Healthy Food for Kids
Production
The Sprouting Farms’ production team is gearing up for a very busy peak season. While we have narrowed our focus to 5–6 crops, we are working very hard to ensure consistent supply of large volumes of high quality kale, beets, tomatoes, eggplant, scallions, and basil. We are finding these crops are fairly complementary in their management, which will help us plan our harvests and cultivation more effectively.
We are beginning to see fewer and fewer unique disease, pests, and weed issues. As we settle into what, so far, are pretty typical late spring/early summer conditions, we are building a better understanding of the best ways to handle our challenges. Lots of pig weed, smart weed, and quack grass weeds are popping up. Downy and powdery mildew are on our squash, while flea beetles and Japanese beetles have established themselves as major threats on the bug side of things. Early detection is the key and we believe we’ve caught things fairly early this season.
Community
WVU Fellowship
Last month Sprouting Farms hosted 14 students from across the country who were participating in a Fellowship with the WVU Food Justice Lab. The students were able to harvest, weed, and plant across the farm. Some planted in our market garden, while others weeded in our wholesale organic kale field, and others harvested green onions. After we finished up field work at the farm they traveled to the Greenville Farm Kitchen to see where some of our produce goes to be processed for local schools. Natasha at the Farm Kitchen spoke to them about how the kitchen was created using an abandoned high school where she once went to school. The kitchen has many exciting dreams and plans for the future! The students also explored Historic Hinton, WV and learned from Sprouting Farms employee, Ruby, about the African American perspective of the legend of John Henry and the history of our region. The students left excited about the projects we have going on at Sprouting Farms!
Watermelon Project
We had 200 kids visit us at Sprouting Farms to plant watermelon seeds, tour the farm, and learn about what we are growing in our market garden! The school came in two groups, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. Each child planted a watermelon seed, saw the farm, and learned about how to identify plants and veggies in our market garden. The watermelon that they planted will be growing at the farm until it’s ready to be harvested by local families and sold to the local schools! On the same day the kids planted at Sprouting Farms, they also planted at Sunset Berry Farm in Alderson, WV. Jennifer owner of Sunset Berry Farm came up with the idea for the watermelon project and Sprouting Farms has helped supply land, time, and resources forthe project.
Kids’ Pop Up Markets
The Turnrow and Sprouting Farms crew has been busy this spring helping partners like SNAP-Ed and KEYS 4 HealthyKids get fresh fruits and vegetables into the bellies of children across West Virginia. We know that West Virginians do not eat enough fruits and vegetables, and what better way to start making improvements than by building healthy habits with our youth!
We work with around 100 producers on any given week to provide West Virginia food to schools, restaurants, institutions, individual customers, special events, and now these kids markets. Typically, the children are provided a few dollars worth of coupons, which are made possible from a variety of grant sources. They are able to choose from 5–6 different fruits and vegetables to take home.
Often when we think of food access or equity, we only think about the people who do not have access to healthy foods. But equity in our food system needs to work both ways. So Turnrow never asks farmers to donate food. Farmers receive a fair full retail price for the produce they work hard to grow. Funders and community partners who see the work that goes into producing healthy fruits and vegetables make it possible to both serve our food insecure communities and support our local agricultural economy.
For the KEYS 4 HealthyKids program, the markets are planned during peak pick up time at childcare centers, and families are encouraged to shop together. Recipe cards and tastings are also provided. This truly is a team effort. We have SNAP-Ed health educators who provide tastings. The child care center’s staff is heavily involved in the planning of each market and getting parents and kids excited. The KEYS staff do a considerable amount of work with the centers to get them ready for these markets. They provide nutrition education, coaching, help facilitate a smooth market and often help with tastings while assisting the children as they shop. This summer, we are hosting a couple of college students for a paid internship, and they make it possible for our Turnrow and Sprouting Farms team to show up with produce and help families shop.
We are absolutely excited to be working with a community of partners who are so invested in creating a healthier West Virginia!
If you are interested in coordinating pop-up markets in your community, please contact April (april@sproutingfarms.org).
Education
Lean Farming Workshop
Evan Nelson, from the Robert C. Byrd Institute (RCBI), came to our first Educational Potluck to talk about lean farming. Lean farming is about how to run a farm without any wasted labor or resources. The goal is to be as efficient as possible. Evan spoke about strategies to keep a well organized farm.
High Tunnel Growing Training
One of our first farmer trainings of the season was on high tunnel growing. Visitors got an inside look at our high tunnels and the methods we use for utilizing them best. Our next trainings are on cover cropping and soil health on June 20th and June 27th at 6pm here at the farm.
