FAMILY EDUCATION

We've harvested everything.

We've saved the tomato seeds.

We’ve cut down the plants.

We’ve chopped up the plants.

We’ve tilled and turned the land.

We’ve planted the cover crop. (Red Clover, Winter Wheat, Austrian Winter Pea, Hairy Vetch, and Mammoth Red Radish. Thanks to Bunton's Seed Company and Fresh Start for the low prices on cover crop seed.)

We’ve covered it with straw.

What shall we do next?

MONTHLY VOLUNTEER WORKDAY and BRIGHTSIDE COMMUNITY CLEANUP DAY

Lucky for us, our monthly volunteer day and the citywide Brightside Community Cleanup Day coincided this year. We did less work in the garden than past volunteer days and instead focused our attention to the aesthetics of the Americana campus outside the garden fence. We picked up trash, weeded flower beds, and  mulched flower beds. (Thanks to Limbwalkers Tree Service for the mulch)

We greatly appreciate our volunteers: 

Olivia Welsh

Jessica Thomas

Samantha Oritz

Sean Klosterman

Sanon Taylor

Rachel Ellis

Christ Moo

Alex Schulz

Americana Community Gardeners joined us as well to clean up their gardens and sow cover crop. Ah Pyu came by, The Adhikari family came by, Annie Kac came by, and so did the Dhakal family. They received help from volunteers Rachel Ellis and Sanon Taylor, both of which received some of the fine harvest for their help.

We usually hold our volunteer day on the 4^th Saturday of every month, but we’ll be holding our next volunteer day the 3^rd Saturday of November, the 17^th, so as to not interfere with anybody’s Thanksgiving weekend.

BLUEGRASS GLOBAL GROWERS MARKET

We’re done with market. All the gardens have been put to bed, but it’s been a better run this year than last. The market lasted longer, the gardeners made more money, the community bought more produce.  We hope to start the market a little earlier next year, maybe in early June, AND we are looking for a new name for the market. Bluegrass Global Growers Market sure is a mouthful and we’d like a name that’s easier to remember but still conveys the international background of our growers.

SO! We’re having a contest for renaming our market. Please comment here to submit or email alex@americanacc.org. We’ll collect submissions until March of 2013 and then hold a vote on the Americana Community Center Facebook page and on this blog. The prizes for the winner have not been determined, but we’ll figure out something good.

LITTER PATROL

During the Bluegrass Global Growers Market, sometime in September, some of the gals from the Americana Afterschool Program wanted me to buy them some plums.  I said no. But then I looked around the grassy fields on campus and saw all the liter, liter everywhere. Liter everywhere though I’d just picked up all the trash on campus that morning. EUREKA! I told the gals I’d buy them the plums if they picked up every bit of trash on campus. The ran to the opportunity and were running and yelling while picking up trash, having a lot of fun while doing it. They returned to trash cans with heaps of litter again and again, until they began to tire. They said, “this is TOO much trash!” They didn’t realize what they’d gotten themselves into. They demanded that they get paid more than plums for their work, but I told them we’d already made the agreement. So they ventured on and picked up every last bit of trash from the entrance to our parking lot to the far corners of the soccer field. Finally, they were rewarded handsomely with a mighty bushel of plums.

They complained to me, “people litter too much.” I agreed and responded, “when you see folks litter, you should ask them not to.” An idea was born! It was mostly Raildy’s idea. (She is photographed). The gals would form a litter patrol and meet each afternoon after they finished their homework to pick up litter around campus and patrol the grounds watching for litterers. 

It was an idea all their own and a good reminder of kid’s ingenuity and drive.