~Farmer Todd
11TH ANNUAL SPRING SEEDLING SALE AND FOOD SHED CAFE GRAND OPENING!
(AND FREE COOKIES!)
This Saturday, May 19th, from 7:30AM to 12 PM, we are hosting our favorite event of the year - the Spring Seedling Sale! This is an outdoor block party where we close down Flint Street in front of the store and encourage our community to come get seedlings to start their own backyard gardens, from the best farmers in Northern Nevada :) Nothing in the food movement is more empowering than growing your own vegetables, and it's easier than ever with seedlings chosen for their growability in the high desert of Nevada!
We also are happy to announce the GRAND OPENING for our Food Shed Cafe, where we take as much local and organic food as we can and turn it into something magical that will fill your belly and warm your heart. To celebrate, we are making 500 cookies for the first 500 people to stop by our upstairs cafe - these are mini versions of our gluten-free, vegan, paleo chocolate chip cookies so everyone can try one!
The Seedling Sale is about more than just food, it's about community - which means you will find a whole host of amazing non-profits and arts and crafts to explore as well! Check out a quick highlight of only a few of our farmers and vendors below, and we hope to see you this Saturday :)
SWEETING RANCH!
Solomon Sweeting of Sweeting Ranch lives and grows in the beautiful Sierra Valley, and will be one of the many amazing farms selling local seedlings specifically for the high desert at our Annual Spring Seedling Sale! You may recognize his eggs as some of the highest quality regionally grown eggs available at the co-op. He's excited to have a full lineup of amazing seedlings this year :)
"Sweeting Ranch will have lots of Beefsteak, Cherry and Yellow Bell tomato plant starts, basil, lettuce, purple Orach, mint, and several others. All plants are grown in the Sierra Valley in the beautiful town of Loyalton, California, by me at the ranch. Looking forward to getting folks some really nice plant starts for their summer gardens!"
Personally, we're really excited for the orach - an underappreciated leafy green that grows like a weed and adds a beautiful color to salads!
MEWALDT ORGANICS!
Bill Mewaldt has been saving seed and adapting his organic vegetables to the high desert of northern Nevada for years. And he is happy to share those seedlings with all of us at the Annual Spring Seedling Sale!
He says, "Our typical fare including various tomatoes, peppers, chilies, squash, basil and Hearts of Gold Cantaloupe. We'll have sunchokes (ready to plant!) and a few of our Pink Reliance Seedless Grapes from last year's cuttings in 1 gallon pots...along with a few surprises!"
Bill is an abundance of knowledge that we are lucky to have, and grows some of the amazing local organic vegetables that we sell in the store all summer long. If you are lucky enough to get to meet him, you will learn more about plants in twenty seconds than you thought you could possibly know.
CONSCIOUS CONTAINER!
Conscious Container will be joining us for the first time to promote their beer bottle reusage program right here in Reno! Notice this is not a recycling program - the three R's are (in order) REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE.
That means reducing usage is the best way you can impact our waste streams, followed by reusing containers, and lastly by recycling them. In other words, this is a step UP from typical recycling programs! Come visit their booth on Saturday to learn more.
RENO BIKE PROJECT!
Annual Bike to Work Day is Friday May 18th, but we'd like to continue the celebration an extra day into our Annual Spring Seedling Sale!
With street closures and limited parking, what a great time to bike your way to our seedling sale, reducing your carbon footprint, supporting local farmers, AND growing your own garden! To help accommodate the bike traffic, we have the Reno Bike Project helping out with a bike valet service to make the greatest invention in human history (that's the bicycle, folks) the easiest way to visit the Seedling Sale. Hope to see you all there!
FULL CIRCLE COMPOST!
The Full Circle Compost Trailer has been a fixture of our Annual Spring Seedling Sale for years, and it just got a new paint job! Join us this Saturday to see the new compost trailer in all its glory, and while you're at it, get some locally decomposed compost from Full Circle to make your garden sing a thousand hallelujahs! They will be slinging these bags of black gold right out of their trailer this year, and we're so excited to not only have bioregionally adapted seedlings, but the means to build great soil to make your garden thrive!
LOPING COYOTE FARM!
Nate Rosenbloom of Loping Coyote Farms has been one of the many wonderful voices growing the permaculture movement in Reno for years now. He always has one of the most unique booths at our Annual Spring Seedling Sale because he focuses on perennial plants that come back year after year to provide food, shade, and a home for pollinators and healthy soil bugs and microbes.
Check out his booth this Saturday to find rosemary, oregano, thyme, mint, chives, sage, comfrey, nettle (watch those fingers!), echinacea, catmint, daylily, sedum, asters, butterfly bush, or fern bushes!
HOLLEY FAMILY FARM!
The Holley Family has been providing the co-op with organic seedlings, organic vegetables, pastured pork, and grass-fed and finished beef for years now, and we are so happy to have them back for our Spring Seedling Sale!
"Holley family farms will be featuring USDA certified organic seedlings, including tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, yellow squash and zucchini, cucumbers, and fragrant marigolds to keep the pests away!"
Good farming is not just filling your space with as many profitable plants and animals as you can - it's about caring for the land, building soil fertility, and being responsible stewards. It's hard work, and the Holleys do it right - hence their offering of marigolds, which are truly a wonder-plant at protecting your vegetables!
FLINT STREET FARM!
Flint Street Farm, also known as "what is that cool farm over by the parking lot on Flint and Ridge streets?" has been doing amazing community work for years now - Anna Hebard farms this little urban plot and donates vegetables and flower bouquets to RISE (helping low income residents), RHA (providing healthy fresh food to low income seniors) and Innovations High School (feeding students and educating them all at once!)
This is truly a special spot and we're excited to say that they will be offering farm tours during our Spring Seedling Sale! Just on the other side of Ridge Street from the Seedling Sale, it's a great example of a positive use of urban space :)
URBAN ROOTS!
Urban Roots has been teaching people about growing and using sustainable food for years, and they are extremely excited to share their new farm site at 1700 E 2nd St! They have 3 hoop houses at their new location and are continually expanding the land, planting cherry trees this month for a speciality crop grant.
At the Seedling Sale this year, Urban Roots will be selling currants, gooseberries, raspberries they started this spring with high schoolers from Encompass. In the project, students learned about different propagation techniques with field trips to DFI and Loping Coyote Nursery.
They will also have information about volunteer projects, and their upcoming summer camps at Rancho San Rafael!
Clockwise from top: Turkey Bacon Avocado Club on local Liberty bread, Jam and Coconut Toast with local Lattin Farms Jam, Vegan Gluten-Free Un-Tuna Melt, Vegan Croissant, Raw Paleo Granola Acai Bowl.
THE FOOD SHED CAFE
GRAND OPENING!
This Saturday, May 19th, we are having the official GRAND OPENING of the Food Shed Cafe on the second floor of the co-op! Many of you have already enjoyed our assortment of hot drinks, paninis, toasts, burritos, soups, baked goods, and juices, but we're just getting started! The Food Shed Cafe is named for our map of local producers, where we source fresh organic fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, eggs, beer, wine, coffee, honey, and more, all from the 100+ local food producers in our foodshed.
What is a food shed? Well, in the high desert water is our limiting resource, especially for farmers whose lifeblood is so tied into this precious resource. So we call a farmer local when they have to share the same water we do - any water that falls into the basin formed by the Truckee, Carson, or Walker Rivers is part of our watershed, which is also our foodshed, and informs the greatest impact we can have in our Food Shed Cafe!
That's why you'll find nothing but local Palomino Valley organic eggs for all our baked goods, Holley Family Farms pasture raised non-GMO pork in our burritos, Albaugh Ranch grass fed and finished beef for our burritos and paninis, New Harvest Farm pea shoots to top our sandwiches, Sand Hill Dairy milk in our hot drinks, Vertical Coffee Roasters coffee, and Liberty soudough bread for all our sandwiches! This is what we're all about - feeding our community local food coming from local producers, while helping the local economy and the environment.
So come by, try a bite at the Food Shed while picking up your garden seedlings, and THANK YOU for taking the tiny steps to make this world a better place :)
We hope to see you this Saturday!
EVERYONE IS WELCOME! Open every day from 7:30am-9pm
Our mailing address is:
240 Court St Reno, NV 89501
775.324.6133
info@greatbasinfood.coop
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