This Week at the Urban Farm

Trafton B.

May 14, 2011 - 5:31 PM

It was an eventful week at the Urban Farm, and I'm excited to relay these stories to you. Let's skip the goofy introduction and get right to it, shall we?

 

On Tuesday, at the request of my good friend and co-group leader, Camille, the entire Urban Farm class had a potluck supper to celebrate Beltane. For those of you who have never heard of Beltane, don't worry because this was the first time I'd heard of it as well. It's more-or-less a celebration of the beginning of the summer growing season, while the semantics and specifics vary depending on the cultural group that's celebrating it.

 

Harper, Lauren, and Tom - other UF group leaders - took some time to explain the history of Beltane and some of their own interpretations of the celebration. I quite enjoyed our little story time while sitting on the haystacks around the Urban Farm's Maypole. Harper is the one pictured above walking around the circle. I only wish that we'd gone through the food table before sitting down rather than after.

 

The food, as you might expect, was amazing! Sage pesto. Roasted potatoes and garbanzo beans. Banana bread. Ice cream. Cheese and crackers for miles. So delicious! Actually, my group's other leader, Jen, invited us over to her house on Wednesday night to have our own Beltane Festival, but I unfortunately couldn't make it. I had a little too much work and not quite enough energy thanks to a lingering cold.

 

  

On Thursday our group continued the fun with a field trip to the Youth Farm in Springfield, where Jen works when she's not teaching at the Urban Farm. Jen is the one pictured above as she talks to our group. The Youth Farm offers a summer educational program were at-risk youth can gain skills in organic agriculture and leadership and learn about the local food system and good nutrition. It's run by the local food bank, FOOD for Lane County, where most of the food grown on the farm is donated. The rest of the food is either sold on-site by the kids that work the farm or sold through a 50-member Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. 

 

Our team was only able to spend about an hour in the field, but we managed to get a lot done. We planted three or four rows of celery, Italian parsley, cabbage and spinach. Keep in mind that each of these rows is 100-feet long and three or four crops wide. Kate and Camille are planting a row of celery in the photo below. All in a day's work. 

 

 

 

I really enjoy telling these stories from Urban Farm because I truly believe that localizing agriculture is becoming common practice these days. Putting on my planning and advocacy hat for a moment, I think that the most stable and resilient neighborhoods with be those that start allocating resources towards local, community-oriented food systems. Our nation has problems with heath, obesity, and environmental degradation. Most people are starting to realize these problems, but it seems like we're only using one hand to fix them while the other hand is still clutching a Big Mac. Most of us have either forgotten or never learned what it means to grow our own food, and I include myself in the latter of those two groups; that's why I decided to take this class in the first place. I sure don't see myself joining the food revolution full-time, but rather I see myself as becoming a participant and practitioner after I graduate and enter the real world. I sincerelly hope that I'm not alone in that regard.

 

Okay, I'll step down from my soapbox, but thank you for listening. I guess my main hope is that local agriculture starts catching on in America, and I'm starting to realize that that's going to be a bottom-up movement if it's going to work. So, get out there a plant a garden, and if you already have a garden then start inviting your friends over so they can learn how to start their own gardens. Join a CSA. Find an open plot in a community garden. Get out there!