Sierra Harvest’s garden stands are overflowing with the fall harvest at 19 elementary schools in Nevada County right now. Partner farms provide the bulk of the produce for these stands, and school gardens and parents, teachers, and neighbors donate the rest. Check with the school near you to find out when your garden stand is open for business. Each school does it a little differently, thanks to the awesome individuals who run these stands – our farm to school liaisons!
Here are just a few photos of what the different stands look like:
New this year at Grizzly Hill – kids are able to use “star cards” (cards that collect stars earned for good behavior) to purchase produce. No money needed! This was the result of a decision that Grizzly Hill made to raise their garden stand prices to market rate (instead of the more typical “pay what you can” policy). Grizzly Hill’s Farm to School liaison Leah Walsh explains the challenge this created: “This left the question open for how to give access to kids if money was a barrier. And a solution was quickly reached!”
Garden stands are not all that is happening at the schools this month. Kids also got to taste Asian Pears from Gabriel Farm in Sebastopol as part of the Harvest of the Month program. They were quite popular – here is what some students at Grass Valley Charter had to say about this not-so-familiar fruit:
“These taste like candy”
“They’re crisp, sweet, juicy and delicious”
“They’re sweet until you hit the middle and then there’s a twist of lemon”