CSA Prep at Jack's Solar Garden
There's something special about preparing for CSA that we just don't get tired of 🥬🥦🥒
Take it from some of our staff and volunteers: today is Colorado Gives Day!!!!
This year, we are looking to raise $10,000 by the end of the day! Sprout City Farms has spent all season nourishing our community, and as we wrap up the year, we ask that you take this opportunity to nourish us!
Members of our previous and current Board of Directors are making this goal even easier - they’re matching all donations up to $5,000! We’re already halfway there!!
While we're still calculating the final numbers of impact from the farm season, our team is celebrating some major successes across our three farm sites:
- Grew over 25,000 pounds of vegetables with organic farming methods,
- Engaged nearly 6,000 individuals - including feeding over 3,000 of our community members! - through education, food access, and community outreach programs
- 57% of our total harvest was allocated to food access through no-cost CSAs, donation-based farm stands, Farm-to-Cafeteria programs, and food pantry donations!
Join us in celebrating these milestones and helping us end the year strong by donating to our #ColoradoGivesDay campaign through the link below.
It takes a village to raise a chard!
https://www.coloradogives.org/organization/SproutCityFarms
Like many other Lakewood growers, we were clobbered by hail and flooding at Mountair Park Community Farm last Thursday evening. Then, adding insult to injury, while we were walking the fields assessing the damage Friday morning, it started to hail again!! The storms over the last 2 months have been relentless across the Front Range and our hearts go out to all affected. We actually lost count, but think we've seen hail more than 10 times at MAP this spring 🤯 This latest one hit pretty hard, with many plants down to just a stem 😭
We will reseed and replant and hope some things will bounce back... though it can be difficult to stay optimistic in the face of such devastation, knowing how much this sets back our ability to distribute food to our community.
But the silver lining: in the local farmer community, we feel each other's pain and we RALLY. Our farmer friends far and wide immediately responded to our plea for plants--we are thinking through how many of our 600 tomato plants may need to be replaced, for example--and we are all sharing tips about how to help the plants recover, what to replant, where to focus energy. There's a general we're-here-for-each-other morale boost going on. ✊✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾
Thank you everyone for the support, and keep it comin! People out there: buy from producers at your local farmers market/farm stands, come out to volunteer in the field, hug a farmer. This has been a particularly challenging and emotional roller coaster of a season so far, and summer has only officially just begun. But we'll keep at it if you all stick with us ☺️❤️🩹
You can help our farmers recover by donating to support the costs of replacing many of our plants. You can give as a one-time or monthly donation at this link: https://www.coloradogives.org/donate/SproutCityFarms
#hail #hailno #hailstorm #denver #lakewoodcolorado #farmingincolorado #urbanfarming #milehighfarmers #mountairparkcommunityfarm #sproutcityfarms #climatechange #sol
Denver Green School second graders hatched chicks 🐣 in May and they are getting so big! Soon they will move into their brand new coop outside! Check back for more updates soon. 🐥
We had such a fun day bringing the MAP crew and Development Team to DGS for an all crew day! We got leeks and onions planted and patched up our irrigation system! #teamworkmakesthedreamwork
Third graders at Denver Green School know all about team work and sing it loud and proud! We love our students!
Let's welcome local beekeepers Katie and Rodney to the Denver Green School community! Thank you for sharing your bees and your knowledge! Video by Rodney!
Our friend and farmer Angelica was named a local Everyday Hero on Denver7 news!
We're exciting to be providing even more fresh food to Metropolitan State University of Denver students by expanding our partnership with Rowdy's Corner this season - thanks to Angelica's hard work and deep care for the MSU community!
We are happy to announce that Angelica will be returning to Sprout City Farms for her third season at Mountair Park Community Farm! First an intern, then apprentice, and now an Assistant Farm Manager at MAP, we are thrilled to have such a decidated person on our team.
Keep it up, Angelica!!
Read more about the work happening at #rowdyscorner at this link: https://www.denver7.com/news/7everyday-hero/helping-students-find-healthy-fuel-for-their-bodies-is-passion-for-fellow-college-student
Squash Blossom!
We hope you are enjoying the fresh vegetables from your share this week! At Denver Green School we harvested squash blossoms with the help of a friend 🐝
What will you make with your share?
Watch out, world, the Veggie Bikes are getting a facelift!
Program Manager Stefan is cycling the first of both Veggie Bikes to Banner Signs to get wraps for each of our mobile farm stand e-bikes, that you, our community helped us pick!
This bike will be graced with art from two Access Gallery artists, Allie and FuMei.
See the makeovers up close and personal at our mobile farm stands beginning next month!
And so it begins… the typical but oft-forgotten late May snowstorm ❄️ Sleep tight farm and seedlings!
For those gardeners out there, cover any tender plants with a bucket or tarp so they can weather the storm! 🤞
#springincolorado #springindenver #springsnow #hangtight #frostiscoming #denvergreenschoolcommunityfarm #sproutcityfarms
Here at Sprout City Farms we believe in "planting" opportunities for building communities. Our CSA programs we have the opportunity to provide locally sourced food to the community, as well as our farm stands. We also host community events and have regular volunteer opportunities. Both of these can be seen through the SCF website. You can see our CSA programs and the SCF website through this link: https://sproutcityfarms.org