Every Monday evening from 5:30-7:30 there is a gardener present to supervise volunteering. Come out and join us. We'll find a garden task that is right for you: gentle bending, micro-weeding, vigorous alfalfa eradication (our garden used to be an alfalfa field). And we have kid-friendly tasks and vegetable coloring pages, too.

Upcoming Garden Events 

GardenPotluck and Harvest Day
 Saturday, Oct 8: potluck at noon; harvest activities from 1-3:30 p.m.
Come for just the potluck, just the harvest activities, or both. There will be child-friendly activities. Please bring a dish to share. Plates, utensils and beverages will be provided. We'll get the garden ready for its winter rest. Please RSVP to commonground@csbsju.edu.

Bulbs for Sale
 Many of you who pick up at St. Ben's met Sister Elizabeth Theis; she was at distribution selling flower bulbs. The bulbs will be back this Thursday. Asiatic lilies: in a variety of colors, and they don't smell. These are perennial bulbs that should be planted this fall and will come up in the spring. S. Elizabeth has them priced to move and her hope is to use the money to buy a better rototiller for the Sisters' garden. Thanks for your support.

Gleaning
The season of gleaning continues. Items available for gleaning this week

tomatoes
cantaloupe
daikon
arugula
Swiss chard
sage, dill

Return of the Second Graders to the Pumpkin Patch

Last spring Ryan and I (Kate) went to the St. Joseph Grade School to plant pumpkin seeds with the first graders. For the first time in many years, the seeds did not germinate so we got a little help from Thomsen's Greenhouse with some seedlings. All summer we've tended the patch and on Monday, Sept. 19, the now second graders came to pick a pumpkin. I expected a trail of kids coming down the gravel road, but instead they arrived on a hay wagon!

In addition to scouring the patch for the "best" pumpkin (I assured the kids that "best" wasn't necessarily the biggest -- each one has character and beauty), the second graders' teacher reviewed the plant life cycle with them. I was very impressed by their knowledge. Don't worry; they didn't take all of our pumpkins. We still have enough to come to your homes as well.

An Internship in Review: Part 2
By Lindsay Ganong

Picking up where we left off ...

I found that each person's definition of "local" addressed the angle of the "local food issue" that pertained to her or him. So I asked questions to draw out those concerns. For some it was transportation costs, knowing the source of one's food or supporting the local economy (Coborn's, Degiovanni, Foley, Purman). For others it was developing a relationship with the farmer to ensure fair, living wages for laborers (Common Ground, Halverson). For some it was freshness and quality of food sold by the proud grower (Coborn's, Halverson, Kingsolver 2007). Although none cited scientific information to support their argument, farmers and consumers alike tout the superior nutritional value of in-season foods (Degiovanni, Kingsolver 2007). Barbara Kingsolver also wrote extensively about her desire to develop a North American cuisine. She wrote, "Hand the Atkins menu to a French person, and run for your life. ... Will North Americans ever have a food culture to call our own? Can we find or make up an asset of rituals, recipes, ethics and buying habits that will let us love our food and eat it too?" She argued that a food culture would grow out of the local foods that North Americans could produce, purchase and learn to love.

What barriers prevent a North American cuisine which thrives on its own bounty? Barriers at all levels of the food system prevent local food markets from thriving. Consumers shared that cost of local foods is greater; however, Barbara Kingsolver in her book Animal Vegetable Miracle and farmers' quoted by Gary Holthaus in From the Farm to the Table numerate the strong advantages of supporting the local economy through the purchase of diversified, typically non-subsidized produce rather than choosing to spend money daily on food to support agricultural conglomerates. Whereas the money spent to support a local producer will typically stay within the community, purchasing from multinational corporations funnels money out of the community. Distributors such as Coborn's serve consumers who expect to have full choice of foods regardless of the season, and Minnesota's winter prevents a year-long outdoor growing season. Distributors and food service managers need large quantities of products and complain that local farmers struggle to meet their needs. Small producers cannot always guarantee delivery dates and times or the quality and quantity of produce. Food service workers and individual consumers in many cases do not consider it a priority to alter personal and systemic schedules to allow time to process, prepare and preserve the raw foods typically provided on the local market. Farmers lament the limited market for small, local producers. The popular local food taglines such as "from farm to plate," "farm to table" and "ground to gourmet" are not an easy feat in the current food system unless one adds a 1500-mile road trip into the mix.

Admittedly, I tend to be wary of food products that travel the average 1500 miles on a semitruck to reach Americans' plates. Regardless of the decentralized regulation of the current food system, there is hope. Katie Foley, manager of the Minnesota Street Market, said, "I don't know of a person who would rather buy a tomato from a conventional grocery store than from their neighbor." Judy Purman, CSB Director of Sustainability, said, "I would like to see people supporting the local farmer." I tend to agree. (photo at left: Jamie Swanson and Lindsay Ganong at the St. Joseph's Farmers' Market -- under a red tent!)

By my evaluation, the security and peacefulness of knowing the environmental and labor inputs of one's food source and the sense of community built by exchanging money for sustenance, from the grower who produced one's food or a distributor with similar concerns, are the driving forces that will continue to localize the food system in St. Joseph. In future research, I would like to delve into the business and economic issues of sourcing large food service operations to propose solutions to the dilemma in which a farmer claims she does not have a market and a food service operator claims he does not have adequate produce from local markets. In the frenetic workdays which interviewees graciously allowed me to interrupt, I found that professionals all-around agree that re-establishing local food system connections is not in any one person's job description. It must be an effort born of open and honest communication within a community which greatly wants it.

You can discuss Lindsay's internship with her at distribution or the Garden Harvest Festival, or email responses to commonground@csbsju.edu.

Vegetable Forecast