Garden that Harvests, Garden of Hope

The past few weeks we've been oh so busy harvesting, planting and cooking! Here are a few pictures from last week's harvest...

Beautiful Aye Aye and her Chin Bom (really sour Thai green that has become popular at the farmer's market).
Dena and Pay Lay love swiss chard, and each other.
Isha can carry so much on her head.

The africans are amazing at harvest, because they can get it all in a few trips.

Last night was our Garden of Hope Cooking class. It was so much fun. The participants were all really lovely people, the energy was suprisingly high for a Tuesday night, and the food was delicious!

Check out some pictures...

In case you missed it, here is just a taste of what we made...

homemade fresh pickles with New Roots cumumbers!
Tomato Mozarella salad with our oh so sweet Brandywine Heirloom's

We finished it off with berry patch puff pastry dessert with chocolate mint.

and the winners are...

I have just finished a very scientific process of drawing the names. For proof, see the picture above. Notice the fairly evenly ripped names. You people are lucky because I couldn't just give away one bag. No way. Your reader-ship means that much to me. The THREE winners are:

Leslie T.

Jesse

Rachael Hoffman

If that is you, email me your address at: rbonar@ccsks.org and I will send you your tote right away!

THANKS FOR READING AND SUPPORTING NEW ROOTS!

Check back later in the week for an update on the market, harvesting

and to see what fall crops we've got up our sleeves!

Harvest, Wonderful People and a Blog Raffle!

It's been a great few weeks at New Roots. The harvest went really well on Friday. We are all learning so much! The first harvest took us 8 hot hours, and last week we increased production and had trimmed our time down to 5 hours.

The market was oh so lovely. The weather was a perfect 85 degrees and the customers were friendly and plentiful.

It's Tomato Season! MMMMM. Check out Dena's yummy tomatoes from market

this past week. Makes my mouth water just looking at them!

The New Roots Farm is about more than just refugees. Loads of folks have community plots over at the farm, and I don't think I've ever mentioned them here on the blog. Here is a picture of the YouthBuild group. They have been dilligently taking care of six plots together. I stopped over at their plots this morning, and it looked great!
Brandon is another community gardener who was actually the first to plant in his plot. He has been a friendly face to have around this summer and is oh so helpful.
In addition to the community garden members, we've been blessed by an army of incredibly dedicated volunteers. Here is Elisa and Hawo together at the market. Elisa helps us out during every field walk and has even talked her husband into helping us at the market.
Here is Rudy (who is at the market every Saturday) helping Pelagie weigh and calculate.

This is Walt helping Halima and Hawo. He is a great presence at the market.

Our CSA Members are another great addition to the New Roots Community. They provide consistant income for our growers and recieve a delicious bag of whatever is in season. Here is CSA Member Maria Conradt with Dena.

Sheila Christiansen subscribes to Aye Aye's produce. Here they are making the transaction!

Whew! Look at all that love!

This final picture is a reminder from Marion and I to sign up for the Garden of Hope Cooking Class Fundraiser. See previous blog post for more details, or shoot me an email if you have any questions! I hope that lots of you can make it out, its sure to be a fun night.

One More Thing: I've been wondering if people read this blog. Do you read it? Here's how I'm going to find out...

The name of every person who comments on this post will be entered into a raffle for one of our sweet New Roots for Refugees canvas tote bags. On August 25th, I will announce the winner on the blog. That person will then email me their mailing address and I'll send it out. Cool? So do it! (and don't forget to check back on the 25th to see if you've won!)

shade, power and color!

It's been a hot week here in the Midwest. Monday and Tuesday were over 100 degrees and humidity made it miserable! Today, however, we welcomed a cooler day. The farm was really busy this morning- everyone came out to enjoy the cool weather and just be together.

Our shade structure is complete! Lew has been working really hard over the past few weeks to build the frame and roof and help BPU install the electricity. Pretty soon we'll have our refrigeration room and wash stands which will make harvesting so much simpler!

One of the great benefits of electricity is a room with air conditioning. In the future, it will serve as tomato storage, but for now its really nice to go in and take a break from the hot heat!

Beautiful purple eggplants are in full swing which add a great color to our green farm.

Hawo's beautiful sunflowers remind us that we are in Kansas, after all.

Garden of Hope Cooking Class

On Tuesday, August 26, join In Home Bistro's Chef Kiersten Firquain
and friends for an evening of healthy cooking using local produce in
this 2 hour, hands-on cooking class to benefit the
New Roots for Refugees Program.

The class will be held from 7-9pm at St. Pius X Church. What a great way to celebrate yummy summer foods, spent time with friends and help raise money for a great program.

Contact Rachel at 913-621-5255 x.187
or rbonar@ccsks.org for more information and a registration form. (or click on the forms above, they will expand so you can actually read them!)
Forms are due August 22nd! Looking forward to seeing you then.

New Roots in the Leaven

Check out this week's article in the Leaven!