I am a big seed saver, so love the new pic Kerri! Just today worked on some for 3 hrs!

I had lots of blackberry lilies this year from your seeds!!

This is a class from 3 weeks ago. We offer gardener training programs and this is part of a five week session. I attend to learn, connect with the community and to get some photos for social media. Gardeners come from all over, not just the city but most have plots with us (4x10 raised beds).

Folks were invited to sort and filter the seeds for them to take home. Our class leader this time was one of our own community gardeners from Mexico (at the top of the photo).

He is farming a bit of our city lot this year with Mexican crops that we then sell at the market. (I made salsa verde from ingredients, including papalo, entirely sourced from our urban gardens. )

The focus this year is culturally appropriate crops so in addition to Mexican veg, we grew Asian eggplant, Asian long beans, and Burmese white eggplant and many others. The idea in future is to have more local gardeners grow crops important to their culture that they can then share or sell.

Did I mention that I LOVE my new job?

Mill City Grows

I really like the picture and the new colors are really nice too!

And we have cooking classes as well..in this video our Ed leader Giuliana rocks! She runs the gardener classes as well..She is more subdued in video, in person she is a spark!

Family Cooking Classes at The Boys and Girls Club

Our office space is only half built out, the second half is to be renovated in November to create a commercial kitchen so we can invite families into our own space for classes.

Great video!

That kitchen looks legit - are you renting space in it while your new kitchen is built?

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
Great video!

That kitchen looks legit - are you renting space in it while your new kitchen is built?

Yes...renting, borrowing...But once the space is built out we can hold classes but also process produce here...One request from clients is pre-chopping or ricing of veg for sale..

I just yesterday had a chat with an elderly lady who loved our acorn and butternut squash..but...she was worried about her ability to cut them herself...I assured her that she could roast the whole thing and then cut it up, but she passed..If we had precut veg, she would have bought it..

60% or so of our customers are on food assistance, including that customer...We have a donor that matches so our coupon customers get double their value..But sometimes money is not the only hurdle.

We plan to have the capability to do some processing in place, provided the funding..We have enough funds to get most of the construction done, still a bit short for the details..but we are optimistic!

Love the pic and the idea.

That’s a great video!