SAN ANTONIO – A community farm on the city’s East Side is preserving tradition by growing flowers that honor the dead.
“You are going to find Marigolds that are known as Cempasuchils. We have Celosias. We have Globe amaranth and Mano de Leon as well,” Jovanna Lopez, the urban agriculture community coordinator at Garcia Street Urban Farm said.
At Garcia Street Urban Farm you can find different flowers that people use to place on altars for Day of the Dead.
“We start in the summertime. This summer was really rough, because of the heat germination was super difficult, but we figured it out and as you can see, it turned out really well. It takes about two months for it to go from inception to full bloom,” Lopez said.
Lopez says over the years she has seen more people passing by the community farm to pick flowers to place them on the altars.
“Altars were kind of a tradition that we were not practicing you know. It’s remerging and a lot of the youth is taking it along with their elders,” Lopez said.
Lopez says people are taking the flowers to place them in altars in schools, businesses, homes and even Muertos Fest.
The community farm has a market stand every Wednesday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. where people can buy the flowers.