SPROUT NOLA

Monthly Community Service Hours Completed: September - 1.5 hours

Cumulative Fall Semester Service Hours Completed : 1.5 hours

Sprout Nola is a community-based farming area that helps gardeners, people who love plants, and locals enthusiastic about fostering a strong sense of community gain more skill in growing their own crops all the while equipping our community with a local and fresh food source. Today, I had the privilege of volunteering at their farm located at 300 North Broad Street at their “Volunteer for Veggies” event that they hold every Thursday afternoon from 4-5:30 pm.

We helped to clear the leftover root systems from the last crops and made way for planting new crops that favor the milder months ahead: beets, collard greens, mustard greens, and broccoli. We didn’t just plant vegetables, but we also had the pleasure of planting various flowering plants in between the vegetable crops in order to promote visits from our buzzing pollinator friends. The flowers that we planted included red, white, and pink Snapdragons as well as Dianthus flowers. We also had various community members come harvest some plants ripe for the picking that included okra, shishito peppers, tabasco peppers, and wormwood that was going to get turned into absinthe.

  Young Tabasco Peppers

                                 

                                              Rocket Pink Snapdragons

An aspect I really enjoyed was seeing the different crops growing in the community gardens. I keep my own garden at home, and it was a great feeling knowing that my kale, broccoli, beets, Thai bird chilies, lemongrass, basil plants, and chocolate mint plants were all doing just as well as the ones I saw in the community gardens. As one of the added bonuses, I even got to take a few mustard greens home to plant in my home garden! Another bonus was that each volunteer was awarded tokens equivalent to about $8 that could be spent at the Crescent City Farmer’s Market which is just within walking distance of SPROUT NOLA. This is a farmer’s market that my partner and I frequent often on Saturday mornings and even occasionally we bring our dog, Jubilee. It was just an extra sweet cherry on top to have another reason to go back to our favorite local farmer’s market.  

                                   

                                  My hard-earned tokens in my dirty hands (:

                                   

    Look at how massive this okra was! (Again, don't mind the dirty hands.)

I definitely will be back to check in on the growing crops and see what other plants can grow throughout all of the seasons here in beautiful New Orleans. 

Thus far, the Pharmacology program has had the core of my attention with good reason. It can be challenging at times and I have taken on an additional responsibility by getting involved in Dr. Castorena-Gonzalez's lab. But I have been doing well so far and I hope that I can continue these patterns. My goal is to have a 4.0 GPA in this program as I know students before me have done. If I stay true to my course, I know I can accomplish this goal with the help of my professors, classmates, and all of the Pharmacology Department!