Today was a big day for Parr Field: the harvest of maize for our chicos/harvest celebration tonight! This year was a better harvest than last year for at least two reasons. The first is that we harvested a lot more corn this year than last. And more importantly, this year we were able to involve the elementary students in the harvest as part of their school day. This field was planted by many of these same students as part of their ‘Field Day’ activities in May. We had a few hundred students in the field today, each getting to harvest some corn, some barley, tomatoes, and chile. The students were beaming with excitement to be in the field and harvest the crops. We feel that this Parr Field Garden Project, with its school-wide planting, harvest, and chicos-making activities as well as AIRE’s ability to give a little bit of seed to each of these students, is really fulfilling our mission “to gather the people and plant the fields.” We also see this as a great way to inspire a new generation of farmers. Since we are not planning on going anywhere else anytime soon, we look forward to working with these students in the years to come to see if we can bring their involvement full circle. Full Circle means that the students will eventually become seed-saving gardeners and farmers themselves…
We have Micah Roseberry, Greg Romero, and Will Roth to thank for facilitating this harvest event. Photos by Micah Roseberry.
The chile and calabasa (squash) photos above are by Miguel Santistevan
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