Lubbock Local Foods Field Day II

I grew up on a farm and in a small town. My dad was a cotton farmer, but he always had a nice sized strip of one of his fields in fruits and vegetables. We had corn on the cob, watermelon, black-eyed peas, green beans, okra and other fresh vegetables as a given in the summer once they were mature enough to eat. I remember the joy of knowing that a watermelon could be delved into at just about any moment of the day once they were available—provided a willing adult was around. A lot of other people from the community also had those vegetables from that strip or from similar strips planted by other farmers nearby. We went as a family to do the picking. That was great fun and one of the things that made it fun was having an activity that involved the whole family, and the inevitable adventures that would come along with it—like coming across a snake or seeing a pheasant fly out of the hay grazer near-by. At some point towards the end of the season, every year, I remember sitting in a circle with my mom, grandma, brother, aunts and others hulling black-eyed peas and telling stories. We canned all of it—my grandmother and my mom doing the bulk of the canning. Sometimes my Great Aunts would be in on it too.  The corn would be cut off the cob and cooked in big pots, then put into canning jars and pressure cooked for some amount of time lost in my mind to time itself. It was a great gathering and it seems like a far fantasy land now. What happened to those times? Anybody else remember them?

 

Well, Ogallala Commons, South Plains Food Bank, Lubbock County Master Gardeners, and Texas Impact are sponsoring a local foods field day here in Lubbock Saturday, June 20th. The event will begin at St. John’s United Methodist Church at 15^th and University Ave. Participants will leave in buses to tour local organic farms with-in the city of Lubbock as well as Carpenter’s Church community garden, the South Plains Food Bank GRUB garden and some family sized backyard gardens before meeting back-up at the church where a locally prepared meal of locally grown foods including a vegetarian option will be served. Besides the food, a luncheon presentation given by Bill Ludwig, the US Department of Agriculture Regional Administrator for the Food and Nutrition Service’s (FNS) Southwest Region will be included.

 

In the afternoon, demonstration workshops on raised bed gardening and backyard composting will be presented. A second workshop, “Health & Wellness through Daily Food,” will explore how fresh, locally-grown foods can help communities build health and wellness, as well as accessing local foods through farms, CSAs (Community-Supported Agriculture), farmers markets, and direct marketers or buying clubs. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and in this day and age of an overweight nation and too many Diabetes type 2 diagnosis, fast food meals eaten at separate times of the day in separate places and high transportation costs leading to high food costs—local, fresh and healthy foods are making a come back. Won’t you join us?