FARM + FOOD LAB | GREAT PARK ORANGE COUNTY
Late Summer – and it was time to support our friends at SFUA (Solutions for Urban Agriculture) on their annual fund drive activities. Amid the pandemic and restrictions on public gatherings, this year was a uniquely delightful , sensory treat - a socially distanced docent tour of the Farm + Food Lab at the Orange County Great Park.
It was an inspired stroll amid a delicately balanced, tactile, and aromatic symphony of edible ornamental vines and shrubs, attractors plants, raised beds of organic herbs and vegetables, and experimental micro-farms applying innovative and sustainable growing techniques.
Our guide, Nathan Gipple, Senior Director of SFUA, was a wellspring of knowledge on the origins, growth characteristics, flavors and water-hardiness of every species grown on the roughly 2 acres of this interactive and educational model farm nestled at the edge of the Great Park complex.
Socially distanced and inspiration-rich.
SFUA operates the Farm + Food Lab in partnership with the City of Irvine, and collaborates with the UCCE Master Gardeners of Orange County, and engages with the community through frequent hands-on demonstrations and educational events.
Its mission is to educate visitors about sustainable gardening and vermicomposting, invite collaboration on innovative growing techniques and ideas (we saw arrays of Alegria Fresh’s “SoxxBoxx” tray growing system in action), and facilitate a thriving community of people working in partnership.
Our intern, Vani participates in picking produce at a community activity at the Farm + Food Lab this Summer.
The farm tour especially resonates in the time of Covid-19 as the pandemic shone a light on the therapeutic values of gardening and empowerment through growing one’s own food. Panic-buying triggered by the virus, economic depression, social turmoil and the disruption in the industrial food supply chain with high rates of infection in food-processing plants, brought the issue of food insecurity to the forefront across communities in our backyard and around the globe .
A delicately balanced symphony.
We predict that this growing trend in urban gardening and micro-farms is here to stay and will be increasingly integrated into Community Design in the future.
We personally were inspired to grow our own micro-garden of Malabar Spinach - an especially robust variety of the green with a zingy flavor that we brought home from our tour of the Lab!
