Maggie: In this episode of The Farmer & The Foodie, Lindsey and I visit a community gardening organization that's bringing the farm into the city.

So we got to work digging up some fresh veggies of our own to take back to the kitchen.

I'm Maggie Keith and I'm the farmer.

Lindsey: And I'm Lindsey McClave and I'm the foodie and this is... -Maggie: The Farmer... -Lindsey: & The Foodie.

Narrator: Funding for this program is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions.

Maggie: Community farming organization Seedleaf began in Lexington in 2007.

Their mission supports the practice of small scale farming and gardening in an urban space by providing land and horticulture education.

Lindsey: Executive director Christine Smith gave us a tour of their first garden space and shared with us how she came to be a part of this community.

Christine: With this old historic neighborhood, there were a lot of people who didn't have access to fresh food.

And so they thought, well, what brings food and beauty?

A garden, and so this was the very first one.

Part of your mission is around food access, but also you are venturing towards land access as well.

How do you all see training and growing new farmers as a way to increase food access?

Christine: Seedleaf sort of came into this work of food security because we knew that the first thing that we had to address was getting food into the hands of folks.

But we don't wanna be the gardeners for Lexington.

We want people to get these skills and to confidently employ them throughout their lives.

So the idea is that if we grow growers and if we grow small growers, Lexington growers, who satisfy the needs of our community and they can do it, you know, with the networks that they know, with the communities that they know and where they're invested, then we go a lot further with addressing food insecurity Lexington wide, Kentucky wide, than just Seedleaf that's only based in North Lexington.

One of the early issues that we had was that in addition to food insecurity, we deal with issues like homelessness and drug addiction.

So we had to go through the rough decision of putting up a fence which then sort of makes some people not feel as welcome, but we still have neighbors who are really excited about the space who come in, you know, they're ready to go with their bags and pick and talk and share gossip as well as some people who, you know, once that fence went up, they haven't come back.

So it's always a mixed bag with a community space, as community is.

Community is complicated and so is the community garden.

Yeah, it must have take a lot of passion to be the director of Seedleaf.

Oh, Lordy.

Yeah.

So where does that passion come from?

What's your background in food and farming that sort of brought you to this work?

Christine: I come from a completely different field but in sort of being in an atmosphere where I had people growing stuff around me as a kid, I'm from Miami, Florida.

Everyone has a mango tree who can have a mango tree.

It was just part of a world that made sense and that was normal.

And I felt that in Lexington, we should have the same.

Food should be everywhere.

I can't think of something that builds community as strongly that provides civic infrastructure, as strongly that provides food as strongly as a garden space.

I always have loads of something to share.

I always have labor to share most certainly.

But in that, I can share conversation with people and I give other people the opportunity to do that.

So doing this work is just deeply rewarding.

It's the best job I've ever had.

So the community element of this, are you finding that there are people in the community that know how to garden and farm and they who are leasing the plots?

The most common thing that we hear is that, "Oh, I'm a black thumb, I can't grow anything."

And you know, we often tell them there's no such thing as a black thumb.

Growing food is not rocket science.

It's really an art of paying attention and making sure that you water.

And oftentimes people will come to volunteer because they want gardening experience.

But more often than not, they're mostly looking for community and ways to connect with people since that's becoming so rare.

And so that's really how we get in a lot of our volunteers, too.

It seems like there's just so many different outreach and initiatives that you all have.

Tell us a little bit more outside of this garden, where are you all in the community?

-What are you doing?

-Yeah We have an education outreach coordinator who helps with a school garden install.

She helps with programming, getting into classrooms and helping those teachers get their students outside.

Then we have our Market Garden program which is working with folks who are 18 and older to teach them how to grow on a small scale for market.

And then we have an Agroforestry program which is fairly new.

And so that's all in addition to our 12 growing spaces, that's 10 community garden spaces and the 2 farm spaces.

So we're quite busy.

I would say that is quite a bit to keep up with, but what a wonderful range of people that you're reaching within Lexington.

We hope that people go out and become small scale growers, farmers.

But if they leave the program knowing how to grow, right?

Knowing how to grow something for themselves and for their families, that's a major success for us.

I have no greater ambitions than to make sure that people have the skills and learning necessary to totally jettison Seedleaf when they're ready to.

[upbeat music playing] So, this is our sweet potato patch and what you're gonna do is look for a place where it's rooted down into the ground.

-Okay, yeah.

-Like that one and then you're gonna kind of go in from the side.

And so I'm just gonna show you briefly what that looks like and I'll go from here.

Oh, my goodness.

Lindsey: Well, look at that.

You did like find it.

-That is so exciting.

-That is so exciting.

Maggie: Oh my God.

I was not expecting that.

Look at this sucker.

This is amazing.

These are fantastic.

There's these two -that are peeking up for you.

-I feel like I'm getting a little bit of a clue.

-I'm getting a cheat.

-Here, give me this.

Okay, thank you.

But I'm gonna give it a go.

All right.

Don't wanna prick it.

-Maggie: You won't.

-Lindsey: There you go.

Maggie: Yay!

Perfect.

Oh my goodness.

Look at this.

They are fantastic.

So you're gonna be making a lot of really good recipes in your kitchen.

That's the thing about sweet potatoes, like that will make so much food.

Yeah.

I feel like a little goes like such an incredibly long way.

And that's what, and they're just so dense with the nutrients and flavor and... And beautiful.

Lindsey: They are.

They are, I mean, look at that.

That's amazing.

Well, thank you.

Can we take a couple -of these back to my kitchen?

-Take as much as you want.

I have loads more to dig up.

Maggie: After packing up our haul, we headed to the Seedleaf Community Farm, a two-acre farm space on the north side of Lexington.

I met with farm manager HP Lovelace to learn more about their Market Gardener program.

[upbeat music playing] Lovelace: So we're growing food for anyone to come and harvest and reconnect to the land.

It's also a training site for us because we have market gardeners who train for six months with us.

They receive a stipend and they have access with our partners at Lexington Farmers Market.

They develop their own business plan and they find ways to make a living through gardening and farming.

We hold workshops, things like pickling and canning.

All the things that are happening right now within the garden space, people want those knowledges, they want to be connected to their food and they want the security of being able to provide for themselves and their families.

And that's part of what Seedleaf does here.

So what aspects do you see in the community space and the Seedleaf's community that are helpful and healthy and might help future generations?

People need to be intimately connected to their food and to their water.

That's food sovereignty.

The ability to make decisions about where your food comes from.

The quality of that food is, I think, a human right.

And somehow along the way, we have started to think of that as some sort of luxury that only wealthy people can have.

Now is the time to disrupt that whole idea.

Can you tell me about the importance of the nonprofit work within the agriculture space?

It allows us to be focused on advocacy and it allows us to take some chances that I feel most farmers don't have the capacity to take.

Can you tell me about the vision for your all's new 30 acre farm?

It's almost like a blank slate that there had been a conventional operation going on.

And the landowner contacted Seedleaf and, you know, let us reimagine the space.

So what we've been doing is bringing out brilliant people, walking the land with them, listening to them and that is what is informing the space.

I can tell you that.

We're thinking about regenerative agriculture land that starts with rebuilding the soil, filtering the water along the headwaters of North Elkhorn, native pollinator habitats.

We're trying to start a native plant nursery, a polyculture orchard, if you can think about pawpaws and persimmons and hazelnuts and all the different things that sort of intertwined with that.

You know, access to land is a huge problem.

So after our market gardeners graduate from our six-month program, they have the opportunity to take a half an acre at Headwater Farm for three years and manage that space and manage their business and build their business.

And as they do that, build more connections within the larger community and hopefully find even more access to land.

Bridging that gap between landowners and people that don't have the access to land, how can we make that sort of the symbiotic relationship?

We have a responsibility to try to, you know, change the system so that, that when they enter it, they have an opportunity to live well -and to make a living.

-Yes.

Is that teaching about business planning and the entrepreneurial side of farming?

Absolutely, It's a very personal decision to figure out where you fit into this market.

What are the crops that you like to grow?

Yeah.

Have you considered a cooperative structure?

There's many models out there and I think it's time to explore them all.

Lindsey: Gaston Ngandu Sankayi is part of the Refugee Farming Cooperative.

In association with Seedleaf and other programs, immigrants from Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda can grow their own food from their home countries.

Seedleaf provides land and resources for some of the families as a part of this initiative.

Gaston: The needs at the beginning was the lack of access to vegetables that they used to eat in Africa.

So this caused food insecurity.

The other aspect is the reconciliation process.

The people we are here, most of them are the survivors of the war and genocide in central Africa.

And when they came here, they consider each other as enemy.

They didn't like each other.

And at the same time they had common needs.

So the Refugee Farm Cooperative put these people together and they grow food together.

They bring families, children and they teach each other different strategies of growing food.

Now they start seeing each other and they have a new perceptions.

They discover -- yeah, there is humanity in these people I used to consider in different ways.

On the other side, they have access to food that they couldn't get here.

And this is organic, cheaper and healthy.

So what are some of the vegetables that have been grown here that take you back to home that you wouldn't have found here originally?

For example, here we have what we call matembele back in Congo.

And one of them is here.

Yeah, you call them sweet potato leaves here.

Do I just, can I pluck one off right here?

-Yes.

-Yes, show me.

And it's like this, like this, yeah.

Then shred and fry.

Mixed with tomato, onion, garlic.

And it's very good.

You can add meat or fish.

Our group, we talk like 10 languages.

Another group will call it matamba.

Another group will call it sombe.

Another group will call it kaleji.

One vegetable, different names.

But the same vegetable that everyone is enjoying together and has sort of helped bring your community together to create one community from several.

-Correct.

-Yeah, that's wonderful.

-Usually... -And I've not seen a white eggplant before .

This is African eggplant.

Usually they grow bigger, bigger like this.

-Okay, okay.

-Yeah.

And they stay white as they grow and ripe then?

Yes, and after that they turn red.

You can cook them or eat them raw.

What do you all need to help continue to grow this community?

We used to grow these vegetables in Africa.

The growing season is longer, much longer than this one in Lexington, Kentucky.

We need a greenhouse, then we can have a longer growing season.

So adjusting to the different climate has been a significant change, -I'm sure.

-Yes, yes.

[upbeat music playing] Well, Seedleaf gave me a lot of hope for the future of farming and what an incredible organization.

They are really doing some amazing things and so much throughout the community.

Their reach is broad and their vegetables are amazing.

So we're gonna start with a frittata.

It is one of my favorite things to make.

It's very easy.

It's all in one pan, in a bowl, then into the oven, but it can take on any ingredients, especially vegetables.

So they were so generous to let us pick some of the eggplant and peppers that they had.

They taught us all about these amazing sweet potato leaves.

So we're going to actually use some sweet potatoes for a recipe in a little bit.

But to get going, we picked up a few cherry tomatoes.

So if you want to slice some of those, I'm going to crack about a dozen eggs into this bowl and we'll get our frittata moving.

Maggie: Great.

[upbeat music playing] Okay, well, I think that -is a wonderful amount.

-Perfect.

So now what I'm gonna do, I've got a dozen eggs in here, so I'm gonna add about a half cup of milk.

Any dairy here will work, like you could do a yogurt, sour cream, just wanna make sure it's full fat.

-Okay.

-So definitely adds a little bit more richness to it.

We're gonna do a couple of healthy pinches of kosher salt, cracks of ground pepper, and then I'm gonna get this all whisked up.

And you want it to be really well whisked.

So you don't want there to be any streaks left.

So I kind of do a, I whisk for a while, do a little bit of this -so you can see... -Test.

Yeah, we're gonna get it.

It just makes sure things are really well incorporated.

-Yes.

-So... that is good to go.

And now all we have to do is add in our vegetables.

-Oh, wow.

-So if we can put the tomatoes in here.

You could certainly roast these and put them on the pan like we did with our roasted veggies over here.

But I like how they just cook just a little bit and they add these like bright pops of like just acidic happiness in there.

And then this is just the eggplant, green pepper and squash that we've roasted.

I roasted 400, which is salt pepper and olive oil.

This is one of the reasons frittatas are such a wonderful type of recipe because anything you have, so if you have roasted potatoes left over from the night before, if you have, you know, some greens that you cooked, all of those can just be taken out of the fridge, dumped in, pulled chicken, bacon.

Frittata likes anything and it definitely likes cheese.

Now, I like best with my frittatas, add a little bit of dollops of goat cheese on top at the end.

So you can certainly add shredded cheese, grated cheese that would incorporate.

But the goat cheese doesn't fully melt, it just adds these like creamy pockets once it's cooked.

And I just, I'm definitely here for that.

I've got about a 10-inch nonstick pan for a dozen eggs.

It's gonna serve 6 to 8 people, but we're gonna warm the pan with some butter, pour this directly in there, let it cook on the stove over about medium heat for about 5 minutes.

You'll see that the edges and the pan will start to set.

Then we're gonna transfer directly into a 350 degree oven for around 20 minutes.

You want it to be set in the middle, not too jiggly, but just set.

You don't want it to cook too much.

So it'll have this really luscious creamy texture on the interior and it's just so, so lovely.

And one thing I wanted to have alongside the frittata was something that added a little bit of herbaceousness and spiciness.

When we were walking through the gardens at Seedleaf, they had these fantastic peppers, all different types of peppers.

Some of them we weren't even sure what they were.

Very colorful, but they had these fish peppers, which I know you're familiar with.

Maggie: Yeah, a farmer friend of mine actually gave me some seed and encouraged me to grow it and save seed from it because it was about to disappear from North America.

The seed, and it has a great history in the Caribbean.

And that's why it's called a fish pepper is because it was used a lot in fish dishes.

But it's not super spicy.

It's more than a jalapeno, less than like a cayenne or habanero.

So I really like that level of spiciness in a dish.

Oh, me too.

That's perfect.

And I think it's gonna really just add a little bit something to our frittata.

What I was thinking about when I was thinking about what kind of sauce I wanted to do, I was inspired by just the worldliness of Seedleaf and how all the people who have come to Lexington as refugees and are finding a new home there.

They're representing all different parts of the world.

And a lot of different parts of the world have a green sauce, chimichurri, pesto.

And one that I really, really enjoy is called zhug sauce and it originated in Yemen.

So it's Middle Eastern.

It always uses some sort of spicy pepper.

So I thought the fish pepper would be great there.

And then a lot of amazing toasted spices and then fresh herbs and some garlic.

And what we're gonna do is use this kitchen tool, a mortar and pestle.

It is a tool as old as time and everything is made traditionally right here with the mortar and pestle, which I love.

We have coriander seeds, cardamom pods, cumin seed and whole peppercorns.

And to me, you can really cook the best flavor out of seeds when you toast them a little bit.

And when I toast seeds, I just put them on a dry pan on the stove.

And as soon as they get really fragrant and you can see the color changing just so, perfect, they're going to go straight in here and then all of our ingredients are going to slowly go in.

We're going to pound them together and have our zhug sauce.

Great.

I love hands-on cooking.

Me too, me too.

All right.

[upbeat music playing] Okay, so we have our peppercorn, coriander, cumin and cardamoms.

And we're going to toast these up on the stove and then start making our sauce.

Maggie: Great.

So once the spices are relatively ground up, we are gonna go ahead and add in a couple cloves of garlic.

I'm just gonna give them a rough chop and then same with our fish pepper.

-Okay.

-So... Maggie, you said these are like almost a cayenne, but a little bit more than a jalapeno.

-Yes.

-All right.

-We're going to just kind of... -Beware.

All right.

Well, we want some heat here and this is sauce's mint to pack a punch.

So we're going to go, a couple of them.

I can smell them, they smell so good.

And when I am -- oh my gosh, they really do smell really good.

When I'm using mortar and pestle with garlic, this is a great way to do a garlic paste.

You just want a really nice pinch of kosher salt and kosher salt is like a coarser grind.

So it acts as like an abrasive element to really help break down the garlic and it's going to have the same effect on our fish pepper.

So we're going to work this together.

Very end we're going to finish with some olive oil to make it more saucy.

-So, off we go.

-Great.

So we're just gonna slowly add in our parsley and cilantro in little bunches until we're gonna add about a cup, cup and a half together.

-You just want same thing... -You want me to start going?

So now we're gonna add a little bit of olive oil at a time and then we're just gonna keep pounding until it really feels like it's become this homogenous, delicious, broken down herby, spicy sauce.

-Do you wanna spoon it?

-Yeah.

I'll spoon it.

-It just got really nice heat.

-Yeah?

Oh, I really, really like it.

And you can see it's not a ton of sauce, but you don't need a lot.

I mean, this heat is like really rich in flavor though.

So I'm going to add a little more of this.

I like when it's the type of heat where you can still taste it, it's not so hot and overpowers.

Lindsey: It's flavorful heat.

-Yeah.

-Yes, exactly.

I think we should each try -just a little.

-Oh, I would love to.

But again, it is spicy but it's very, very complex in flavor.

Well, the heat creeps up a little later.

The first thing I tasted was those toasted seeds.

Right.

I know, I know.

I think so too, and I love it.

There's a lot happening and I think it's going to be a wonderful addition to our frittata.

And we're next going to be making some sweet potato fritters.

And I think whenever I have a fritter or something fried, I really like a creamy dipping sauce.

I think a little bit of yogurt with some of this stashed in would be a perfect complement to that.

So our frittata should be finishing up and in the meantime, let's make some sweet potato fritters.

Great.

[upbeat music playing] And keeping with the idea of just like people from all over the world in Lexington that Seedleaf is helping and bringing together, a lot of different cultures have a fritter of some sort, whether it's a latke or, you know, some sort of fried potato and you can really be creative here and throw different things in.

So we have some really nice garlic, some green onions that we picked up from the Seedleaf garden.

And we're just gonna combine grated sweet potato in here and then we need a breading so, or it's sort of a binder.

And so we've actually -- I really like rice flour for this.

I think it just adds a really nice natural crispiness.

And then a little bit of baking powder also is a really great way to add extra crispiness when you are frying something.

We've got an egg as our binder as well and we're just gonna add a little bit more salt and bring it all together.

Then it's gonna fry in a neutral, high heat oil like grapeseed oil for about two minutes on each side.

And they're crispy and crunchy and I think they're just the perfect complement -to our frittata.

-I can't wait.

-You do the grating.

-Yes, I'm down for grating.

So let's put that in the bowl and then we'll add the rest of our ingredients -and fry them up.

-Perfect.

Baking powder.

I've got one tablespoon baking powder and three tablespoons rice flour.

Salt.

And then I just like using a fork to bring it all together and then we'll get to frying.

So we're going to move over to the stove.

I'm gonna get my cast iron skillet out.

That's my favorite for frying something like this.

Add our oil and once it gets to sizzling, I can show you how I test that.

I like to just take one piece and put it in the oil and I'll see just how you want it to foam around it, not be too still and not immediately go dark.

You know, that means it's too hot.

And yeah, we'll fry for about two minutes a side and do these in a couple of batches, -we will be ready to eat.

-Yay.

Well, I don't know about you but I am so hungry.

Yes, me too.

These sweet potato fritters smell really, really good.

And like I said, when I have something fried, I really like some sort of creamy dipping sauce.

And I think just a little dollop of our zhug sauce... -Mm, perfect.

-mixed into some Greek yogurt is going to add just the right extra accompaniment to these guys.

And you brought along always... Yeah, I brought a few little garnishes, I thought it would be sweet to garnish these with some nice flowers.

Can you guess -what kind of flower is this?

-Oh my goodness.

It's a tomato flower.

No, I would not have guessed that.

And then let's put a little, with some of these beautiful little branches.

-I love the beauty of these.

-Smells, too.

There was one thing I loved about Seedleaf is these people are gonna have all the access to like garnish away, one of my favorite activities.

I'm almost afraid to slice it, but I think I am going to take a little bit out so we can try.

-I'll make you a non fluffy... -Yes.

Just slice it like some piece of pie.

And all the juice is just coming together.

Yum.

Yum, yum.

I'll happily share a piece of frittata pie with you and can't have it without just, I'm just gonna do a little... - Need that zhug.

- Yep.

-Mm, look at that.

-Cheers cheers.

Oh, it's so good.

I really, really like the spice that the zhug brings into it.

But it's soft and creamy.

The sweetness of the roasted vegetables are perfect.

It's fantastic.

It feels, it's like a complete meal.

-Yes, it is.

-And that's what's such great, this is like a vehicle for so many different vegetables and meats and everything.

Before we get ahead of ourselves.

Oh, the dollops of goat cheese, you were right.

-Right.

-What do you call them pillows?

-Yep.

-Pillows of goat cheese.

-They're so good.

-All right.

Speaking of, which one are we gonna go for?

I'm gonna go with this little guy.

I love the crunchiness of this one.

Yup.

I love this dip.

-Dip them in.

-Yup.

I've been making sweet potato, I call them sweet potato cakes for a long time and I've always been making them too big.

I'm not getting the crunch throughout and this has the crunch throughout which is so nice and then the softness in the middle.

It really is great and I think the flavors are wonderful.

I get the garlic.

But to me this is like really brings it all together.

And yeah, this is a great appetizer.

So, yay.

-Yay.

Thank you.

-Oh my gosh.

I love learning.

I know, well, and I learned so much from our friends at Seedleaf and, yeah, -cheers to community farming.

-Yes.

Narrator: Funding for this program is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions.