Volunteers from Nusenda Credit Union Joined AIRE at the Taos High School Orchard and Garden
On Monday, October 9th, staff members from the Albuquerque and Taos branches of Nusenda Credit Union joined high school agriculture students and AIRE staff at the Taos High School garden for their annual Community Day. The five students helped lead the volunteers through various tasks around the garden.
We set up a corn sheller and the Nusenda volunteers got the kernels off of about 40 pounds of blue corn, grown through A.I.R.E. ‘s blue corn project. This corn can now be used for seed, as well as to make blue corn atole, blue corn muffins, and other locally grown, traditional food for the school lunch program.
At the seeding station, students showed the volunteers how to plant cold hardy greens like lettuce, arugula, spinach and mustard.
Some volunteers mixed peat moss, perlite, sand and compost to create a soil mixture for the beds in the newly constructed growdome. The day started with empty beds and ended with each volunteer transplanting lettuce seedlings grown by the high school students into the soil they mixed themselves! AIRE will bring the salad greens to our local Nusenda members once the lettuce is ready to eat.
By the end of the day, the Nusenda volunteers shared that they felt they were leaving with a newfound knowledge of soil health and how to grow food in the winter using a greenhouse. They expressed gratitude to have spent their volunteer day outside learning from the students and contributing to the garden. AIRE is grateful to Nusenda and to the municipal school district for supporting student-run agriculture in the community. Special thanks to Adel Kosanke (high school agriculture teacher), CJ Grace, and Victoria Santistevan.
