Connecting with Afro-Indigenous Plants @ ENYF
Our traditional group photo with this years gardeners! (All photos by Mo Liguer-Laubhouet and Lionel Higginbotham)
Despite a couple of short (but kinda intense??) bouts of showers, we had a mostly overcast afternoon filled with an amazing turn out of people and plants to kick off our 5th year of The Soul of Food with our plant-out session Seeding a Vibrant Afro-Indigenous Garden!
We began with grounding in some historical context of the plants we’d be transplanting (seedlings/sprouts planted in the ground) and direct sowing (seeds directing planted in the ground) that afternoon with folks taking turns reading some of Deep Routes’ plant profiles featuring Cotton, Cocoxochitl (aka Dahlias), Collards, Tomatoes, and Sorghum. We also went into a bit of the technologies and expertise people of African and Indigenous diasporas have brought to the agricultural field.
After some transplanting and direct sowing demonstrations, participants got onto transplanting seedlings of collards (Big Daddy Greasy and Top Bunch), cotton (with seed saved from last years’ Sea Island and Mississippi brown cotton yields as well as a [new to us] Red Foliated variety). We also direct sowed sorghum seed saved from previous years’ harvests (including white African and red sugar drip) as well as a couple of new varieties from True Love Seeds (Della and Coral), and planted out a couple beautiful cocoxochitl tubers (including Boogie Nites, Harvest Moonlight, and Bride to Be) which will come on in the late summer/early fall.
With all the rain we got 5 minutes into the workshop starting and would receive right after the workshop ended, we didn’t have to do much watering in, especially not for the cocoxochitl. And then everyone gathered at the picnic tables to enjoy some light bites of fresh bread, spreads, and fruits as they connected with old and new friends. We closed out the day with a group photo and our hearts full from an afternoon of carrying on the legacy of collective land stewardship.
Deep appreciation to Farmer Alexx for hosting us at East New York Farms UCC Youth Farm site, Greenthumb for bringing additional supplies, Kai of Red Hook Farms for assisting with set-up, the ENYF Youth for supporting with serving lunch, and big thanks to Lionel and Mo for taking photos!
Some workshop intros and folks sharing what plants they’re looking forward to this year.
Maya showing participants where and how to intercrop the tomatoes and chard seedlings that will be trellised later.
Folks learning some background about cotton and dahlias before nestling the seedlings and tubers into their new home.
Farm manager Alexx Caceres running from one rain shelter to the kitchen.
Mo, one of our workshops assistants and photographers for the day in the ENYF kitchen area.
