Deep Roots CPS Farm

Thank you PBS Charlotte for profiling our work.

Deep Roots Farm & Gaston County Schools

Deep Roots Farm brings fresh, locally grown produce to Gaston County Schools and people who need fresh food the most. Farmers Cherie and Wisdom Jzar cultivate crops beside the district’s central kitchen, creating a direct farm-to-school connection while helping provide nutritious food to local seniors. With a new 44-acre expansion in Monroe, the farm is poised to grow its harvest and its impact. Watch Carolina Impact Tuesdays at 8 PM.

https://youtube.com/shorts/MVtI8eRx1MA

PBS Deep Roots CPS Farm Gaston County Schools

"In search of my mother's garden, I found my own." Alice Walker

The last lavender lemonade of the year is going to market. 💜
When this batch is gone, it is gone until next spring. We make this delicious and calming drink from lavender grown on the farm and we find that the lavender is most fragrant in the spring and summer months. In the fall we let the plants rest.

Here is something most don't know. That recipe came from our daughter Jasira. She created it as a teenager, back when our children were crafting their own body care products and vending at festivals. She did not buy lavender. She walked outside and cut it from our garden. That is what having access to land does for a child. It puts something in their hands that becomes OURS. Imagine that multiplied by many! A community filled with brilliant minds who have agency to create. This is

Stop by our farmstand tomorrow and get your share of the harvest! We'll have the lavender lemonade, ginger mint lemonade and Wisdom's new ginger watermelon drink. Also on the table Saturday: arugula, kale, salad mix, mustard and sweet potato greens, okra, eggplant, squash, zucchini, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, radishes, muscadines, young ginger, black garlic, fresh herbs, gourmet mushrooms, and chicken and duck eggs. | Saturday, September 26 | Uptown Farmers Market, 300 South Davidson Street | 8:00 AM to 12:30 PM

"In search of my mother's garden, I found my own." - Alice Walker

This Week’s Lesson: What the land makes possible does not stop at the harvest.

This week we made our final batch of lavender lemonade for the season. That is it. When these bottles are gone, they are gone until next spring. So if lavender is your vibe, get to market early and pick up a bottle or 2 or even a half gallon jug.

Most of you do not know where that recipe came from. Our daughter Jasira (pictured above with the brown hat on) created it when she was a teenager. Back in our homesteading days, our children crafted their own organic skin and body care products and vended them at festivals and local events. That was their venture, with so much help from Wisdom and I. They made the products, they set up the table, they talked to the customers, and they handled their own money. We supported it the way parents do, but the business belonged to them.

What made it possible was the land. Living the way we lived gave our children access to fresh herbs and produce they could actually put their hands on. Jasira did not have to go buy lavender. She walked outside and cut it. That access is what let a teenager look at what was growing around her and imagine something nobody had made yet. She worked the recipe out herself, and the children sold cups of it right alongside everything else on the table. She is grown now and living in Washington, DC, and when she comes home it is still the first thing she reaches for.

That access is what let a teenager look at what was growing around her and imagine something nobody had made yet. Alice Walker wrote, "In search of my mother's garden, I found my own." That is what happened here. She came up in our garden, and she made something that was hers. Every bottle that leaves our stand is still her recipe, made in large batches just the way she wrote it.

That is the whole reason we do this work. When people have real access to land and to food, they do not just eat better. They create. They build things. They find out what they are capable of. That is what we want for every child in this city, not only ours. Access if freedom and possibly the beginning of somebody's first business, somebody's first harvest, somebody's first idea.

The plants themselves are not gone. They're still green, but the fragrance isn't as strong. Lavender is a perennial. It will overwinter out there, hold onto its roots, and come back to us when the weather turns again. But the harvest is finished.

So if lavender lemonade is your favorite, come see us Saturday and take home what you need. You are not just buying a drink. You are holding a piece of what one girl made with what the land gave her.

Cannot make it to the market right at 8:00? Reserve your bottle here: shop.deeprootscpsfarm.com

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~ This Week's Harvest ~
Our market table is full this week.

Fresh produce: Arugula, kale, greens salad mix, mustard greens, sweet potato greens, hot peppers, eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, okra, garlic, young fresh ginger root, black garlic, green onions, radishes, red potatoes, sweet potatoes, muscadine grapes, and small offering of carrots and apples, chicken eggs and duck eggs.
Fresh herbs: Basil, chives, lemon balm, lemon grass, rosemary, marjoram, tarragon, mint, thyme, shiso.
Gourmet mushrooms: Chestnut, Oyster, Trumpet, Black Pearl, and Lion’s Mane.
Our Signature Drinks: Ginger Mint Lemonade and Lavender Lemonade cold and ready for market.

Shop our farm stand at the Uptown Farmers Market every Saturday to get your share of the harvest.

Where: 300 South Davidson Street, Charlotte, NC 28202
Time: 8:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.

Can't make it to the market, order online for pickup: shop.deeprootscpsfarm.com.

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FALL CSA PICKUP IS THIS SATURDAY

Fall CSA members, this Saturday is your first pickup of the season. We are glad to have you with us.

Your share is packed and waiting for you, put together from the same harvest that fills our market table. When you joined the CSA, you made a commitment to this farm and we thank you for entrusting us to deliver the harvest to you prepackaged. Your share will be a lovely surprise every other week. Farmers choice is what we call it. Get ready for the goodness.

The fall season runs September 26 through December 5, every other Saturday. If you have any questions about your share or your pickup, simply email us or text 704-312-2350.

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Reserve your seat today!!
INHERITANCE: A Farm-to-Table Experience, 11/1

If this week's story speaks to you, our fall dinner is where it comes to life. Inheritance is our farm to table dinner on Sunday, November 1, a seat at the table for everything this land and this season have given. The menu is built from what we grow, and the evening is built around the stories, the people, and the knowledge we are passing down.

Each chef will prepare food inspired by something they inherited, whether a recipe, a technique, or a person who shaped the way they cook. We will gather beneath the covered pavilion at our Monroe farm for a family-style meal, with the stories told right at the table. The event starts at 2:30PM.

Seats are limited, and this dinner will sell out. Reserve your tickets today. We also have opportunities for sponsorships and partner support. Visit our website to reserve your seat today or to learn more.

deeprootscpsfarm.com (https://shop.deeprootscpsfarm.com/dinners-workshops-and-events?fbclid=IwY2xjawUFs1JwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMUROYThqc29sY3VUdFZNaXdzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe-Q80LyBZcVRfrMMFSCUNbNDBJkR-ejppqe7NAo0HpcIES3HWZnekuy9wLYQ_aem_ST6dL2WWERzY-0HehI5FXA)

From the Kitchen: How to Freeze Okra

Okra will not be with us much longer. The plants are still giving, but fall has the final say, and once the cold settles in, that is the end of it until next summer. So this is the season to put some up.

Freezing okra is easier than most people think, and the trick is doing it in two stages so it does not freeze into one solid brick.

What to do
Wash your okra and let it dry completely. Water is the enemy here.
Trim the stem ends and cut into rounds about half an inch thick. You can freeze pods whole if you would rather, and whole pods hold up better for roasting.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Drop the okra in for three minutes for cut pieces, four for whole pods. This step matters. Blanching stops the enzymes that turn okra tough and flat tasting in the freezer.

Move it straight into a bowl of ice water for the same amount of time. Then drain it well and pat it dry.
Spread the pieces in a single layer on a sheet pan and freeze for about an hour, until firm.

Pack the frozen pieces into freezer bags, press the air out, and label with the date.

Done this way it will hold a good year. Pull a handful straight from the freezer into gumbo, soup, or a hot skillet with cornmeal. No thawing needed.

There is nothing like reaching into the freezer in February and pulling out something you grew, or something you bought from us.

Buy a little extra Saturday and put some away. Your February self will thank you.

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BEFORE YOU LEAVE
Saturday night is the Harvest Moon. If you get the chance, step outside and look up at it.

Our people have been reading that moon for a long time, using it to know when to gather, when to finish, and when to rest. You do not need a farm to do that. You just need to go outside and pay attention. Pay attention to the world around you. The cooler season is here.

Here, the lavender harvest is finished. The okra is giving us its last pods. The greens are coming into their sweetness. We are still working and gathering, while making room for the rest and repair this season asks of us.

Jasira’s lavender will return in spring. In the meantime, the recipe she made is still moving from our family’s table to yours. That is one way an inheritance stays alive: we grow something, we share it, and someone carries it forward.

With much to gather and much to be thankful for,
Cherie, Wisdom and The Deep Roots CPS Farm Family

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If this newsletter moved you, share it with someone who would love it. Invite them to subscribe.

To learn more about our farm and our programs go to our website here:
deeprootscpsfarm.com (http://www.deeprootscpsfarm.com)

Follow along on Instagram and Facebook:

The Story Behind Our Lavender Lemonade Click here for an update from Deep Roots CPS Farm!

It’s fall and winter squash is on our menu! Delicata rings make great sides or mid day snacks. Yum!!

Our farm stand is open today (Sept. 20, 2026). Come by and pick up a little taste of the season. Today at the stand we have fresh hibiscus, potatoes, sweet potato greens, delicata squash, zucchini, a few sweet muscadines, and more. The delicata squash is one of our fall favorites, sweet, creamy, and the skin is edible, so there’s no peeling required. Just slice, roast, and enjoy.

⏰ Open today until 3 PM, 2401 Primm Road Charlotte, NC 28216

Come support your local farmer.

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."
— Zora Neale Hurston

The farm is answering. Fall is here. 🍂

Tomorrow (9/19/26) at the Uptown Farmers Market, the first delicata squash of the season hits our table, alongside spaghetti squash, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and freshly dug ginger. The okra is making its last call, so come get it while the plants are still giving. Summer is making its way out while the fall harvest is coming in.

🥬 BIG NEWS FOR OUR SNAP FAMILY: This Saturday is TRIPLE BUCKS at Uptown Farmers Market. Swipe $50 in SNAP-EBT → get $120 to spend at the market.
A huge thanks to the Uptown Farmers Market for making this happen and for their continued commitment to food access for all. Please share this with someone who needs to know.

About the photo: read the story of our inheritance in this week's newsletter. Check your inbox for full details. And notice the Deep Roots shopping tote. Nice!! We have them for sale at the farm stand, so you can carry the harvest home with you.
📍 Saturday, September 19
Uptown Farmers Market
300 South Davidson Street, Charlotte
8:00 AM to 12:30 PM

Come see what the changing season has brought to the table.

The farm keeps time. No calendar required.

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." - Zora Neale Hurston

This Week’s Lesson: The land does not need a study to tell its story. It needs people who have learned to pay attention.

When our children were younger, Wisdom and I would take them to the Georgia coast for spring break. One of the places we grew to love was Sapelo Island, home to Hog Hammock, one of the last remaining Gullah Geechee communities on the Georgia coast. The families there are descendants of West and Central Africans who survived enslavement and carried forward traditions around food, farming, language, and culture for generations.

On one visit, we spent time helping elders clean up property that had overgrown and the conversation turned to research being done along the coast. Scientists were documenting erosion and coastline change. The findings from the study would be shared with the community in a meeting where charts and diagrams were shown to explain what was happening to their land and how they might need to prepare. We asked the elders what they thought about it, and I still remember the spirit of their answer.

"We do not need a study to tell us what we already know."

They had been watching that shoreline their whole lives. Their parents watched it. Their grandparents watched it and the elders before them did the same. They planted by the seasons and the moon, they read the water and the sky, and they knew when things were changing because they had been taught to pay attention. Not because science is not important. It is. But sometimes science is measuring what people who have lived in relationship with a place have known for generations.

Wisdom and I spoke about the memory of our time on the island and the conversations had this week as we reflected on what the fall equinox is bringing in to our present understanding.

Next week, on September 22, we reach the fall equinox, that moment when day and night come closest to balance. Then the scale begins to tip toward longer nights. A few days later, on the 26th, comes the Harvest Moon, and the farm changes right along with the sky. The okra that fed us all summer is still coming out of the field, but it is telling us its season is almost finished. It lets us know the shift is here by the size of the stalks, which is standing nearly 13' tall. This week we pulled our first big harvest of delicata squash, the first of many winter squashes to come, and there are pumpkins waiting in the field. When the winter squash comes in, you know fall has arrived. No calendar required.

Wisdom has a name for this time of year. He calls it last call. We have about sixty days before winter settles in, and the farm knows it. It is the last call to preserve the harvest before it is gone. Last call to get our overwintering crops in the ground. Last call, really, of the whole planting year to do the things we said we would do.

The farm keeps time, and we stand as the stewards or farmers that are its timekeepers. It is not a study. It is a practice, kept alive by being maintained and passed on. That knowledge is an inheritance, and it is one we intend to pass on, to our children and hope that they will pass it on to theirs.

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~ This Week's Harvest ~
Our market table is full this week.

Fresh produce: Arugula, Red Russian kale, greens salad mix, mustard greens, sweet potato greens, bell peppers, hot peppers, eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, okra, garlic, young fresh ginger root, black garlic, green onions, radishes, potatoes, covington and O'Henry Sweet Potatoes, muscadine grapes, and small offering of carrots and apples, chicken eggs and duck eggs.
Fresh herbs: Basil, chives, lemon balm, rosemary, marjoram, tarragon, mint, thyme, shiso.
Gourmet mushrooms: Chestnut, Oyster, Trumpet, Black Pearl, and Lion’s Mane.
Fresh Chicken: Whole, halves, wings, breasts, legs
Our Signature Drinks: Ginger Mint Lemonade and Lavender Lemonade cold and ready for market.

Shop our farm stand at the Uptown Farmers Market every Saturday to get your share of the harvest.

Where: 300 South Davidson Street, Charlotte, NC 28202
Time: 8:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.

Can't make it to the market, order online for pickup: shop.deeprootscpsfarm.com.

---
Reserve your seat today!!
INHERITANCE: A Farm-to-Table Experience, 11/1

If this week's story speaks to you, our fall dinner is where it comes to life. Inheritance is our farm to table dinner on Sunday, November 1, a seat at the table for everything this land and this season have given. The menu is built from what we grow, and the evening is built around the stories, the people, and the knowledge we are passing down.

Each chef will prepare food inspired by something they inherited, whether a recipe, a technique, or a person who shaped the way they cook. We will gather beneath the covered pavilion at our Monroe farm for a family-style meal, with the stories told right at the table. The event starts at 2:30PM.

Seats are limited, and this dinner will sell out. Reserve your tickets today. We also have opportunities for sponsorships and partner support. Visit our website to reserve your seat today or to learn more.

deeprootscpsfarm.com (https://shop.deeprootscpsfarm.com/dinners-workshops-and-events?fbclid=IwY2xjawUFs1JwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMUROYThqc29sY3VUdFZNaXdzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe-Q80LyBZcVRfrMMFSCUNbNDBJkR-ejppqe7NAo0HpcIES3HWZnekuy9wLYQ_aem_ST6dL2WWERzY-0HehI5FXA)

From the Kitchen Recipe: Roasted Delicate Squash Rings

Delicata is the easiest winter squash you will ever cook, because the skin is tender enough to eat. No peeling required.

What you need:
- 2 delicata squash
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Optional: a pinch of cinnamon or smoked paprikas

~ HOW TO MAKE IT ~
1. Slice one or two delicata squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Cut into half moons about half an inch thick.

2. Toss with olive oil, a drizzle of maple syrup or honey, salt, and pepper. If you want a little warmth, add a pinch of cinnamon or smoked paprika.

3. Spread in a single layer on a sheet pan and roast at 425 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes, flipping once, until the edges are golden and caramelized.

Serve them alongside our fresh chicken, toss them into a salad with our greens, or eat them straight off the pan. We will not judge.

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A Big SNAP Update for Saturday
We have very good news for our SNAP customers this week. Earlier this month, we shared that the Charlotte area Double Bucks match had been reduced from up to $50 down to up to $20, and that change has been in effect at the past couple of markets.

This Saturday, September 19, the Uptown Farmers Market is stepping up with Triple Bucks. The market will continue its traditional match of up to $50, even though the County Double Bucks program is currently limited to $20. The County match then adds its up to $20 on top.

Here is what that means. Swipe $50 in SNAP EBT and you receive $120 to spend at the market:

$50 SNAP + $50 Uptown Farmers Market match + $20 County match = $120

That is $120 of fresh, locally grown food, straight from the farmers who grew it. This matters. Access to good food should not shrink when budgets get tight, and we are grateful to a market that puts its money where its mission is. If you or someone you love shops with SNAP, this Saturday is the day to come see us

BEFORE YOU LEAVE
We hope this week's message stays with you.

What we have learned as farmers and what the elders on Sapelo taught us is that the land is always speaking. Our work is to pay attention, and to make sure the next generation knows how to listen too.

So as the season turns, I would like to invite you into this practice with us. Take a moment this week to notice what is changing where you are. The light, the air, what is growing, what is finishing. What did your elders teach you to pay attention to? What are you passing on?

Reply to this newsletter and tell me. These stories are worth keeping, and I would love to hear yours. Because maybe inheritance isn't only what someone leaves behind. Maybe it is also what someone teaches us to notice.

In so much anticipation of the joy to come,
Cherie, Wisdom and The Deep Roots CPS Farm Family

———

If this newsletter moved you, share it with someone who would love it.

To learn more about our farm and our programs go to our website here:
deeprootscpsfarm.com (http://www.deeprootscpsfarm.com)

Follow along on Instagram and Facebook:

The Farm Keeps Time: First Delicata of Fall Click here for an update from Deep Roots CPS Farm!