Sharing Our Garden Produce                                                                              Harvest Lunch

It is a challenge to get produce from the gardens and into the cafeteria in a form the cafeteria staff can use and in a timely fashion. It is not practical to have each class harvest on a regular bases.  Classes garden at different times throughout the week and the weekly harvest from a single garden is too small by itself.

We solved this problem by instituting the Sunday Morning Harvest.  We invite volunteers to help harvest the produce and receive a share of the harvest.  The produce is harvested, sorted and made ready on Monday morning for the cooks from all of Loveland’s six schools to select what they can use.  Later that morning whatever is left is dispersed to various pantries and soup kitchens.

Though the cafeteria staff is very willing to work with us they are understaffed and faced with the responsibility of preparing lunch each day for thousands of students.  They are not in a position to handle high labor produce i.e. leaf lettuce and root crops.  They can easily incorporate cucumbers, peppers, green onions, squash, eggplant, tomatoes, cabbage and other such produce into the menu.

We have a wonderful blackberry patch that produces huge amounts of large fruit on its thorn-less briars.  Blackberries ripen in the July so the students are not around to harvest them but that does not mean they go to waste.  We offer them as a special treat for staff and volunteers to pick a container to take home. This year, we began a new tradition.  We harvested and froze about 20 gallons of blackberries.  In October, Granny taught a volunteer how to make blackberry cobble.  She made dozens that were delivered along with ice cream to some of the many people who provide behind the scenes support.  These included the district grounds and maintenance department that provides tremendous support, the city works department that delivers the leaves that become the compost that is so important to our gardens) and a printer who does all of our printing free of charge.