Farm Kick-Off: A Successful Community Event

The City High Urban Farmers (CHUF) along with City High School’s contingent
 of Youth Farm Project Interns celebrated the inauguration of the Las
 Milpitas de Cottonwood Community Farm on Saturday afternoon, along with over 200 community members!

More than 15 City High School students
 represented our burgeoning farming program by giving tours of the farm and staffing our City High School 
table complete with school information, t-shirts for sale, and most 
importantly… fresh-picked produce grown by the CHUFfers themselves!

This fall, the VOICES in the CITY Program began running City High Urban Farming, bringing students to our urban farm, where they began planting three vegetable beds. They’ve been joined by the Youth Farm Project interns, together tending the plots and 
creating more beds in which to plant.

We have been harvesting fresh
 turnips, greens, fennel, carrots, spinach, and radishes for ourselves 
over the last month or so. Even still, we had enough remaining 
produce to vend at the big community wide kickoff event! We sold 9 bunches of turnips, 12 
bags of fresh pea-tips, 10 bunches of cilantro, 2 fennel bulbs,
 3 heads of lettuce, 3 bunches of mustard greens, 1 bunch of
carrots, and gave away a few extras on the side.

We had a great time; and learned that it is not easy to earn a living as a farmer. The money the students made covered the cost of ice to keep the produce cool and repaid a $9 debt from December’s purchase of agribon for crop protection during the cold weather. So, we
 came out even and happy. Support
 your local growers!

City High School was very well represented and
 made a lasting impression of good work ethic and talent. We’d like to give a special thanks to senior Molly Kollier who came out to play beautiful 
original music at the event and a hearty congratulations to everyone from the Community Food Bank, YFP, CHUFfers, performers, booth participants, the restaurants that bring their vegetable waste to our compose, and the over 200 people who stopped by to support all of our efforts!

A short video about the urban farm and the event by Channel 4 KVOA can be viewed here.

Visit the City High School facebook page to see pictures from the event.

The garden fun continues: The Pima County Public Library is opening a new seed library for patrons to start their own gardens! The grand opening is this Saturday. We hope you’ll join us. Click here for more details.