Kitchen

Education Station #4

OVGG’s Kitchen was finished in 2024 by Omar and his friend in construction, Carlos! Thank you both for building, beautifying, and reinforcing the kitchen roof structure. Shout out to Omar, a garden staff, for building the cabinets using repurposed wood found around the garden, the sink, and a frame for the burners. The initial skeletal structure of the kitchen roof was designed by students of the engineering club of University of California San Diego in 2023. 

A community garden kitchen offers numerous opportunities to address overlapping elements across cultural, health, and community.

The garden has hosted cook-along workshops led by Southeast San Diego based community organizations and organizations that prioritizes Southeast San Diego communities. Notable cook-alongs have been led by UWEAST, Karen Organization of San Diego, Berry Good Food Foundation, and even by some of our regular volunteers and garden staff.

Community and Cultural Traditions

The garden kitchen has been central to sharing and celebrating the cultural heritage in Southeast San Diego, allowing people to grow traditional crops at the garden while cooking traditional dishes utilizing those crops and herbs. The kitchen has and strives to provide space for sharing recipes and culinary traditions, fostering a sense of cultural pride and continuity. Not only do our community members who have come from far away get to share their taste of home, but the feeling of home as well. 

Climate Change and Food

And just as important, growing cultural herbs and crops of far away country’s informs and demonstrates to growers which crops can be grown successfully in our urban garden and local climate alongside the growing extremities of our weather due to climate change. How does this relate to Environmental Justice? In the past years, there have been more and more events and news of the disruption in the local and global crop production of numerous crops. A few examples include Sriracha peppers due to drought, citrus due to hurricanes (due to rising temperatures), coffee, wheat, rice, bananas, soy, maize, and potatoes! If and when there are disruptions to production or supply chains, data shows that inland or lower-income communities are at the front-line to be impacted by these disruptions first. Why is that? 

Community gardens and gardening courses are important when it comes to learning what grows well in our local climate and urban setting if we ever need to supplement our dishes with fresh herbs (instead of the ones in plastic packaging at the grocery stores), grow chilies for your neighbor, friend, our community gardener who knows how to make homemade chili sauce, or even discover container-friendly vegetables that can be grown on your balcony or your local community garden. When global disruptions occur, communities are more resilient when there are relations for co-creating and sharing knowledge, circular and solidarity economies, culture and food traditions, and diversity. Community gardens and kitchens play key factors as a resource for a more resilient local food system. 

Overall, community garden kitchens are valuable assets that enrich cultural heritage, improve health outcomes, and foster strong, connected communities.

Healthy Food, Healthy San Diego

OVGG’s garden kitchen aims to promote healthier eating by providing access to fresh, locally grown crops that demonstrate success of growing in urban settings as well. They encourage cooking from scratch, which can lead to better nutrition and reduced consumption of processed foods. 

For what healthy means, it can be discouraging when one looks up “healthy diet” guidelines by the county or state and are presented with the suggested mediterranean diet. One, this may be overwhelmingly eurocentric and dismissive of the vastly diverse peoples of San Diego. 

With the cook-alongs, participants get a chance to learn about the main dishes’ vegetables, spices, and grains from the country of origin through hearing what climate and ecosystem the ingredients grow in. Having cultures showcase what is healthy to them through our cook-alongs also opens up the world of eating healthy, and learning how healthy is culturally relative! 

Participating in gardening and outdoor cooking activities can also improve a sense of belonging, have mental health benefits by reducing stress and promoting physical activity.