for sharing it with me. I plan
      to have a year round solar heated greenhouse some
      year soon, hopefuly in Colorado. I'd like to grow the
      Black Prince tomatoes. Thanks again, amigo.

    • 7 months ago
  • Leen61
  • attilatheblond
    • +1
      attilatheblond  
    • Leen61:

      Oh, it's not purely altruistic, but I agree we need more altruism. Gardening is a very satisfying way to get in touch with our essential humanity. Good for the gardener, good for those who get some really nutritious foods they might not otherwise have. Good for the air and the neighborhoods.

    • 7 months ago
  • Leen61
  • attilatheblond
  • Leen61
attilatheblond
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