I’ve known Lily for quite a few years now, but through different creative endeavors. Nowadays, it’s through a mutual love and respect for food, specifically, locally and regionally grown food. Into her second year of gardening/farming, Lily has learned a ton about producing food, especially for the black community. In general, you help people and the community grows.
Let’s introduce you to the Hampton House Garden Project!
The Hampton House Garden Project is a Black-led project, aimed at supporting Black leadership, Black communities and building institutions for Black food sovereignty and liberation. This is achieved by Black-led organizing and building self determination for Reno’s Black community.
I always enjoy talking to her about everything, you name it, we’ll chat about it. She is amazing, she can literally do anything she puts her mind too.
Lily, as a ballet instructor, jazz vocalist and theater director, I would never have thought I’d be in this situation, talking to her about an urban farm. But, here we are, discussing what the Hampton House Project is, how it got started and where she wants to take it in a post-covid era.
One look through the Hampton House Garden Project Facebook page and you’ll see what makes this project such a necessary project. Located at 638 Elko St in Reno, The Hampton House Garden Project is an absolute pleasure to walk through, even in the winter time. Well, it’s technically winter, 65 degrees in February, but I digress. The mildness of this winter does offer interesting issues moving forward through this year. Lack of snowfall means lack of water in the hot dry months. Like June – July 2021, we might be in for additional wild fires. I don’t want this to be so negative, so, we move on.
Growing food in Northern Nevada can be tough. This is a pretty harsh climate, some days in the spring/fall can vary 60 degrees. Making caring for a garden difficult. Lily and I talk about this coming year, the area of town the Hampton House Project is located, her development as an urban farmer, the benefits of growing your own food and a bunch more.
The best way to find Lily at the Hampton House Garden Project is through Facebook or Instagram.
On a side note, Lily has given dance lessons/instruction as well as voice lessons/instruction to both of our kids AND my lovely wife. I say in the interview, jokingly of course, Lily helped my wife find her inner whore. She was cast as a whore in Lily’s directorial vision of Les Miserables.
You can listen to a previous episode with Lily here, of course you can contact us here as well.
We do have a Patreon page here to get more detailed information and background video content from this and other podcasts! It’s inexpensive and certainly worth taking a look at helping us out!
As always, we love Reno, but more importantly, we love you guys and you ARE what makes Reno cool!
