Ventura County Farm to School

🎉 Get Ready for a Healthy Start to 2025! 🎉 Join the CalFresh Healthy Living Program workshop: "Making Healthy Eating Part of Your Lifestyle" on Wednesday, January 8, from 8:30 to 9:30 AM at Hive Wellness Center at E.O. Green. Includes a healthy recipe demonstration! 🍏🥗

@EOGreenHornets If you need our help finding fresh local produce let us know!

We brought a soil science experiment to schools to demonstrate how cover crops and mulch help soil retain more water. Thank you Agromin for donating soils, compost, and mulch to school gardens! Thanks to Rodale institute for letting us borrow their cover crops for the experiment!

carbon in the soil which is important for our 🌎 Mother Earth! In other words, healthy soils = healthy foods AND a healthier planet, plus reduced water waste because healthy soils retain more moisture. fao.org/world-soil-day

Today is #worldsoilday ! Teaching students and our community members about building healthy soil is a big part of our school garden programs. Creating your own compost and using mulch are two easy and affordable ways to build healthy soil, plus these practices help retain

And so was Edgar's one piece of advice for students: "Plant a tree! Watching the tree grow and provide fruit over the years is rewarding and brings so much joy."

Edgar is thrilled to share his heritage & passion for agriculture with students at the Rio District farm! Meeting Ramiro Espinoza, who says that the farm is "where life begins", and learning his experience as an advocate for farmworker rights with Cesar Chavez was inspiring

The Espinoza family farm brings generations of pride in cultivating the land to provide food for others. They share a legacy of advocating for the people who work with them as stewards of the land, and building relationships with their fellow farmers to consider them family.

Students first day on the Rio Farm! Learning about regenerative agriculture. #rioschools

This #givingtuesday you can do some holiday shopping AND support school gardens, nutrition education, and the Ventura County School Food Hub by purchasing a sweatshirt, Tshirt or baseball hat from our site on @bonfire. Click the link in our bio to find our bonfire store.

who then serve these delicious autumn sweet treats to students every November and December. Persimmons are a versatile drought tolerant tree once established. They are delicious in salads (swap out apple) or as a fruit pico de gallo salsa, and on your charcuterie boards!

Persimmon season has arrived! Our schools are grateful for the Hendren family persimmon crop each year- we wait patiently for the fruit to ripen each fall. The whole family participates in harvesting their trees and packing boxes of persimmons for our school cafeterias

THANK YOU to the Espinoza Farm crew for helping to clean up and sheet mulch the Rio Mesa garden!

How to use your school garden as an outdoor classroom! All the tips and strategies will be shared at our next School Garden Educators meeting- Nov. 29 at Rio Real school garden in Oxnard. RSVP at the link in our bio and bring a friend!

October was National Farm to School Month, and we celebrated with over 500 students and teachers in Camarillo, Oxnard and Santa Paula by making apple cider with Cuyama orchard apples!

We are so happy to have @csuci interns this year! Jisell and Cassandra have been a huge help with all of our programs, both in the office and in the schools. Thank you @ci_serves for coordinating a wonderful internship program!

Jose Alcantar of Alcantar Organics is our Farmer of the Month for October! The VC School Food Hub is working with Farm Cart Organics to bring local fruits and vegetables to over 50 schools in our community.

Thank you @JenSiebelNewsom @agsecross @AliceWaters @Ecoliteracy for leading the way!

The CDFA F2S conference was OUTSTANDING! Grateful & inspired to learn about scratch cooking success in cafeterias, thriving local procurement models and food hubs, initiatives that connect STEM and F2S learning via outdoor ed, a shared vision for our work in the years to come.