Slow Food Lake Tahoe is opening Truckee’s first-ever Community Garden this summer. The mission of the Truckee Community Garden is to enable local residents to grow their own food in an effort to increase food security, self-reliance and community spirit through gardening. This Community Garden will be located at the Truckee River Regional Park, adjacent to SFLT’s current Food Bank Garden. It is 2,420 square feet of garden area, equipped with 35 critter-proof covered garden beds, including 10 beds that are elevated and wheelchair accessible. These beds are available for rent for a nominal fee to residents who live in the community full-time. The space is scheduled to open mid June, pending completion of construction and potential weather.

The Community Garden project lead and Slow Food Lake Tahoe Board member, Patti Taggart, has been hard at work this spring preparing the space and purchasing materials to build the garden beds. In addition to the beds being constructed and filled with organic soil ready for planting, the garden will have installed hose bibs and irrigation for regularly scheduled watering, a community tool shed, a central sitting area with benches and a decomposed granite pathway with a wheelchair accessible area. A majority of the construction thus far has been done by the hands of dedicated volunteers, like Patti, who have come on a daily basis to help build and learn what it takes to prepare a space to grow food at high altitude.

“We’ve had an extraordinary response from our community, from folks volunteering to help build the garden and from those wishing to rent a bed,” said Taggart.

---

---

Funding this project was made possible by generous community donors, including Michael Montalbano from Tahoe Mountain Realty, The Queen of Hearts Women’s Fund, The Rotary Club of Truckee, Rock & Rose Landscape Design and Irrigation, The Soroptomist International of Truckee Donner, Totally Board, Truckee Tahoe Community Foundation, The Backcountry, and several other individual contributors. To learn more about the Truckee Community Garden and see garden bed rental prices or fill out an application for rental, visit http://www.slowfoodlaketahoe.org/truckee-community-garden.

Slow Food is graciously accepting volunteer help for the remaining work in the Community Garden, as well as in their Food Bank Garden for the summer season. To learn more about these opportunities, visit https://www.slowfoodlaketahoe.org/get-involved.

---

---

Slow Food Lake Tahoe’s mission is to connect our community to the enjoyment of good, clean and fair food by inspiring a self-reliant food culture. Slow Food Lake Tahoe educates the community about growing, preparing and accessing local and sustainable food. SFLT manages the Food Bank Garden in the Truckee River Regional Park, aimed at creating a vibrant community space that provides education about growing food at high altitude and increases food security through growing and donating weekly harvests to Sierra Community House. SFLT hosts annual virtual Grow Your Own workshops in partnership with the UCCE Master Gardeners of Lake Tahoe, UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center and The Tahoe Heritage Foundation. SFLT also sponsors the Truckee Saturday Farmers Market, located at the historic downtown Railyard Parking Lot from June 5 through Sept. 4. For additional information about Slow Food Lake Tahoe, their various projects and upcoming events, visit: http://www.slowfoodlaketahoe.org.