The gardens continue to be productive, and this month we started weekly harvesting and delivering produce to the Hope Center and Lion’s Share at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church on Mondays, as part of a grant from the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth. We also share produce on Wednesday with McCray Court Senior Center and on Saturday with Roanoke Area Ministries (RAM).
…and it’s on to another round of planting seeds for fall transplanting. Our amazing partner, Shawn Jadrnicek, with Virginia Cooperative Extension, shared his office and growing facilities with several One Valley volunteers to assemble and mix the soil and growing media and to sow various lettuce, kale, spinach and other vegetables. We will transfer the some of transplants to the gardens in August, while others will be used as part of the next Garden-to-Grow event at the Carver Garden on August 24th.
On Saturday, July 13th, Logan Houze presented a Garden Seminar on plant cloning, where he demonstrated several techniques that can be used on a variety of fruit trees.
The next Saturday, a hearty crew of volunteers weathered the rainy day to harvest produce at the 8th & Gilmer garden, assemble small produce gift packages, and then went door-to-door along Gilmer Avenue handing them out to our neighbors. A note was attached to each bag describing the availability of produce and the hours when each garden is open to the public for volunteering and for distribution of produce. A similar effort will be conducted along Loudon Avenue next month.
This past Saturday, July 27th, Deneen Adams and Rev. Carter presented their Garden Seminar, called “Tea Time at the Carver Garden”. They talked about various ways to make peppermint and rose petal teas, the health benefits of doing so, and provided tasting samples of several of the teas.
After the seminar, participants were invited to share in the available produce harvested earlier that day.
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