Freshly grown lettuce straight from the garden may seem like a dream in the dead of winter, but community growers were starting to enjoy the fruits of their labor last month, plucked fresh from the greenhouse in Virginia's Olcott Park. Community participants planted their seeds in the greenhouse earlier in the season, and Dawn Trexel tended to the produce until harvest time.
The greenhouse program is part of the Rutabaga Project, a community effort to bring healthier foods to Iron Range tables. Multiple community groups, food producers, neighborhoods and various organizations have joined forces to provide public access to healthy foods through a variety of means. The team behind the project includes - but is not exclusive to - Essentia Health, Growing Together-Virginia Community Gardens, city of Virginia, Friends of the Greenhouse in Virginia, University of Minnesota Extension Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education, Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency and Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability.
