Graduation and Planting Begins!

Last week, we had our first Graduation ceremony. Ten women completed the trainings offered by KCCUA and were eligible for graduation. At the ceremony, we gave each woman a certificate, a basic tool, and a piece of paper guaranteeing them the use of a plot for this growing season.

Everyone ready for the presentations!

Halima recieving her plot!

Pay Lay is proud of her certificate.



Beautiful Hawo.

Pa Mu watches from the grass.

After the ceremony, we got to work. The women removed more stones and started making holes for their transplants. Throughout the past week, we have planted 5 varieties of tomatoes, peppers, okra, greens, cabbage, potatoes, swiss chard, celery, celeriac, and eggplant.

Pelagie goes nuts with the hoe.

Freshly planted tomatoes ready for water.

Dena and two of her children plant together.

Tilled up and ready to go!

I'm excited to say that we are almost ready to plant!

Over the past few days, we've been removing more bricks, discing and tilling the ground. All 9 of the quarter acre market garden plots are ready to plant, and we broke ground on the community garden space this morning.

A HUGE thanks to all of the families from St. Pius X who signed up to be a part of our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program this weekend. We did not anticipate such an overwhelming response. We are looking forward to partnering with you over the growing season!

Here are a few pictures from the past few days.

I know that over the next year, we'll all be learning a lot. This picture illustrates a lesson I learned today - don't leave things (especially your New Roots for Refugees binder) in tall grass on a farm when a tractor is running or it is liable to get run over.

We will be having our "Opening Ceremonies" this Thursday at the farm at 9:30. The women will all be assigned plots to start growing and congratulated for all of the hard work that they have put in so far this year. If you are interested in attending, we'd love to have you. Email me at rbonar@ccsks.org

Turning Dirt!

We started turning dirt over at the end of last week. It was no great surprise that the dirt was filled with rocks. Our farm site used to have housing on it that was demolished a few years back. They tore down the housing and just filled in the gaps with soil and grew grass on top. Over the past few days, we've removed bricks, pipes, stones and chunks of sidewalk.

Don Nelson using the middle buster to break up the dirt.

Khadijo carting out bricks while sweet Makay sleeps on her back.

Pay Lay "the workhorse" uses her shirt to scoop up rocks.

Amina takes a break to take it all in.

A small sample of what we found.

Good Lookin' dirt.