photograph courtesy Memphis Tilth
Memphis Tilth volunteers help to sell freshproduce at the St. Jude Farmers Market.
Editor's Note: The spring and summer of 2020 have presented days when many learned new-to-us skills, the kind that aren’t so new at all: growing vegetable gardens from seed, tending to sourdough starters, relying more on what we can create than on what we can procure. But long before the coronavirus pandemic, plenty of people in Memphis were growing and making both tangible and intangible goods. In this homebound season, we have chosen to present several local organizations who are bringing new meaning to what ‘homegrown’ signifies. — Anna Traverse Fogle
As we prepare to finish our phone call, Mia Madison is getting ready to make a several-hour drive to pick up a crop of rice from a farm on the outskirts of town. But the long trek is no object; as executive director of Memphis Tilth, Madison is more than willing to put in the hard hours to create a sustainable food ecosystem in Memphis.
While most might recognize the organization for its work with several community gardens around town that supply the St. Jude and Chelsea Ave. Farmers markets, Memphis Tilth has its hands all over Memphis’ budding food ecosystem. “We’re focused on creating an economically sustainable, socially equitable, and environmentally sound local food system,” says Madison. “Five different nonprofits joined together a few years ago to create Memphis Tilth, so we’ve been able to focus our efforts on our core mission.” To achieve it, the organization relies on three separate programs to provide food access, culinary education, and opportunities for farmers: Grow Local, Cook Together, and Farm Direct.
photograph courtesy Memphis Tilth
Memphis Tilth's St. Jude Community Garden, led by community garden site coordinator Mary Carnes (right), supplies the hospital with fresh produce.
The Grow Local program currently supports 55 community gardens in 15 different Zip codes in Memphis. That initiative allowed the organization to pursue outside partnerships, like with the St. Jude Garden, where they grow fresh food for patients, families, and staff. The site also hosts hummingbird and butterfly stations, as well as beehives that produce honey to be sold at the farmers market. Other Memphis Tilth projects around town have everything from tea gardens to meditation gardens.
“Having these opportunities to build gardens helps us think in new ways about growing local,” says Madison,” and not just how to grow food, but how to grow communities as well.”
“I like to think about resilience in communities and how quickly people can bounce back from something. Many areas of Memphis have been living in poverty for years, so providing day-to-day access to fresh, healthy food is what will help build that resiliency.” — Mia Madison
Memphis Tilth’s second program, Cook Together, synthesizes the organization’s urban farming knowledge to create a garden to table pathway. Initially, Memphis Tilth sought out a grant to host nutrition classes around diabetes at their community kitchen, but the programming has since expanded to cover a wider variety of dietary implications. The community kitchen now teaches classes on culinary education, shared meal preparation, value-added production, and healthy eating practices.
The instruction also includes a workforce. Participants can earn their ServSafe Certification, a food and beverage safety certificate officially sponsored by the National Restaurant Association. “ServSafe is just one method of training that we have available,” says Madison. “Students can also receive gardening skills training. That would provide them with a certificate they could take to places like Lowe’s or Home Depot that would allow them to speak intelligently when applying for jobs.”
Beyond classes, Memphis Tilth’s community kitchen is a full-service commercial kitchen that provides additional space for local food-makers. Madison cites an entrepreneur who needed to make dog treats. The kitchen let him significantly increase production and then use Memphis Tilth’s online platform to sell his product to members.
The organization’s third core program, Farm Direct, brings locally grown produce directly to consumers through the Chelsea Ave. and St. Jude Farmers Markets, but its most interesting initiative is the Bring It Food Hub. Each week, Memphis Tilth provides a produce subscription to members all over the city from 15 different drop sites, which include spots like Crosstown Concourse or various churches.
“It’s a great way to bring fresh, healthy foods to the community,” says Madison. “And it’s important for communities to grow their own food. I like to think about resilience in communities and how quickly people can bounce back from something. Many areas of Memphis have been living in poverty for years, so providing day-to-day access to fresh, healthy food is what will help build that resiliency.”
For more information, visit memphistilth.org
