From the Valley to the Banks

One day a week our summer intern, Rhona, volunteers at the Rainier Valley Food Bank, which receives produce from the Seattle Community Farm. Here are some of her reflections. 

As community gardeners, we often wonder at the market value of our produce. How much money is today’s harvest worth? How many meals can it make or mouths can it feed?

At the Seattle Community Farm, Tuesdays are harvesting days. That is when the beets come up and the raspberries fall down, when the crates for delivery stack up for washing and weighing before its final destination: the food bank. And that’s where we are headed today, to see how many mouths we can feed with the produce nurtured with community hands.

It is 8 in the morning. At the Rainier Valley Food Bank, a crowd of people already wait at the front door, many with large bags and containers. The food bank doors are shut but within there is a rush of activity. Crates are unloaded and stacked in a pick-up line system, the garage is prepped for quick restocking, and volunteers are standing at each station, ready to distribute the food: a package of chicken, a few vegetables, some canned goods. The hungry are many, and the resources always go quickly.

Looking into the storage garage, where the shelves are fully stocked for the week, you realize the meaning of “group effort.” Those ten crates over there are from Lettuce Link's Seattle Community Farm, those other ten at the entrance are from local P-Patch Giving Gardens and Seattle Tilth’s Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands, and those being unloaded just now are from local grocery stores, as well as Northwest Harvest, and Food Lifeline. In the other corner being unboxed are packages of gnocchi, instant mashed potatoes, mushroom quinoa, and various snack products.

In that one food bank on that one day, there must have been over a dozen separate nonprofits, stores, and organizations that contributed to the food distributed that morning. But is it enough? The shelves are empty at the end of the day, yet familiar faces come back every week, and we ask ourselves just how many mouths can we feed? 

Because at the end of the day, when the empty crates are stacked outside awaiting restocking from the next deliveries, and when the numbers of food bank clients checked-in are calculated, I am seeing first-hand that perhaps helping stop hunger and providing food means not just providing a safety net that gives people food for a day. It’s so much more complicated than that. One piece of food justice means creating opportunities and resources for people of all backgrounds and income levels to learn how to grow their own food – skills they can use to feed their families for a lifetime.

A Garlic Feast

This summer at Lettuce Link we're lucky to have a stellar intern crew. Today, we're featuring the writing of April, a Seattle native, Duke University student, and garlic-harvester extraordinaire.

Hello! My name is April and I am a new intern here at Lettuce Link. I have lived in Seattle my entire life, but I had never seen or heard of Solid Ground, Lettuce Link, Marra Farm or the Seattle Community Farm until this year. I have very little knowledge of farm work but am ready and eager to learn!

At the beginning of my internship, I drove right past both the Seattle Community Farm and Marra Farm, a not realizing that these were the farms that I was looking for. Both are tucked away in residential neighborhoods, and many people pass by not realizing the great work done by staff, volunteers, and community members at these farms.

In my past two weeks at both of these farms I have been astounded at the sheer quantity of fresh vegetables, and occasional fruits, that these small plots of land are able to produce. At Marra Farm, I am in charge of weighing and recording each bin of harvested vegetables each week.

Two Fridays ago, we harvested garlic, and at first I didn’t believe it was garlic. I am used to the white garlic pieces my dad gets from the grocery store, however, this was a deep beautiful purple plant with a long stalk attached. After a further explanation, I figured out it was fresh garlic that needed to be cleaned, weighed and then dried for two weeks.

There must have been at least ten baskets full of garlic bulbs. This garlic could last a long time for families who receive it at the food banks Marra Farm delivers produce to. A little garlic goes a long way, and adds a lot of zing and flavor to any dish. Given the large amount of garlic we harvested, I anticipate there will be wide variety of flavorful, garlicky dishes prepared with Marra Farm garlic.

I was able to bring some of the extra garlic home with me and truly enjoy the “farm to fork” experience. I am looking forward to learning about, growing, and eating new and exciting vegetables this summer!

A Crowd of Kids and Their Plot of Land

This summer at Lettuce Link we're lucky to have a stellar intern crew. Today, we're featuring the writing of Rhona, who left her home in Atlanta to spend the summer in Seattle with Lettuce Link as a DukeEngage intern.

This week we saw the first class of students from the ReWA youth program, a middle school summer program targeting refugee and immigrant youths, visit Lettuce Link’s Seattle Community Farm for the first of a five-week gardening and nutrition curriculum based at the farm. The farm team consisting of Scott, Amelia, Kelly, and a few other interns split the kids up into three small groups rotating around stations centered on cooking/nutrition, gardening, and touring the farm. 

In the garden, Scott showed off the farm highlights of the week: crops of lettuce, bok choy, snap peas, and beets among others. The kids were invited to harvest and sample the plumpest snap peas hanging off the vines, and gained interesting tidbits about each vegetable on the farm. 

In Amelia’s group, the children busily staked the ground, claiming their own small plot for planting in hopes of harvesting their own line of crop at the end of five weeks. Interns scurried to and fro from the hose refilling watering buckets as the kids enthusiastically watered theirs, and also their friends’ seeds. 

Finally, with seeds in the soil and the taste of fresh snap peas on their tongues, the last group filled out a short questionnaire and received a short nutrition lesson from Kelly. With raspberries making up the main ingredient balanced with ice, salt, honey, and lemons, everyone had the opportunity to have a glass of the natural electrolyte refreshment.

At the conclusion of the program, all the ReWA kids and the farm staff gathered for the closing circle to recap the day’s activities. “Today I learned that gardening is fun,” said one middle schooler. “Today I learned that you can make juice out of fresh fruit,” chimed in another. But as for me, the most important thing I learned was that no matter where you’re from or what your personal background, whether you’re from North Dakota or from Atlanta, from Central America or Asia, gardening is an act that brings communities together in a group effort that oversteps plots and boundaries.

---

Raspberry Electric

Recipe by Leika Suzumura of Community Kitchens Northwest

This is a natural homemade electrolyte drink, minus the cost or artificial colors. Get creative with different combinations that you enjoy.

Ingredients

• 1 quart filtered water
• 1 cup fresh berries [we used raspberries]
• 2 tablespoons honey
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• Juice of 1 lemon

Instructions

• Fill ½ gallon pitcher with filtered water.
• Place raspberries in a bowl and gently smash them with a fork to break the skin and release juices. Pour into water.
• Add honey, salt, and lemon juice and stir.
• Taste and adjust to desired flavor and strength.
• Add ice and enjoy!

Other additions:

• You can use other berries for this drink, including strawberries, blackberries and blueberries.
• Cucumbers in place of raspberries works well.
• Add in fresh mint, lemon balm, or other refreshing herb to your taste.

Makes 16 ounces

A Tapestry of Culture at the Rainier Valley Food Bank

The produce grown at the Seattle Community Farm goes to work trade participants and the Rainier Valley Food Bank (RVFB). This summer, our intern Victoria went to the food bank each Wednesday to share information with clients about the work trade program and the Cooking Matters class at the Seattle Community Farm. Here are her thoughts on the experience:

No larger than a classroom, the distribution room of the Rainier Valley Food Bank vibrates with energy and movement every Wednesday morning. Food bank clients lug around suitcases and duffel bags of food, while volunteers shuttle crates from the warehouse to the distribution room. On the outdoor patio, clients mingle clustered by language group as they wait to enter the distribution room.

Serving one of the most diverse neighborhoods in America, the Rainier Valley Food Bank is a vibrant assembly of people. Hunger does not discriminate: people of all cultures come together at the food bank.

This combination of many cultures creates the culture of the Rainier Valley Food Bank community. Although communication is challenging since dozens of different languages are spoken, the community is unified by the goal of eliminating hunger.

Since the Rainier Valley Food Bank’s founding in May 1991, it has undergone changes in management, name, and funding. Today the food bank has three full-time employees and two AmeriCorps VISTA members. The staff does an amazing job stretching the budget, with the help of over 500 volunteers annually. A handful of these volunteers come every single week, and some have volunteered at the food bank for years.

The Rainier Valley Food Bank transformed my relationship with and awareness of food. Without the privilege of food security, food loses its glamour. Being at the food bank forced me to remove my rose-tinted glasses of privilege and view food from a more basic perspective. When people are hungry, their relationship with food is more intimate, poignant, and primal. I saw humanity in the context of food insecurity — there is a raw honesty in asking for help with something so fundamental.

When I started doing outreach at the Rainier Valley Food Bank, I was a stranger. But on my last day, an elderly woman wrapped me in a warm embrace and told me I was a good girl. In just six weeks the Rainier Valley Food Bank wove me into their tapestry of culture. Although my presence at the food bank will gently fade away with time, the community I found there is now imprinted in my being.

I am so thankful for the perspectives and acceptance I found this summer at the Rainier Valley Food Bank. I am honored that I was able to help them with their work and to strengthen the relationship between the food bank and the Seattle Community Farm.

~ Victoria, Lettuce Link DukeEngage summer intern

Thanks for your hard work and dedication, Victoria. We know that the Rainier Valley Food Bank loved having you volunteer with them this summer!

Learning about Pollinators

The beehives at Marra Farm emit a steady hum that fascinates children. We stop on our tours of the farm to watch the constant stream of bees on their way to and from the hive, some setting out to find nectar and pollen, others return to the hive laden with food they have collected.

When bees fly from flower to flower to collect their food, pollen sticks to their legs, allowing them to pollinate the plants they visit. Bees work nonstop during the summer to stockpile enough food to last them through the winter.

These beautiful cucumbers began as flowers cross-pollinated by bees.
Thanks, bees!

As we learn in our kids’ classes at Marra Farm, we humans should remember to thank the honeybees. We reap the benefits of their hard work, consuming not only their honey, but the literal fruits and vegetables of their labors.

Global Pollination

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 70% of the crops that produce 90% of the world’s food supply require pollination by bees.

A complex mix of factors has contributed to the catastrophic collapse of bee colonies around the world in recent years, including the widespread use of toxic agricultural chemicals, the decline of flowering plants, a rise in pollution, and even the globalization of food supplies – international shipping quickly spreads virulent fungal pathogens, which can wipe out entire hives.

Colony collapse disorder spells bad news for global food security. In the words of Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UNEP, “Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less, dependent on nature’s services in a world of close to 7 billion people.”

For a holistic look at the threats facing bees around the world as a result of current mainstream agricultural practices, consider watching the award-winning documentary More Than Honey.

A honeybee industriously collects pollen in the
Childrens’ Garden at the Seattle Community Farm.

Pollinator Lessons

Despite the grim future of our most vital pollinators, in our garden and nutrition education classes we focus on teaching children the important role bees play in the garden:

• We examine the Velcro straps on a student’s shoes and learn how bees also have sticky “Velcro” on their legs that collects pollen when they buzz from flower to flower. 

• We learn how a bee returning from a successful foraging mission performs a “waggle dance” to tell the other bees in the hive about the direction and distance to flower patches with abundant nectar and pollen. And then we do our own waggle dances! 

• We visit flowers in the garden and observe bees collecting nectar. Then we watch as pollen from one flower brushes off a bee’s legs onto another flower. 

• We learn about the different roles within the bee colony by dividing the class into worker bees, drone bees, and the queen bee, and then we fly around going "buzz buzz buzz!" 

By teaching the next generation about the importance of honeybees, we hope to instill appreciation for these buzzing friends and their habitats.

Bumblebees throng to the vibrant purple artichoke flowers.
The many artichokes at Marra Farm and the Seattle Community Farm
are planted expressly to attract our bee friends.

-Cordelia, summer Children's Garden and Nutrition Education intern

Signs and Senses at the Seattle Community Farm

At the Seattle Community Farm, we've been making some exciting improvements to the Children’s Garden!

With the help of our learners from the Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club this summer, we rehabilitated the worm bins, and learned all about worms, composting, and the nutrients the soil needs to grow healthy vegetables.

Amelia painted a big sign welcoming visitors to the Children’s Garden, and we made signs identifying all the new and interesting plants growing in the garden. We planted cilantro, radishes, spinach, and beets with our students this summer, and now visitors to the garden will know exactly what’s growing where.

We've also planted marigolds and other cheerful flowers at the end of each bed to add beauty and invite our favorite helpers, the bees, to visit our garden.

Laminated signs decorated by the children let visitors know what’s growing where.

Sensory Garden

This year we've established a Sensory Exploration Garden filled with plants that invite you to look, smell, touch, and taste. (We haven’t yet found a plant that specifically invites listening, but then, plants are generally pretty silent!)

South Park Putts Out

At Lettuce Link we've been lucky to have a stellar intern crew. Today, we're featuring the writing of Bea, a Whitman College student who infused Lettuce Link with her artistic talents this summer.

When I first started my internship at Lettuce Link, I joyfully volunteered for my first project: the construction of a mini putt-putt golf hole. At first it seemed like an odd task – I thought my internship was about farming, not mini golf construction.

But I learned that as part of the National Night Out Against Crime, the group South Park Arts organizes a mini-golf course each year, and this year they had invited Lettuce Link to sponsor a Marra Farm hole.

As a naive, over-excited college student, I was ready to jump to any height for my awesome new internship. Conveniently ignoring the fact that my construction skills were somewhere between rusty and nonexistent, I began making lists of materials and costs.

In the first couple of weeks, I filled my office hours with brainstorming, and assumed that one day soon I would proudly display the completed project on my desk.

What I didn’t know then was that in the weeks to come, in between my time working at Marra Farm and the Seattle Community Farm, I would end up hauling electric drills and large pieces of wood as part of my daily commute.

Since my commute was two hours long and included multiple buses and a ferry, this was no small feat. As much as I loved it when a suited business man came up to me on the 7:05 am boat to tell me that the wooden two-by-four hanging out of my backpack was a safety hazard, I was a bit overwhelmed by the increasingly large scope of the project.

After several late nights finishing the construction, I could almost take a sigh of relief…almost. Yes, I had finished the construction process, but my plans were not complete – I still had to paint the hole. At this point, I was kicking myself for having such extravagant expectations for the project, and was just ready to be done with it. It took me five hours to complete the painting.

Finally, the hole was ready. We transported it (rising to the task of wrangling a large, unwieldy structure into a small car) to the Putt Putt event, where it delighted and challenged our mini-golfing South Park neighbors all evening.

Despite the unexpected challenges with the project, I survived it all. And, if I do say so, the Putt Putt golf hole looks awesome.

Thanks, Bea, for all your hard work on the project. We agree, it looks great! Check out the South Park Arts Facebook page for more pictures of the event.

Cooking in the Open Air

This summer at Lettuce Link we're lucky to have a stellar intern crew. Today, we're featuring the writing of Danielle, a UW student, food policy guru, and garden chef. 

When it’s time for cooking during our children’s classes at the Seattle Community Farm, we set up outside. Stationed under a canopy, we enjoy the fresh air while preparing our snack. Though we set up this way because there aren't any enclosed buildings at the farm, I have noticed that cooking outside is an ideal environment for engaging and educating children about food.

As I child, I spent many summers at the Boys and Girls Club of Spokane. I have great memories of my time there, but I never got to do any cooking or gardening. I am honored to be part of the Lettuce Link teaching team that puts on these classes for campers from the Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club summer program. I know that we, along with the Boys and Girls Club staff, are creating positive memories for these kids.

Ripping up chard for Purple Plant Part Pancakes

I love seeing the joy and excitement in our students’ faces when they visit me at the cooking station. Cooking can be sometimes looked at as a chore, or something that only grownups do.

But at the outdoor kitchen of the Seattle Community Farm, everyone is a chef.

The kids see what parts of the plant we eat (or don’t eat) because they are cooking with freshly harvested produce. They chop up veggies while butterflies and bees fly by.

Our kitchen is different than their kitchens at home, and we remind our students that even though they might have tried a food before, they haven’t tried it here. This encourages trying-new-food adventurism, and the kids are often surprised with how much they like what we prepare!

When we wrap up the day and share what we learned, our students always mention how much they enjoyed the cooking station. Here at the Seattle Community Farm, cooking isn't merely the transformation of food from raw ingredients to a delicious snack. It’s an experience of seeing, feeling, and tasting your food as it moves from the soil to your mouth. 

This amazing sensory experience would simply not be possible if we had walls.

Teaching and Learning in the Children's Garden

This summer at Lettuce Link we're lucky to have a stellar intern crew. Today, we're featuring the writing of Cordelia, who recently moved to Seattle and is interning this summer with our Children's Garden and Nutrition Education programs.

My Food Roots

Coming from a family of “weekend farmers” - enthusiastic amateurs who spend a lot of time Googling topics such as ‘how to prune an olive tree’ - I grew up knowing the satisfaction that comes with eating food you have grown yourself, and subsequently have always been interested in issues of farming and food justice.

Like many, this interest translated into a desire for action and education – for myself as well as others. In college I edited the food section of my college newspaper and while studying abroad in Latin America, started a now-permanent column in the college paper where students studying abroad share what they have learned about the food cultures and food practices of their host country.

My other passion is working with children and I hope to become an elementary school teacher someday.

As a recent college graduate, I came to Seattle looking for a project that would allow me to continue my education about food justice and small scale, community farming while working with kids. As a summer intern with Lettuce Link’s Children’s Garden, I feel so lucky to have found an experience that allows me to engage both of these passions. 

More than a Gleaning Process

From July to October each year, volunteers across Seattle harvest over 200 fruit trees for Lettuce Link’s Community Fruit Tree Harvest (CFTH). As a project at the intersection of gleaning and social justice, the CFTH addresses the problem of how many homeowners cannot fully harvest their trees, resulting in wasted fruit. The CFTH mobilizes the fruit and gets it to people who need it preventing it from rotting in someone’s backyard.

Started by Lettuce Link in 2005, the Community Fruit Tree Harvest was originally staffed by an AmeriCorps VISTA member and harvested 400 pounds of fruit in the Wallingford neighborhood. In the past nine years, the Community Fruit Tree Harvest project has grown into a city-wide operation that collaborates with the new local fruit harvest groups that have formed, including City Fruit and the Colman Park Harvest. Between these three organizations, people harvest fruit trees in all of Seattle’s neighborhoods. Across the city, volunteers share locally-harvested apples, plums, pears, Asian pears, figs, grapes, and more with food banks, meal programs, shelters, and low-income housing units.

From college students to retirees to parents with their children, the Community Fruit Tree Harvest resonates with volunteers of all ages and experiences. At a recent volunteer orientation, after sharing the history, goals, and nuts and bolts of the Community Fruit Tree Harvest project, Lettuce Link Harvest Coordinator Mariah Pepper concluded by framing the project in the larger context of volunteers working together for food justice and sustainable food systems.

“The Community Fruit Tree Harvest is more than a gleaning process,” Mariah said. “There is a reason we do things the way we do. We’re putting fresh food in the emergency food system. We’re using the community’s existing resources to strengthen the community and to make sure people with low incomes have access to fresh, healthy food.”

~ Victoria, Lettuce Link DukeEngage intern

Volunteer With Us

Intrigued? Excited? Come join us and help us expand to harvest more trees this season! We still need volunteers, including harvest leaders willing to coordinate weekly harvests. Contact Mariah for more information: fruitharvest@solid-ground.org.

Donate Your Fruit

If you have fruit to donate, please contact Seattle Tilth’s Garden Hotline at 206.633.0224 or help@gardenhotline.org. Depending on where you live, they can connect you with us or one of the other fantastic groups harvesting fruit in the Puget Sound region!

Thank You Amanda!

This summer at Lettuce Link we're lucky to have a stellar intern crew. Today, we're featuring the writing of Victoria, who left her home in Texas to spend the summer in Seattle with Lettuce Link as a DukeEngage intern. 

It’s hard to imagine a job that involves monitoring school recess, teaching children how to cook, leading volunteers, and organizing a chicken cooperative. But Lettuce Link AmeriCorps member Amanda Horvath had that job and did it all.

After graduating from the University of Portland in 2012 with degrees in Spanish and Environmental Ethics and Policy, Horvath applied to work at Lettuce Link through Solid Ground’s Apple Corps AmeriCorps program, which requires 1700 hours of service in ten and a half months.

“I had spent my last couple of years working at our school’s organic garden and studying our food system and food policy,” Horvath said. “This position was a perfect mesh of being able to get my hands dirty and learning about what it takes to grow food.”

Horvath started work on September 1, 2012. During the fall, she worked in the Lettuce Link office at Solid Ground, performed outreach cooking demos at the Providence Regina House food bank in South Park, and worked at Marra Farm.

“When I started on the farm,” Horvath said, “I shadowed Sue to learn about how she led workparties and then slowly transitioned into leading workparties around the farm and doing more hands-on work.”

During the winter, Horvath increased her time in the office in order to organize a tour for the American Community Gardening Association Conference in August, and organized a chicken cooperative project for the South Park community.

“I had never run a project before and was really grateful [Lettuce Link Program Manager] Michelle let me do it,” Horvath said. “I learned that working with people is very challenging. I have a new appreciation for those who have the ability to work with people who have different interests, different ideas, and different ways of working and then bringing them together around a common goal.”

In addition to working in the office, Horvath spent Thursday afternoons at Concord International Elementary School, helping support the school’s move to schedule lunch after recess.

“I helped with the transition,” Horvath said, “by going to the playground, oftentimes monitoring behavior, and hanging out with the kids in the lunchroom. I also realized that the kids did not have sufficient time to eat lunch. They were given twenty minutes, but getting through the lunch line would sometimes take ten minutes. I started recording how many kids had not finished eating at the end of lunch and wrote a report for the staff. At the last staff meeting of the school year, they were unsure about continuing to scheduling lunch after recess, but committed to working on the issue of kids not having enough time to eat.”

When Lettuce Link’s garden classes started in the spring, Horvath co-taught fifth graders during the school day from Concord with Lettuce Link Education Coordinator Amelia Swinton and taught an afterschool class that incorporated cooking, nutrition, and gardening.

“My favorite role was working with the kids,” Horvath said. “I enjoyed the outdoor setting—getting to be a teacher but not necessarily being inside a classroom. It’s fun to see the kids be so excited about being in the garden. I definitely want to work with kids in the future. I’ll either get a degree in teaching or a master’s in public health that will be related to working with kids or working on childhood obesity or other child development issues.”

Horvath finished her AmeriCorps term on July 14, 2013.

“The biggest challenge,” Horvath said, “was grappling with the idea that I was doing a lot of community outreach and being involved with the community while knowing that I was leaving in ten and a half months. It’s such a short time period to build a relationship with the community and then just leave. It’s a really hard transition. This is something I’ve thought about a lot throughout my life, and I’m still struggling to figure out why I keep choosing to put myself in positions where I am involved for a short period and then leave. But through AmeriCorps I found my dream job I could do for a full year, and I loved it.”

We Appreciate Our Volunteers!

This summer at Lettuce Link we're lucky to have a stellar intern crew. Today, we're featuring the writing of Victoria, who left her home in Texas to spend the summer in Seattle with Lettuce Link as a DukeEngage intern. On the second day of her internship, we brought her to our volunteer appreciation potluck - here are her reflections:

On a Tuesday evening in June, the Lettuce Link community gathered at Sue McGann’s colorful home for our Spring Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. We hosted this potluck to honor our amazing Lettuce Link volunteers and the time, energy, and dedication they devote to diverse projects, ranging from teaching kids at Marra Farm to tending starts at neighborhood greenhouses. Volunteers chatted through the night—fueled by stimulating conversation and scrumptious dishes.

The potluck evolved into a feast as dishes blanketed the countertops. A sampling of the menu includes snap peas and carrots from Marra Farm, a spectrum of salads, ginger tofu that disappeared in the first half hour, baguettes and boules donated from Essential Baking, a sunset platter of mango halves and strawberries, and sweet endings of peach pie, chocolate cookies, and coconut milk ice cream. (As an indication of how much our volunteers love vegetables, the only non-vegetarian dish was a refreshing ensemble of rice, shrimp, and cilantro.

Both dishes and people rotated around the studio and backyard garden. Although the volunteers from Marra Farm, the Seattle Community Farm, the Wallingford and Ballard Greenhouses, and P-Patch Giving Gardens share the connection and passion of Lettuce Link, they are geographically scattered all over Seattle.

Sue’s home thus became the Lettuce Link epicenter that evening. The dinner provided volunteers the opportunity to meet one another and learn about the projects they had been working on. When the rain poured down from the sky, people huddled together under umbrellas by the campfire!

The dinner was not only a potluck for mouthwatering food - people also shared their musings, laughter, hopes, and wishes. At the end of the night, everyone left with empty plates, full tummies, and new friends.

Missed out? We'll have another delicious volunteer appreciation potluck in October! 

Spring at Marra Farm: New Friends and New Food

Some of Lettuce Link's interns and volunteers have been guest blogging for us over these past few months. Today, we welcome the final words of Molly Bell, a UW student and Lettuce Link spring intern.

As I conclude my internship, I've realized that one of the most memorable aspects of working at Marra Farm these past few months has been witnessing the relentless power of volunteers. Every Saturday for four hours, rain or shine, volunteers from organizations, companies, and religious groups all over the greater Seattle area contribute to the prosperity of Marra Farm.

I have met new people, made connections with strangers, and am leaving with new friends. Many of the volunteers at Marra Farm are connected by their common interest in growing food. However, for others who have never had the chance to work on a farm or grow food, coming for a day of service with their company can inspire new interests.

Marra Farm reconnects people - including me - to food: where it comes from, how it is grown, and how to cook it. I learned to identify baby vegetable plant starts by only their first leaves. As a co-teacher with the children’s garden and nutrition classes, I tried new foods and cooked new dishes from different cultures, including Ethiopian- and Asian-inspired cuisines.

In an era dependent on technology, I found it very refreshing to escape the distractions of phones, TVs and computers each week and have the chance to meet and talk to new people, face to face.

My spring at Marra Farm has solidified my belief that food, whether eaten around a dinner table or grown at a farm, brings people together. Food undeniably unites people of all cultures. As I move on to new adventures, I know I’ll be growing and cooking food wherever I go.

Singing in the Garden

Some of Lettuce Link's interns and volunteers will be guest blogging for us over the next few months. Today, we welcome the words of Molly Bell, a UW student and Lettuce Link spring intern.

As summer draws near, Marra Farm is slowly growing greener and taller. The tiny starts we planted in March have sprouted and grown into heads of lettuce and flowering pea vines. In the Children’s Garden, the empty beds have transformed to an abundant garden full of vegetables (and a few weeds).

At the beginning of April, the students planted a variety of vegetables, including bok choy, kale, and cilantro. Each week, the children observed, watered, and weeded their individual plots. Now that their plots are ready for harvest, we are busy cooking up delicious and healthy snacks with their vegetables. We are also learning together about good nutrition, healthy soil, and all the creatures that bring life to the garden.

The young learners don’t just work the whole time. We also play games and sing songs. My favorite song is the leafy green rhythm that goes something like:

“Leafy greens, so good for me. My eyes, bones, muscles, my teeth. Leafy greens, they‘re so healthy, and give me lots of energy!”

We use songs and games as teaching tools to help students focus in the outdoor environment. Since they spend most of their learning time inside the classroom, kids often associate being outside with free playtime. Educational songs and games channel their excitement and rambunctious energy.

Using the garden as a classroom allows students to learn in different ways. Digging in the dirt gives students a hands-on, personal experience with the subject matter. Playing games such as “I Spy” encourages their observational skills.

Plus the games and songs are a fun way to engage with the activities and remember things – for both the students and the adults!

Another favorite garden song of ours is “Dirt Made My Lunch” by the Banana Slug String Band – take a listen and sing along!

The Marra Farm Ecosystem

Some of Lettuce Link's interns and volunteers will be guest blogging for us over the next few months. Today, we welcome the words of Rachel Sofferin, a children's garden and nutrition education volunteer.

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms and the nonliving components of their environment (such as air and water) that interact as a system.

Ecosystems are defined by both the interactions between different organisms and the interactions between organisms and their environment. Ecosystems can come in any size, but usually encompass specific, limited spaces.

The specific ecosystem under discussion recently is that of the four acres of preserved farmland in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood known as Marra Farm. Here, groups of second and fifth grade students from neighboring Concord Elementary School bring classroom learning to life. Students identify components of the farm’s ecosystem and learn, hands-on, just how connected everything is.

Before spring break, students in Mr. Hunt’s class planted their garden experiments. After a few weeks there is much to observe. Crouched figures huddle around the raised garden beds and speculate about the height of sprouts. They carefully count and record the number of plant leaves in their field books and make other observations about their experiment and control gardens.

On the other side of the fence in the Giving Garden, volunteers from local businesses, religious communities, and schools work tirelessly to cut grass, weed beds, and mix nutrient-rich compost into the soil. Local food banks receive the organic produce grown here - over 22,000 pounds a year!

As the students learned, Marra Farm is a thriving ecosystem of plants, animals, and people. Come join the ecosystem! Volunteer in the Giving Garden, donate gardening tools and supplies, or stroll through the farm on your daily walk. 

The Marra Farm ecosystem is constantly growing and evolving - how can you be a part of it?

A Bee Swarm

Some of Lettuce Link's interns and volunteers will be guest blogging for us over the next few months. Today, we welcome the words of Molly Bell, a UW student and Lettuce Link spring intern.

At Marra Farm we recently witnessed an unusual and exciting event: an enormous swarm of bees migrated from the hive to a nearby tree branch!

David, the bee caretaker, quickly came over to the farm. He estimated that the swarm had 1200 to 1500 bees!

The bees swarmed in order to search for a new hive. Most of the swarm waited on the tree branch, while a few bees flew around and searched for the perfect new home. Lucky for us, the bees were very mellow, so we could stand nearby and watch all the action.

To keep the bees from relocating their colony outside of Marra Farm, David had to collect the swarm and move them from the tree branch back into a hive box.

He cut off the branch the bees were swarming on, and gently tapped the branch until the entire clump of bees fell into a hive box.

We watched intently, but also a little nervously. David had warned that despite their mellow mood, we should be prepared to quickly move away if necessary. In the end, no one was stung and the bees were collected safely in the box.

This was an exciting event to witness for the volunteers, but a stressful one for David. If he had waited too long after the swarm to come to Marra Farm, he could have lost the entire bee colony!

Bees are essential for pollination - we would not be able to enjoy many of our favorite fruits, vegetables, and nuts without them. Unfortunately, bee colonies have been declining in number across the country in recent years.

One reason for this decline is the widespread use of pesticides. The chemicals can cause neurological damage in bees, making them confused and unable to find their way home to the hive. This is one of the many reasons why we practice organic growing methods at Marra Farm.

We’re glad David helped the bees return to the hive at Marra Farms so they can stay busy pollinating our crops all season!

Cooking at the Farm: Herbed-Tofu Tacos

Some of Lettuce Link's interns and volunteers will be guest blogging for us over the next few months. Today, we welcome the words of Molly Bell, a UW student and Lettuce Link spring intern.

There’s something about cooking fresh food that gets every sense tingling. Recently the second graders of Concord International Elementary had the chance to experience this sensory adventure, watching vegetables grown at the farm transform into a delicious snack.

In Lettuce Link’s children’s garden and nutrition classes, we try to connect the dots between how food is grown, prepared and cooked. Plus, it’s fun. If food doesn’t excite a kid, I don’t know what will!

So, with great excitement and a little team effort, the second graders harvested chives and other herbs. The students then helped clean, cut, prepare, and mix all the ingredients necessary for herbed-tofu tacos.

While preparing snack, we all had a chance to talk and share stories. There was a unanimous love for cooking among my group. I noticed pride and a sense of accomplishment that the students had when talking about cooking. A few bragged that they had made dinner or even made cupcakes by themselves.

It’s a good reminder that something when you’re eight (or eighty), something as simple as cooking a meal can be such a triumph!

At the end of class, all the students had a chance to rate the tofu tacos on a scale: happy, neutral, or sad face. I was pleasantly surprised how many of them liked it, since tofu was a new food for many of the students.

The ratings also included a few neutral faces and a few sad faces as well. But that’s okay – as we tell the students, everyone has different tastes. It’s good that the students were willing to express their own opinions, given that kids are often swayed by their peers when deciding what they like or don’t like.

It can be challenging to get kids to make their own decisions and also try new foods. But when they’re involved in harvesting and preparing it, they develop a certain connection and pride.

Plus, the diversity of food grown at Marra Farm makes it easy and fun to try new things. I’m excited to keep cooking with the students this spring!

A Spring to Remember

Some of Lettuce Link's interns and volunteers will be guest blogging for us over the next few months. Today, we welcome the words of Rachel Sofferin, a children's garden and nutrition education volunteer.

Spring seems to have been beckoned to Seattle early this year, and when Mr. Hunt’s fourth and fifth grade students from neighboring Concord International Elementary filed into to Lettuce Link’s Children’s Garden at Marra Farm last month for their first day of hands on learning, the day seemed ripe for it.

Still a little cool, breezy, and slightly overcast in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood, the rain held off long enough to allow for students to leave their rain jackets behind. Excited faces gathered in opening circle on a grassy, dandelion filled patch of earth to meet their garden teachers: Amelia, Glenn, Michelle, Rachel, and Sue.

Before their visit to the farm, the students had been divided into gardening groups and came up with questions for the experiments that they would be conducting in the garden. The group of four that I am leading, The Incredible Crew, decided to run their experiment on the effects of darkness on plant growth.

To start we had to prepare the garden bed: weeding, turning the soil, adding compost, and - “Eww! Look! There’s a worm!” - discovering the slimy and squiggly worms that make the soil fertile. Students masterfully shoveled compost and maneuvered wheelbarrows though the garden and used child-sized pitchforks to turn the soil.

After the beds were prepared it was time to plant, accompanied by ongoing chatter about worms and other critters in the soil. Rows of starts and seeds - bok choy, beets, onions, and peas - were pushed into the soil by small hands wearing oversized gardening gloves.

In neighboring garden beds, other planted their experiments as well: seeds cut in half, seeds watered excessively, planted in sand, water or in close proximity, and even some watered with lemonade. We planted each bed with an experimental and a control group for determining the effects of the experimental conditions on plant growth.

After what seemed like a quick minute, the 45-minute class was over and it was time to round up the students for their return to school.

I think I might be more excited about the learning at Marra Farm than the students. The hands-on learning that the Lettuce Link program of Solid Ground offers at the farm is fantastic. Kids are able to apply what they are learning in other areas of science, social studies, and history. They run garden experiments using all of the tools of a scientist, learn about nutrition and cooking, and even the history of the area and the native Duwamish people.

These kinds of applied learning experiences are the ones that stay with a student long into adulthood. This is going to be a spring to remember!

Marra Farm: Initial Reflections from an Intern

Some of Lettuce Link's interns and volunteers will be guest blogging for us over the next few months. Today, we welcome the words of Molly Bell, a UW student and Lettuce Link spring intern.

Nestled among the warehouses, machines, and houses in South Park is a hidden field of hope, a sign of resilience. Marra Farm hides like a secret weapon, rebelling against the issues created by our industrial food system.

Upon first arriving at Marra Farm, my first impression was amazement at the size of this hidden gem. How can four acres of land produce over 22,000 pounds of food, sustain, and run itself within the city boundaries?

My question was quickly answered as I grabbed a pair of gloves and a trowel alongside ten or so other volunteers. Whether people come to improve their own food security, gain gardening experience, or to have a team-building experience with their co-workers, Marra Farm is meticulously tended and cared for by these relentless volunteers. On a rainy Saturday morning, I was astonished by how much a dozen hard workers could accomplish.

Since the growing season has only just begun, most of the tasks around the farm are based on preparing the beds for planting and planting the little vegetable starts grown in the greenhouses.

Preparing beds is one of the most labor-intensive farm chores, in my opinion. It requires pulling out the plants that have over-wintered in the beds, removing weeds, tilling the soil, adding compost and sometimes even building a trellis.

One volunteer commented that it was weird to go to a farm that is so full of life, just to remove from the soil all the plants, even if they are weeds! However, the favoritism for vegetables instead of dandelions is what allows Marra Farm to have such abundant summer harvests.

Another amazing aspect of Lettuce Link and Marra Farm are the programs that educate local children about nutrition, cooking, and health. Hands-on learning is becoming recognized as an essential component of environmental and traditional education.

The children I help teach are second graders from Concord International Elementary School. The students are so fortunate that their school is located next door to Marra Farm. Although school gardens and farm-to-school programs are growing, most schools do not have a farm two blocks away!

I have been thrilled to see how good-spirited and intrigued the second graders are at the farm. For the first class, we had them plant their own small gardens.

There were some challenges, like the cold and rainy weather, and trying to keep the students on track when they are so excited to be outside. However, I found it refreshing to watch the students would stop whatever they were doing to peer down and look at a bug.

Their contagious excitement over the wonders of nature is a good reminder to us adults that we need to slow down and look around. I am excited to work with this group of young learners the rest of the spring. It will be fun to watch them learn and grow as they plant and maintain their personal gardens.

Marra Farm is a place filled with life and so much hope. As I spend more time there this spring, I’m excited to see the garden evolve and learn about how community farms and gardens help combat the the negative consequences produced by our current food system.

From Duke to Seattle: Kids, Zucchini and Food Systems galore

Over the next week we'll be posting wrap-up reflections from our summer interns. Today, we're featuring Wendy, who left her home in Atlanta to spend the summer in Seattle with Lettuce Link as a DukeEngage intern. She's gone back to school, leaving us to harvest giant zucchini without her.  

While sitting at Lettuce Link’s monthly staff meeting the other day, I realized that it was the last time I would see all of my coworkers gathered together in one location. Almost seven weeks had passed since I first stepped into Solid Ground’s office and surrounded myself with Lettuce Link's supportive, helpful, and knowledgeable staff. But August had arrived and it was time for me to move on.

What have I learned from my time at Lettuce Link? It’s difficult to explain the impact these passionate coworkers have had on me. They have taught me so much - probably without even realizing it. At the beginning of the summer, I had only a vague sense of how food justice and hunger intersect with many of the larger issues that plague society today.

In my first week at Lettuce Link I began to learn all about this tangled web from Sue’s introduction to volunteers at Marra Farrm (if you haven't heard it, you certainly need to make a trip down to Marra). This was the first time I had heard how climate change, immigration, the obesity epidemic, hunger, and our food system were intertwined. Why have we not spent more time improving our food system if it is a major root cause of so many social and political issues?

I feel so fortunate to have been one of Lettuce Link’s summer interns.

During the past eight weeks I have learned how hard work and persistence can reap real rewards. On my first day at Marra Farm in early June, the Seattle rain poured down in buckets, my clothes were soaked through and my fingers were numb, but because we continued harvesting through the rain, we sent over 300 pounds of vegetables to local food banks that day.

Contrast this with my last day at Seattle Community Farm, the hot crops finally started coming in and we had our largest harvest of the season to date - over 700 pounds of produce! Coming from the South, I was unsure whether or not I would even see summer hot crops in the Pacific Northwest. Imagine my surprise when we harvested 251 pounds of zucchini in one afternoon! The zucchini plants were just babies when I first arrived, and now they are large and plentiful.

One of my favorite aspects of working at Lettuce Link this summer has been much time is spent outside. Seattle summer days are (mostly) sunny and temperate. I loved spending half my day in the office and half in the garden.

Farm days are particularly nice because I worked with Lettuce Link's Children's Gardening for Good Nutrition classes. Let me work with kids, and I’m sold - I love their creativity and honesty. When the kids at the Seattle Community Farm tried radishes for the first time, almost all of them immediately wrinkled their noses and spat out the radishes with distaste. But one boy liked them from his first taste. At our most recent class, weeks later, he told me, “I like radishes. They’re spicy.”

I am sad that I will miss the final classes. One girl echoed my own thoughts when she looked up at me and said, “You’re leaving? Don’t go, Wendy.”