Seedlings

One of our goals this year has been to share resources to lower the economic barriers to growing food. So, on a Saturday morning last May, a group of volunteers from Aurelia’s Garden travelled to Chelsea, MA to hold a workshop on seed starting and up-potting at La Colaborativa.  Our workshop was held adjacent to the La Colaborativa food pantry, which was distributing food at the same time, making it easy for patrons to stop by our workshop. About 200-300 people came by to learn about seed planting. 

We had two workstations: at one, we demonstrated seed starting. People planted trays of vegetables and brought them home for further care.  At the other we demonstrated up-potting tomato, pepper, cilantro, parsley and other herb plants.  (“Up-potting” is the process of moving a seedling from a small pot to a bigger pot so it has room to grow.) We found that speaking to a group of 10-15 adults at a time worked best, and through them, the word would spread down the long lines of folks wanting to participate. 

We feel that offering such workshops offers people suffering from food insecurity an opportunity to gain experience with seeds, soil and plants. The hope is that this will empower people to get a small measure of control over their food supply and make them less dependent on external food sources. 

Our event was a learning experience for all of us. There were people who watched our demonstration and then shared with us that they had grown up on farms in Central and South America. They shared stories of how they were taught to take care of plants. They took it upon themselves to help others with up-potting their plants. Everyone wanted to take something green to their homes. This represented to me an ideal teaching environment, where the teachers and the students learn and teach together. And everyone, from the staff and clients of La Colaborativa to our group of volunteers, had fun participating.  Our volunteer group consisted of Hannah Traggis, Carole Hohl, Sally McCarthy and Margie Perse. We look forward to holding similar workshops with our other food pantry partners.