Project Feed the Hood: Ilsa and Rey Garduno Community Mutual Aid Farm & Agroecology Center

Community Driven Agriculture: 

Project Feed the Hood is an open concept agricultural space. This means that community members can harvest what they need, when they need. With community support and involvement we are able to grow food, medicinal herbs, cultivate compost and so much more year round! 

This safe greenspace would not be possible without the growing community of individuals, organizations and institutions who work with us every day.

Agroecology Center:

Project Feed the Hoods Agroecology Center is a space dedicated to holistic and sustainable land stewardship. Modeled after traditional teachings of biodiversity and reciprocity in ecosystem structures, we are able to show what urban greenspaces can be. They can be full of edible perennials; year round plants like fruit trees, berries and herbs. Can stand as a pollinator protector by providing food and safe nesting spaces throughout key seasons. We believe and grow spaces that will provide sustainable models for non-human and human life for generations to come, and the Agroecology Center is only one example.

Individual Grow Beds: 

Project Feed the Hood offers raised bed spaces for folks to grow their own varieties of vegetables. These beds are available on a first come, first serve basis, starting at the beginning of spring and going until all the beds are claimed. This is to ensure that folks who don’t have somewhere to grow at home, still have the opportunity to grow themselves.

Production Fields:

There are sixty, fifty foot planting rows throughout the production field. These rows are stewarded through regenerative agricultural practices and are organic; meaning no pesticides or herbicides are used in the growing process. The production fields remain open for the public to harvest from, with access gates on the north-west corner and the central point on the east side. Signage is provided to give people interacting with the space direction on when and how to harvest available produce. It is also encouraged to visit us during operating hours for any questions.

Learning garden:

Located on the south-west corner of the site, the Learning Garden is stewarded by our partner Youth Agricultural Cooperative (YoAgCo) which can be found at this link.

Compost:

Decomposition is a necessary part of any regenerative practice, on site we maintain and build Johnson Su Bioreactors. This static form of composting allows us to take the large amounts of green waste from the site’s care and turn it into amendments for soil remediation in the form of earthworms and worm castings. We distribute this to community members and provide seed worms for other locations. 

Additionally, the site is currently operating a small hot composting operation to maintain the amount of debris sitting and insure the community compost drop is cleared.