Starting at 7:00am on Tuesday morning at Easton’s Urban Farm, Alexa, Alex, the community intern for the summer, and I planted produce for this summer’s veggie van. We planted peppers, eggplant, watermelon and tomatoes. The Urban Farm has a new drip line irrigation system to water the plants, which we helped to adjust. Right now the Lehigh Valley is experiencing a drought, so the soil was very dry and the new plants needed a lot of water. The Urban Farm has recently undergone and expansion to almost twice its size from last year, which is very exciting for us because more space yields more produce for the veggie van. In the afternoon, Alexa and I met with Professor Cohen to discuss our goals and tasks for the veggie van and our individual research.
On Wednesday, we returned to the Urban Farm to do more planting, watering and weeding. We planted corno di toro, jimmy nardello, better belle, and gourmet orange peppers, cherokee purple, black krim and great white tomatoes, and basil. In the afternoon, Alexa and I did some work in the library: we compiled a list of community volunteers’ contacts, drafted an email to Sofia to send to community members, and created a volunteer sign-in for Lexy to track the volunteer hours at the Urban Farm. Alexa also contacted Alison, a nutritionist from Easton hospital, to see what dates she would be available to present demos and recipes at the stand.
On Thursday, we again were at the Urban Farm planting new vegetables, watering plants from the day before, weeding and spreading mulch. Normally, Alexa and I will spend our Thursday mornings at LaFarm; however Sarah was taking a break this week, so our work at LaFarm will begin on Monday morning. We planted jalapeno and haidulce peppers, sun gold, black krim and yellow pear tomatoes, rosa bianca, pington, ping egg, and egg diamond eggplant, onions and chamomile. In the afternoon, Alexa and I met with Dr. Malinconico to discuss some of the logistics of the veggie van, as well as our individual research goals. After the meeting, Alexa and I went to the library to send an email about volunteering with the veggie van to community members who signed up last summer. We also brainstormed ideas for demos/activites to hold at the distribution nights. It is important for us to set-up the activities for each week of distribution during June, so that we have them planned before the actual distribution begins.
On Friday, Alexa and I attended a lunch and discussion event entitled “Join the Local Food Revolution” hosted by Renew Lehigh Valley and the Lehigh Valley Food Policy Council to discuss Urban Agriculture with various contributors to the local food and food justice movements spreading across the area. The discussion topics included: community gardens, urban farms, growing our own economic opportunities and improving the health of individuals and neighborhoods. The various panelists discussed programs related to urban agriculture established in New York, Philadelphia and the local Lehigh Valley. After the panel, there were table discussions to brainstorm ideas on policy relating to a specific topic. For example, my table was about nutrition and we discussed ways to bring healthy and fresh foods to food pantries to distribute to the community. The event was very informative and an exciting way to kick off the summer.
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