After being both sick and on vacation (I went to San Francisco! Even VISTAs can sometimes afford a vacation...), I feel as though I have been MIA for quite a while now and lax in my duties... I am also still fighting my cold. There's never a good time to get sick, but it was especially unfortunate for me this time because I got sick right before my trip... and I wasn't about to stay home.

ANYWAY I'm back now! And I need to report about my visit with Casey O'Leary who runs Earthly Delights Farm.

Unlike many places I've visited, Earthly Delights Farm isn't a community garden but an urban farm. After a delicious cup of rainbow flower tea, Casey, her dog Norm, and I went on a tour of Earthly Delight's Gardens. These gardens are all located in the Sunset Collister neighborhood, and are located in people's yards. But there was one thing I noticed right away: these yards were much larger than most yards normally found in the city. There were so many gardens tucked back where you didn't expect them. At one point, as we were walking through, there were left over concord grapes hanging on the vines. Casey and I performed gleaning on a small scale and chowed down on these delicious wonders.

Earthly Delights has been around for 5 years, Casey told me, and it started simply with the desire to grow food in an urban setting. Through contact and agreements with land owners, the plots were established and eventually, a CSA began. This project is very inspiring, because it shows that if you want to do something, and you have enough will power, you really can do it. Because of Casey O'Leary's work, more people have access to fresh produce in the city of Boise. Not only that, but the farm is environmentally concious as well; the work is entirely human-powered. Rather than using gas-guzzling machinery or cars to transport food, people do the work and bicycles transport from site to site. And as I mentioned, the gardens are all close enough together that they are easily reached on foot.

This farm has gardens after my own heart (and after the Foodbank's heart!). They prove that gardens can grow anywhere people want them to. All we need is the will to plant something, and thanks to people like Casey O'Leary and farms like Earthly Delights Farm the will is ever-present and growing.