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Plant It Forward in Montclair
If you know any youngsters who are yearning for the country life, then here is their chance to get their hands dirty and grow organic produce that will benefit many people in our community. This year Essex County 4-H’s farm program has expanded from the community garden on Miller Street to an additional… Continue Reading →
Calling All Youth Farmers
Montclair Community Farms is looking for excited, engaged youth ages 11-17 ready to learn about sustainable agriculture and healthy food production March-August 2013. We are also seeking college interns to serve as lead farmers during the growing season.
We will be farming in Montclair and in Irvington with Essex County 4-H Youth Development. We will learn about raising chickens, growing produce to donate to senior residences and emergency relief programs, and we will sell eggs and salsa at the farmers’ market!
Anyone interested in volunteering should contact us today! Email emmanuela.mujica@gmail.com or essex4h@njaes.rutgers.edu
Check out the Youth Farmer Flyer and the MCF college internship flyer for more information!
Growing Montclair Community Farms
In 2011, an inaugural local farming project for youth to grow and sell vegetables at affordable prices was created on Miller Street. With its expansion in 2012 to the Montclair Historical Society at 108 Orange Road, we are now called Montclair Community Farms. During 2012, we engaged local teens in growing nearly five hundred pounds of vegetables in a 2,000-square foot lot owned by HOMECorp. We donated the vegetables to local emergency food programs, low-income seniors as well as being sold well below market rate at a farm stand at Montclair Child Development Center on Fulton Street.
Montclair Community Farms was founded with a seed grant from Partners for Health Foundation. The Foundation once again funded the youth farming endeavor last year, and as the project expands to a new site, so does support from other institutions. This year, we’ve received grant award funding from Garden Club of New Jersey and Montclair Rotary Foundation, which will be used for seeds and supplies at the new farm site at the Montclair Historical Society.
Farming the Montclair Historical Society plot will quadruple the land to be tended by youth farmers, and Montclair Community Farms seeks young people, ages 11-17, to participate in the growing project from May through October. Youth interested in learning more about the opportunity and receiving an application, which must be returned by February 28, should email me at emmanuela.mujica@gmail.com.
Our mission at Montclair Community Farms is to empower youth to grow healthy, affordable, and sustainable communities. We are a collaboration of Essex County 4-H, HOMECorp, Montclair Health Department, Montclair Historical Society, Montclair State University, TerraNoble Design, and United Way of Northern New Jersey. Vegetables grown by the youth are donated to senior housing sites and emergency feeding programs. This year, the youth famers will also tend chickens and make salsa from harvested tomatoes, and we will sell the eggs and salsa locally.
Follow Montclair Community Farms on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MontclairCommunityFarms, and join other local residents and businesses in supporting the project by making a donation to HOMECorp, 1 Woodland Avenue, Monclair, NJ 07042, with a note that the donation is designated for Montclair Community Farms.
Support SWAG Farm!
I recently attended a beautiful Full Bellies harvest feast benefitting SWAG Urban Farm Project in Newark, NJ. The event was organized to raise funds to continue the program into its 3rd year of teaching youth how to grow food organically and serving the community real, healthy food. Elder Simon and Alexandra Payne, founders and collaborators, were there to welcome guests with a huge smiles and wonderment at the bounty of fresh food volunteers and community members grew during the 2012 season (1,000 lbs. so far!) Speaker Stephen Ritz of Green Bronx Machine was there to share in the enthusiasm filling the air and to encourage us all to continue our path toward healthy, sustainable communities.
From public schools and charters school, businesses and faith-based organizations, SWAG Farm is doing its best to raise awareness for hunger justice in Newark by including community members from all walks of life. SWAG is now trying to raise $4000 for their project at IOBY (In Your Own Backyard). They’ve raised a little over half, and need your help to raise the rest! Give the gift of real food to the community this holiday by contributing to the cause or by volunteering. To find out how to volunteer please contact Chantrice Barnes at swagprojectnewark@gmail.com.
More about SWAG: Continue Reading →
Spoon-A-Thon brings community together
Montclair, New Jersey—On Saturday October 27th, we held our first annual “Spoon-A-Thon: Seasonal Soup Celebration” for Food Day. Local restaurants served up soups made fresh from local ingredients. Visitors sampled the steamy soups from compostable cups and voted for their favorite with stones. The participating restaurants were Fitzgerald’s 1928, Let’spoon, Terra Café at Isabel Rose, Uptown 596, and Comfort Food Kitchen. Fitzgerald’s won the competition with their exquisite butternut squash soup.
Montclair Community Farms is a collaboration of Essex County 4-H, HOMECorp, Montclair Health Department, Montclair State University, TerraNoble Landscape Design and United Way of Northern New Jersey. The Montclair Community Farms collaboration was established in 2010 as a youth farming program at Miller Street Farm to teach teens how to grow and sell vegetables. Montclair Community Farms launched a 3,000 square ft. site at the Montclair Historical Society, and the Spoon-A-Thon was a fun “friendraiser” event to get people connected to the urban farming cause. Continue Reading →
Food Day Spoon-A-Thon: sustainable soup celebration
The Montclair Historical Society (MHS) and Montclair Community Farms will celebrate the expansion of Montclair Community Farms with a “Spoon-A-Thon” event to be held Saturday, October 27 at the Montclair Historical Society, 108 Orange Road, Montclair. The event will run from noon until 4:00 p.m. and will have something for everyone. The suggested donation for adults is $5 and $10 for a family. The rain date is Sunday, October 28th.
As live music plays, attendees can participate in the tasting and judging of delicious seasonal soups provided by local restaurants and caterers. They can take tours of the historic homes on the grounds of the Montclair Historical Society, as well as tours of the new farm and chicken coop areas. There will be a cooking demonstration in the Israel Crane House as period soup is made in the open hearth kitchen there. Kids can enjoy “Stone Soup” story time. There will also be a slide show about Montclair Community Farms and information about growing organic produce, raising chickens and more. Restaurants participating at this event will be: Fitzgerald’s 1928, Comfort Food Kitchen, Terra Café, and Let’spoon, and Ora at Uptown 596. Continue Reading →
Led by seeds
Guest post authored by Chris Beers, curious creator, kind friend, and dancing enthusiast. For more information about his intriguing endeavors in Montclair and NYC visit ChrisBeers.org
“I have an unspoken agreement with the gentlemen who are contracted to mow this land every so often: I tame the pumpkins, they don’t weed wack them down.” CB
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My name is Chris Beers. I’m experimenting with how plants change us. Since May of this year I’ve been outside every day, tending a garden that spreads from my backyard to the public landscape. I’m curious as to what situations and ways of living a community gets swept up into as plants, produce plants in particular, become valued and cared for residents of the neighborhood.
A patch of corn and pumpkins growing together thirty meters down the street from my apartment in the Pine Street Neighborhood of Montclair, NJ.
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Corn growing in an abandoned tree planter on Pine St. Just around the corner from where I live.
In an apartment adjacent to this plot lives a woman named Diane Ellis whose concern for the look and feel of her surroundings compels her to clean up the trash that others leave on the streets. She does this on her own time. Diane has also taken up watering the corn outside her apartment of her own accord; a much needed contribution during the drier parts of this summer.
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These fragile bean seedlings are growing between the curb and the sidewalk outside my apartment. Their presence is intrepid in an unprotected space. Foot traffic is moderately busy on my street and the young beans run the risk of being trampled.
A voluntary and unarticulated social contract evolves out of this situation. The survival of these plants is something people stand to benefit from, but a sense of awareness and concern for our surroundings must develop in the community.
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Corn and pumpkins growing together in a patch of grass between a train corridor and the street. The pumpkins want to cover the whole area but I’ve been training them to encircle the corn. I have an unspoken agreement with the gentlemen who are contracted to mow this land every so often: I tame the pumpkins, they don’t weed wack them down. Continue Reading →