This week we've had a small crew of construction workers at the farm building us a new shed. This shed will house our newest cooler, all of which were made possible by the support of several grants.
The soundtrack to the past couple days has been sawing, nail guns, 2x4s banging around, and guys yelling instructions to each other. It's always a lot of fun to watch a new building take shape, and so quickly! At least from my perspective!
The first grant that we applied for as a part of this project was called Keeping it Cool, and was run by Nourish DC Collaborative, an organization created in partnership with the government of DC. Nourish DC "support(s) the development of a robust ecosystem of locally owned food businesses, neighborhood vibrancy, and health equity in DC communities". With funding from the Morningstar Foundation, a philanthropic organization, the Keeping it Cool grant program funded the creation of cold storage infrastructure and equipment for food businesses in the Washington DC region.
We applied in order to build another cooler at the farm that will help us to better store some of our summer crops and reduce food waste. In the past we would store our tomatoes, eggplants, and some other summer crops in our office space. These warm-weather crops cannot be stored in our other cold storage space since it is kept around 35-40 degrees. These cold temperatures will negatively affect the texture and flavor of tomatoes especially, as well as eggplant and others.
To bolster our funding for the cold storage as well as to build the new shed that will shelter the cooler from the elements, we applied for the Food System Infrastructure grant from the county. This grant came from a collaboration between the Montgomery County Office of Food Systems Resilience, the Montgomery County Office of Health and Human Services, and Manna Food Center. The goal of this grant is to support food security initiatives that benefit underserved communities in the county and to support local food procurement and collaboration efforts.
We already work closely with Manna Food Center and Community FarmShare (CFS) to distribute local, fresh food throughout the county. Therefore, it made a lot of sense to combine these two grants.
With this added cooler space, we will be able to better store certain crops and also collaborate with other farmers who might not have as much cold storage as they need. Community FarmShare purchases and picks up local produce from multiple farms in the county and we plan to utilize a portion of the cooler space to help lessen the burden of that process. The other, smaller farms that also sell to CFS can drop off their weekly orders at this cooler, which is more centrally located for CFS personnel to come and pick up everything at once, rather than driving around to multiple farm locations.
So, back to the construction! We had a company come out a few weeks ago to clear out some invasive brush and weedy trees in the area where the new shed and cooler will go. They also then added many truckloads of fill dirt and leveled everything out into a nice, flat pad.
Now, the frame of the building is going up and it's so great to see it take shape! In addition to the cooler, this shed will provide space for us to store a lot of plastic bins that we use to harvest and store crops like tomatoes, potatoes, and winter squash. As of right now they get stored outside and far away from the barn and are always getting knocked down in a storm or are too wet when we need them dry! Having a permanent, sheltered place for them close to the barn will be great!
There is always something new and different in farming, and often that is a new pest or different weather patterns that can wreak havoc with our plants. But when the change is planned, organized, and well-executed, then it's a nice change indeed! Keep your eyes on our social media for updates on this new cooler project!
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