Wasatch Community Gardens Blog

To enjoy the fruits of all of your labor (pun intended) and use up your bumper crop of tomatoes the fall harvest brings, we have gathered an eclectic list of beautiful and tasteful recipes for you! With a variety of ways to use up these enjoyable crops, you are sure to find a recipe that will make your Palate speak with delight. Enjoy! Avocado+Heirloom Tomato Toast with Balsamic Drizzle Recipe & photo from Ashley Melillo | Blissful Basil   Fresh Salsa Recipe & photo found at luluthebaker.com   Heirloom Tomato Tart with Ricotta and Basil Recipe & photo found at williams-sonoma.com   Roasted Red Bell Pepper & Heirloom Tomato Soup Recipe & photo found at vanillaandbean.com   Heirloom Tomato Sauce (Canning) Recipe & photo found at mountainmamacooks.com   Margherita Pizza Recipe & photo found at slimpalate.com   Tomato + Avocado Grilled Cheese Recipe & photo found at acouplecooks.com   Caprese Lasagna Roll Ups Recipe...

Picture this: a young, energetic woman in her early twenties driving a Ford F150 to town loaded with boxes and boxes of overflowing, beautiful, rainbow-colored tomatoes in July. She is headed to the farmers market in Logan with her bounty, an entire month earlier than the other farmers would sell their tomatoes. People flock to her booth to buy these precious summer gems early, and best of all, her tomatoes didn’t come from out of the state or the county. They were grown only two miles away in the high tunnel green houses at Utah State University. Meet Britney Hunter, Horticulture Extension Faculty at Utah State University. Britney didn’t grow up with the food movement and food justice in the forefront of her mind, but she developed a deep passion for plants and gardening when she worked at a plant nursey in high school. What fascinated her more than the plants...

Liz, our School Garden Coordinator has been busy teaching kids about healthy, local food. Visiting Mountain View Elementary School, students learned about nutrients and that vegetables of all different colors offers an awesome rainbow of nutrients. These 4th grade students visited the school garden to get their hands dirty by planting radish seeds, and then they created a vegetable rainbow poster demonstrating what they learned. Great job students & amazing job Liz!      

When people think about volunteering with WCG, they often think they need to be on the front-line of the gardens digging plots, planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, etc. But we welcome volunteers with all different talents and skill sets. Our November Volunteer Spotlight, Al Grossi, might not know this, but he is an amazing volunteer for Wasatch Community Gardens. By tapping into his passions of gardening, punk rock music, and talking with others as the Punk Rock Farmer, he has done an amazing job helping WCG foster support for our mission and programs. He is truly an amazing volunteer! Al had this to say about gardening, being the Punk Rock Farmer, and WCG: "I grew up on a farm mid 60's to late 70's. My dad was a gentleman farmer of sorts. No milking cows or cash crops, but we were on the path to sustainability, raising our own cows, chickens (eggs),...

This last weekend, WCG’s Community Education Director Mike and School Garden Program Coordinator Liz teamed up to host a Hoop House Building workshop at Escalante Elementary School. Mike provided the skills and know-how (and don’t-know-how) to build the hoop house, and Liz provided the space. Liz: I have been wanting to build a hoop house from the ground up for a while now. I have always liked the one at the Grateful Tomato Garden but it seems out of my legue - I mean really, a framed door?? When I saw the bed at Escalante, I knew it would be perfect for a hoop house… It was just a matter of convincing Mike to help me build it. Mike: This couldn’t have worked out better. I’ve long wanted to do more hands-on workshops, and I’ve also wanted to collaborate more with other WCG programs. I also really wanted to show folks...

What do the words “urban agriculture” mean to you? I can’t help myself but often think of urban farmers as millennial, organic farmers, cobbling together a handful of backyards around a city and forming viable businesses. With a little elbow grease and some cut-offs, they grow amazing arrays of veggies that border on art: kales, eggplants, potatoes, carrots, beets, tomatoes and more, all in a dizzying array of colors. Their clients are university professors, doctors, and people like me: office workers and administrators who long for more time to put their hands in the soil and cultivate life. To people like us, the urban farmer represents the life we coulda, shoulda, woulda pursued, if not for all of those other material desires and our life obligations. I recently visited a non-profit where the urban farmers are not the college-educated, successful hipsters of my mind, but rather individuals from all backgrounds who...

(Photo credit: www.morningagclips.com) 2 1/2 lbs winter squash 2 Tbsp oil 2 medium onions, halved and sliced thin 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 tsp curry powder 2 tsp minced fresh cilantro Salt to taste 1 c coconut milk Preheat oven to 400 degrees   Use a spoon to scoop out and discard strings and seeds. Cut squash into pieces about the size of your hand. Remove the skin and a layer or two of flesh (you want to remove any whitish or green flesh right beneath the skin) with a vegetable peeler or paring knife. Cut the peeled squash into 2 inch chunks.   Heat oil in large skillet. Add onions and saute over med heat until golden, about 8 min. Add garlic and curry powder and saute until fragrant. Add squash pieces and toss just long enough to coat with the onions and curry. Season with cilantro and salt to...

Putting your garden to bed for the winter is a great way to ensure your soil will not have diseases or insects from the winter spells next season. Here are a few easy tips and tricks to winterize your garden. Cleanup: Remove past season’s rotting or unripened goodies, and stock up your compost pile with them. Completely remove all vines, roots, bulbs, etc. The reason is that insects and pests will feed on these plants during the season and can lay eggs causing hatchlings in your garden once the freeze is thawed. This step also includes cleaning out the beds from any weeds or unwanted plants. Do NOT add these to the composting pile.                                        (Photo Credit: Linden Land Group)       Give your beds some love: Add your remaining compost from...

Photo Gallery of Wasatch Community Gardens' Youth School Field Trip Program...  Wasatch Community Gardens' Growing Greens Field Trip program has been in full swing this fall.  These field trips are a great way for youth to experience a connection between the environment, community, and the food system as they take part in learning gardening skills and eating fresh produce that nourishes their bodies. Ashley Patterson, WCG's Executive Director, welcoming the students.     Students are encouraged to explore and examine plant, insect, and animal life in the garden.     And taste fresh herbs...     And even taste leafy greens... (don't worry, it doesn't bite back!)     Youth become best friends with kale.     Because they get to play in our safe-drinking aquifer.     Through our Growing Greens Field Trip Program, youth learn plant science, nutrition, and gardening by touring the garden grounds, tasting fresh produce, and participating in plant-based...

This year’s mini-grants provided $10,712 in infrastructural improvements to seven community gardens throughout Salt Lake County. Three of these were gardens overseen by Wasatch Community Gardens (WCG), while four were gardens supported by WCG solely through our leadership resource Network. The focus of this year’s grant was again essential site improvements. Four gardens built tool sheds, one garden installed irrigation, one garden purchased an ADA-accessible picnic table, and one garden completed a variety of projects, including trimming of large fruit trees, purchase of basic tools, and irrigation timers. Below is a summary of project impacts, as described in mini-grant final reports, and a few photos:   4TH East Garden, 553 S 400 E, Salt Lake City “We were able to trim two apple trees on the north side of the garden that were unsafe to walk under, and shaded two garden plots. We were also able to upgrade our garden’s equipment....