Giving Back: Saint Francis Vegetable Garden giving food to food banks

Red snapper battle lingering on
June 16, 2015
Meet LPSO Public Information Officer Brennan Matherne
June 16, 2015
Red snapper battle lingering on
June 16, 2015
Meet LPSO Public Information Officer Brennan Matherne
June 16, 2015

Fresh fruit, vegetables and other delicious treats, straight from the hands that nurtured each item, abound at the Rienzi Market, a project of the Thibodaux-based St. Francis Vegetable Garden, which supports local farmers and educates the community on the importance of locally grown food.

The garden, located behind the Warren J. Harang Municipal Auditorium, was established in April 2014 as a way to provide local produce to Lafourche Parish food banks. Volunteers from local businesses, schools and the community have tended spring and fall crops over the past year and word spread quickly throughout the city about the delicious eats being harvested right in their own backyards.


“People kept coming to us asking us to sell our produce because there was such a demand for it,” Kimber Ratcliff, St. Francis Vegetable Garden and Rienzi Market coordinator, said of the effort, which began on May 14 and runs through July 2 and will start back up sometime in the fall. “We donate everything that we grow and we were talking to one of the farmers who helps us and they said they didn’t have a middle-of-the-week market to sell at. So it inspired us to create the Rienzi Market.”

The vegetable garden serves as the backdrop for the market, which opens from 4-6 p.m. each Thursday, and boasts 14-to-16 vendors selling everything from seasonal produce to pasture-raised chicken and beef. Farmers, who may apply for a market spot on the market’s website, are not charged to sell their products, but must sell items they have grown or produced and cultivated within the state of Louisiana.

“The response has been crazy,” Ratcliff said. “It’s a little bit different from some of the other markets in the area because it’s a no-craft market. It’s all fresh and all local. It’s been going really well and you really can kind of do all your grocery shopping in one spot.”


According to the USDA, markets such as this have increased by 180 percent from 2006 to 2014, a nod to the farm-to-table lifestyle that has swept the country over the last several years. Shopping in this manner allows consumers to obtain products with superior freshness, flavor and shelf life and, in turn, support small businesses closer to home.

As a first-year farmer, Bayou Produce Owner Dylan Brown said the market has been the perfect spot for selling his organic produce, which includes tomatoes, cucumbers, hot peppers, beans and bell peppers. Brown runs his garden on an acre of expanse in Galliano and specializes in avoiding pesticides and doing virtually everything himself, down to the composting.

“It’s a really nice market,” he said. “We see a lot of people every week and there’s a lot of people in the community that support it.”


Thirty-three miles north, Cheryl Skinner, owner of Bayou Blue’s SkinnerFarms, prepares greenhouse tomatoes and other vegetables, as well as canned goods like pickles and salsa, for sale at the weekly market.

The produce is grown within a hydroponic greenhouse, a indoor space that uses nutrient-rich water instead of dirt to effectively nurture delicate plants. The timing of the market, she said, has been huge for business.

“People want to buy in the middle of the week in two hours,” she explained. “It’s more convenient for the working folk or the ones that have to get their kids to school. It’s working out really, really well.”


The convenience factor and the personal connection between the food that will soon fill the bellies of shoppers and their loved ones is a primary part of what allows markets like this to find success.

“The biggest thing that [shoppers] like is that it’s all fresh and it’s just food from this area,” Ratcliff explained. “I think people like talking to the farmers and learning about where their food comes from and the story behind it.”

For more information on Rienzi Market and the services that it provides to our area, visit www.rienzimarket.com.


Kimber Ratcliff, St. Francis Vegetable Garden and Rienzi Market Coordinator, says the Thibodaux-based market, held each Thursday from 4 – 6 p.m. through July 2, allows consumers to speak with the farmers growing the food they put on their tables.

 

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