community garden Archives

Nisqually Tribe’s garden program cultivates tradition, community

Nisqually Community Market Production Supervisor Carlin Briner helps a customer July 10th at their stand next to the tribal administration building. The tribe's community garden and weekly farm stand provides fresh produce for tribal and community members each week as members work from 8 a.m. until about noon on Thursday mornings in preparation for the afternoon garden stand which is set up at the tribal administration building near Yelm. STEVE BLOOM — The Olympian — Nisqually Community Market Production Supervisor Carlin Briner helps a customer July 10th at their stand next to the tribal administration building. The tribe’s community garden and weekly farm stand provides fresh produce for tribal and community members each week as members work from 8 a.m. until about noon on Thursday mornings in preparation for the afternoon garden stand which is set up at the tribal administration building near Yelm. STEVE BLOOM — The Olympian

By: Lisa Pemberton, The Olympian

The Nisqually Tribe’s Community Garden Program isn’t just about food.

It’s about youth, elders, health, jobs, culture and community.

The program, which is based at the tribe’s 250-acre culture center off Mounts Road near DuPont, produces enough fruits, vegetables, berries, herbs and flowers to support two weekly farm stands for members of the tribe and reservation community.

The farm’s crops, grown on about five acres of the land, also are used at community dinners, the elder’s program, nutrition classes and other efforts.

“We work with our own people, and we have sovereignty to feed our own people,” said garden field technician Grace Ann Byrd. “And we do it with love and prayer.”

Production supervisor Carlin Briner said the Nisqually tribe has a long history of community gardens.

About five years ago, it launched the community garden stand program, which is funded by the tribe and offers an array of produce that’s free or by donation-only for tribal and community members.

In 2013, the garden program harvested and distributed more than 5,000 pounds of produce to the tribal community, Briner said.

This year, for the first time, the program is producing enough bounty to support two weekly garden stands — one at the farm, and one at the tribal administration building.

“At this point, we aren’t selling produce to the wider community, though we may start at some point,” Briner said.

On a recent day, the farm stand at the administration building offered several baskets brimming with beets, peas, beans, lettuce, carrots, kale, potatoes and several types of herbs.

Beverly Owens, an executive secretary for the tribe, picked up some kale, bok choy and greens. She said she loves shopping at the stand.

“I know where it’s coming from,” Owens said. “When you go to the grocery store, you don’t.”

Briner said the garden program has planted smaller kitchen gardens elsewhere on the reservation, including at the tribe’s preschool and daycare.

Every fall, its workers organize a harvest party for the tribal community, featuring cider pressing, foods and gifts.

And throughout the year, the garden workers help lead or organize workshops on canning, cooking, nutrition and traditional medicine making.

Garden field technician Janell Blacketer said one of her favorite recipes is nettle pesto — as in stinging nettles.

“They’re so good for you,” she said.

The program’s goal is to serve as a hub for all of the tribe’s programs, Briner said.

“Food is relevant to everything,” she added.

Byrd said she enjoys working for the garden program because it’s about supporting the tribe’s future while helping preserve many of its age-old traditions.

“We always laugh, and joke and have a good time,” she said. “They say you never go around food angry, and you’re not supposed to work around food in a bad way.”

That way, when items are being served from the tribe’s garden, “you see the transference of those good times around the people,” Byrd added.

Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2014/07/16/3229332/nisqually-tribes-garden-program.html?sp=/99/224/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy

5 Easy Steps: How to Start a Community Garden

Cheyenne River Youth Project (LakotaYouth.org)Guided by traditional and spiritual principles, the Cheyenne River Youth Project® has incorporated the traditional Lakota values of generosity, spirituality, wisdom, respect, courage, honesty and patience into the development of its 2-acre, naturally grown, pesticide-free Winyan Toka Win (“Leading Lady” in the Lakota language) garden. — Cheyenne River Youth Project (LakotaYouth.org)
Guided by traditional and spiritual principles, the Cheyenne River Youth Project® has incorporated the traditional Lakota values of generosity, spirituality, wisdom, respect, courage, honesty and patience into the development of its 2-acre, naturally grown, pesticide-free Winyan Toka Win (“Leading Lady” in the Lakota language) garden.

Darla Antoine, ICTMN

For our ancestors, community gardening was the ONLY form of gardening, but as the landscape of our territories have been whittled away, so has our sense of communal responsibility and communal effort to feed ourselves.

Bringing gardening back to our communities has a number of obvious and not-so-obvious benefits: first, it is a great way to give ourselves dignified access to culturally appropriate foods and it’s a wonderful way to pool resources and strengthen community bonds. That much should be obvious. But did you know that community gardening might also reduce crime rates? One community garden in Philadelphia transformed their neighborhood by revamping and cleaning up an empty lot to house a beautiful community garden. Their efforts had a ripple effect and soon everyone was looking after their property—and their neighbors’—with more care.

And that’s not all: Community gardening gives elders in the community a voice and a chance to share their knowledge while teaching our youth the importance of sustainability and being sovereign—inter-generational exposure of cultural traditions is vital to our communities! Community gardens may also help your community grow traditional foods in a traditional way—something we don’t get from the supermarket.

Spending time in a garden or green space can also help reduce seasonal allergies, stress and air pollution. If built to include a composting station it can also reduce the amount of garbage taken to the landfill every week. And if they are involved in the gardening process, kids (of all ages) are more likely to eat their vegetables.

With all of those benefits, what are you waiting for! Here is how you can start your own community garden in five easy steps:

1. Organize a Meeting

Where will the garden be (find a place with at least 6 hours of sunlight and access to water)? How much are dues? How many plots and what size? What should be planted? Who will be involved? Who will benefit? Is there the possibility of funding or sponsorships to help cover the costs?

2. Form Committees

Who will be in charge of securing funding or collecting dues? Who will buy the seeds? Who will construct the plots? Will there be youth activities or a youth garden? Who will organize the planting and harvesting? Or is it all up to the individual plot owners?

3. Make Rules and Post Them

Involve the community in making the garden rules and the community will follow the rules. When are dues? How will the money be used? Will there be regular meetings? Are individuals responsible for the tending and harvesting of their own plots or is the garden an entire community effort from beginning to end? Will tools be provided to share or is everyone responsible for their own needs? Will the garden be organic?

4. Prepare and Develop Site

Clean the site, create a design or arrangement for the plots, build the garden beds, build a tool shed, and build a compost center. You may want to plant ornamental shrubs around the parameter of the garden to help make the garden look beautiful. You may also have to consider deer fencing or other steps to keep animals out of the garden. Don’t forget to plan pathways in-between all of the plots! Pathways that are able to accommodate wheelbarrows are highly suggested.

What considerations for traditional farming and gardening practices do you need to make? Do you want to honor the ancestors in the design of the garden somehow?

5. Stay in Touch

One of the purposes of a community garden is to strengthen the ties that bond a community. Be sure to create a phone tree, email list and/or put up a bulletin board to help members stay in touch when they need to. Also consider planning monthly workshops aimed at teaching the community how to garden, weed, harvest and maintain pest control without the use of harmful pesticides and herbicides. You can also plan seasonal foraging expeditions for traditional foods– and don’t forget to plan a harvest festival!

Darla Antoine is an enrolled member of the Okanagan Indian Band in British Columbia and grew up in Eastern Washington State. For three years, she worked as a newspaper reporter in the Midwest, reporting on issues relevant to the Native and Hispanic communities, and most recently served as a producer for Native America Calling. In 2011, she moved to Costa Rica, where she currently lives with her husband and their infant son. She lives on an organic and sustainable farm in the “cloud forest”—the highlands of Costa Rica, 9,000 feet above sea level. Due to the high elevation, the conditions for farming and gardening are similar to that of the Pacific Northwest—cold and rainy for most of the year with a short growing season. Antoine has an herb garden, green house, a bee hive, cows, a goat, and two trout ponds stocked with hundreds of rainbow trout.

Hoopa Howcast: An Antioxidant-Packed Stir Fry of Trumpet, Kale and Salmon

YouTubeMeagan Baldy is changing Native eating habits one video at a time. — YouTube
Meagan Baldy is changing Native eating habits one video at a time.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

From her home kitchen, Meagan Baldy, director of the Hoopa Community Garden, is teaching people how to cook meals with local, Native ingredients. Baldy launched her cooking series in fall 2013 on YouTube and Facebook to promote healthy lifestyles and agricultural sustainability in her community and throughout Indian country.

This week’s menu features black trumpet, kale and salmon stir fry—all sourced from local Native businesses or the Hoopa Food Distribution Program and Vegi Club shares—a Community Supported Agriculture.

She promotes leafy greens and superfoods, like kale and trumpets, as well as wild fish and game.

“Mushrooms are a great source of vitamin E; they’re full of antioxidants,” Baldy says on her most recent video. “They have a lot of qualities good for us if you’re trying to loose weight; they are a metabolic booster,” she tells viewers. Holding up the kale, she explains it’s a good source of iron.

“I like to take comfort foods we’re used to preparing and add fresh new ingredients,” Baldy told the Two Rivers Tribune. “You have the familiar flavors, plus something new and nutritious.”

Over the past six years, Baldy has converted the diet of her family. “My family, especially my husband, was the meat and potatoes type of family,” Baldy said. “But now they all love kale. They know it goes well with everything. Now they love to promote it, and other healthy foods just as much as I do.”

Beyond her weekly cookng show, Baldy can be found in the Hoopa at K’ima:w Medical Center’s Diabetes Program, and leading short cooking lessons at Hoopa Elementary School. She’s even got some students hooked on kale smoothies, she told the Two Rivers Tribune.

Baldy’s videos are filmed in collaboration with Hoopa Food Distribution, the Klamath-Trinity Resource Conservation District, Hoopa Food Policy Council, K’ima:w Medical Center, Hupa Resource Center and other organizations. Check out her YouTube channel here.

Eat healthier with Tulalip Clinic’s new community garden

Monica Hauser (left), diabetes educator and Veronia Leahy, diabetes program coordinator at the Tulalip Health Clinic, at the site of the newly opened health clinic garden on June 11.

Christopher Anderson, North County Outlook

The Tulalip Health Clinic’s new garden program, developed to combat diabetes, opened June 11. The clinic hopes it can get patients to eat healthy by teaching them to grow healthy foods.
Veronica Leahy, diabetes program coordinator at the Tulalip Health Clinic, says that participants will learn about blood pressure, their weight, healthy foods and exercise, but they will also learn about canning, making vinegars, salad dressing and jams.

“They’ll see it’s colorful and that’s what we really want to demonstrate,” she said. “It’s not so much having a classroom and watching a Powerpoint. This is a way of teaching people intangible ways to be healthy by working and laughing outside together, connecting, relationship building, which is also really good emotionally. We’re feeding not just their bodies, but we’re feeding them in emotional and spiritual ways, too.”

The program will take place during the work hours for the clinic.

The clinic’s garden is inspired by a pilot program started two years ago at the Hibulb Cultural Center called “Gardening Together as Families.”

“The idea of that was to teach families how to grow organic vegetables so that they would learn to have a healthier, well-balanced diet and learn how to enjoy gardening,” said Leahy.

Leahy liked how the program brought families together, engaged them with healthy eating and how families came back week after week. “Multi-generational families are coming together and eating, talking and working outside and then starting to grow small little container pots of plants,” she said.

The garden at the Tulalip Health Clinic will look different though. While the Hibulb garden is culture-oriented and family based that takes place on the weekend, the new garden is an individual-based program that takes place on weekdays.

The Tulalip Health Clinic will also supplement its program with more medical services like blood pressure screenings and diabetes screenings.

Leahy said the reaction has been positive so far. “One of the things I’ve really enjoyed is hearing people say ‘it’s so nice to come to the health clinic and not be sick’ but they’re coming here to do something fun at the health clinic,” she said.

She also pointed out that tribal leader Hank Gobin had been a supporter of the Hibulb garden before he passed away this April and that this new garden was started on his birthday.

Clinic staff members hope that patients take ownership of the garden and drive the program forward. “Our slogan is ‘working together to create a healthy and vibrant community’ and this is the tangible part of that,” Leahy said.

The clinic hopes to expand their garden when the health clinic expands next year and eventually create a garden walk for patients so they have something to do instead of waiting in the lobby, Leahy said.

For more information contact Veronica Leahy at 360-716-5642 or vleahy@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov.