![\"Jeff](\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/huertas\/files\/2016\/07\/Jeff-Clarke_UVM-040216-0038.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Mark](\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/huertas\/files\/2016\/07\/Mark-Starrett-and-Naomi-Wolcott-MacCausland-Huertas-project-2016-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNurturing starts in the UVM greenhouse (top), and fully grown starts ready to be planted (bottom)<\/p>\n
Cultivar plantas en en vivero de UVM (arriba), y las plantas ya crecidas, listas para ser sembradas (abajo)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been an exciting couple of weeks for Huertas! Seeds and starts have been distributed and all the gardens have finally been planted. The whole endeavor began over five months ago, when field interns started visiting farms and interviewing Huertas participants in order to determine which seeds and starts each farm or family would be requesting this year. The totals from these interviews were put into a master spreadsheet, which at the end of the interview process was sent to the wonderful greenhouses that nurture starts for Huertas. This year there was an fantastic new collaboration on campus to help us grow many of the herbs and specialty starts. Mark Starrett, an Associate Professor and horticulture specialist in Plant and Soil Science, guided this collaboration. Chamomile, rue, epazote, papalo, chiltipin and guajillo peppers among many other starts were grown at the UVM greenhouse with the help of the UVM horticulture club, which covered the costs of pots, potting mix and space rental in the greenhouse. The starts were transplanted by various groups of volunteers, including the Green Mountain of Alpha Zeta (an agricultural\/environmental honor society) and students from Rachel Montesano\u2019s Spanish course, who also helped sow seeds. Once the starts were ready to be planted, they were handed off to Huertas, and our interns and volunteers sorted the starts into flats for each household (along with bags of their requested seeds) and distributed them to each of the 29 participating farms.<\/p>\n
When I became involved with Huertas as an intern, I had absolutely zero gardening knowledge, so participating in this whole endeavor has been a huge learning experience for me. I was lucky enough to see or be involved in every step of the process: from collecting information during the interviews to distributing the seeds and starts, I saw firsthand how deeply this program relies on personal, human connections. Watching the field interns undertake these interviews in a language they\u2019re not fluent in and watching the farm workers in turn help them along the way with what English they know was a really meaningful experience for me. Everyone brought what they could to the table and figured it out, together, from there. I also saw this kind of cooperation and understanding when I started going out to the farms on my own to help plant. I admitted right off the bat that I knew pretty much nothing, and instead of being disappointed the families and workers just laughed and taught me what they knew. They were more than willing to bridge the gap. Being involved with Huertas brings you into contact with these kinds of passionate, giving people, from the volunteers who transplant starts to people like Mark Starrett who supervise a large portion of all the starts we use for the year.<\/p>\n
To everyone involved with Huertas: thank you for an amazing year thus far!<\/p>\n
Nurturing starts in the UVM greenhouse (top), and fully grown starts ready to be planted (bottom)<\/p>\n Cultivar plantas en en vivero de UVM (arriba), y las plantas ya crecidas, listas para ser sembradas (abajo)<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n