'Read & Seed' and the joys of sweet basil

We hosted another 'Read & Seed' event on campus this weekend, where kids learned about herb gardening and potted their own sweet basil seedlings in take-home containers.

We had about 10 children participate this week, despite the cold weather. There are a bunch of good photos taken by volunteer Rachel King, and more information about 'Read and Seed' after the jump.

Why the beef with school gardens?

If you follow the world of food policy online, even casually, then last week's doozy of story in the Atlantic titled "Cultivating Failure" surely caught your eye. In it, the talented but seemingly misguided Caitlin Flanagan fiercely criticizes the idea of school gardens, claiming that allowing our children to toil in a garden reduces them to the status of migrant workers, who have striven desperately to pull themselves from such taxing and backbreaking manual labor. A school, she posits, is a place for learning science, math and literature, from books alone! and surely not from the natural world.

I won't spend much time arguing with Flanagan's non-sequitor; instead, I'll link you to some excellent and much-expected critiques. First, there's Chef Ann Cooper's response here. Hers is particularly important to read because she's spent much of the past 10 years advocating for school gardens and increased education about food issues in our elementary schools. Next, there's Tom Philpott's response, where he draws on his experience as both a farmer and an educator to pick apart Flanagan's rationale. My favorite response is from Philpott's fellow Grist writer Kurt Michaael Friese here. In it, he writes three sentences that sum up our view on the matter verbatim.

There is nothing taught in schools that cannot be learned in a garden. Math and science to be sure, but also history, civics, logic, art, literature, music, and the birds and the bees both literally and figuratively. Beyond that though, in a garden a student learns responsibility, teamwork, citizenship, sustainability, and respect for nature, for others, and for themselves.

 Flanagan's article is particularly salient to us, as we are in the planning stages of collaborating with local school systems to implement school gardens into their curriculum. We are very close to establishing a number of raised bed plots at Hillsboro Elementary, where almost half of the student population (49.5%) qualifies for free or reduced lunch. Gardens can be exceptional learning tools for our youth, and if more people like Flanagan actually spent time in a garden, with children, they would realize it immediately.

Choice Pantries: An obvious choice

Today's post comes from Jessica Braun, our Food Distribution Coordinator.
Imagine for a moment you do not have enough money to go grocery shopping this week. You arrive at your local food pantry, wait in line, sign-in, and be handed a box of food and pointed toward the door. Do you feel that you've been helped or do you feel like a number? Now take your box home and open it inside you find: cans of green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, and tuna as well as boxes of mac n cheese and ramen noodles, some frozen sausage, and hamburger buns. Now do you feel you've been helped? You have a box of food but you're allergic to tuna, so you throw it out. Your kids refuse to eat green beans and cranberry sauce so the cans sits in your cupboard collecting dust. Perhaps you eat only Kosher foods and give the sausage to your neighbor. That doesn't leave you with much, not to mention the food waste.

Now imagine that when you go into your local food pantry a volunteer walks you through a grocery store setting and helps you choose items that you and your family will eat. You walk through the aisles and choose peas instead of green beans, fruit cocktail instead of cranberry sauce, skip the tuna, and choose frozen chicken breast over sausage. You thank the volunteer who'd walked the aisles with you as they offer to help you carry things out to your car. Do you still feel like a number? Do you feel you've been helped?

A Choice Food Pantry operates like a grocery store. Clients choose the items they want/will use based on their families needs. Choice Pantries eliminate food waste as well as allow for dietary restrictions such as allergies or diabetes. Less food being wasted is economical for the pantry allowing it to buy more food and better serve their clients. It also creates more volunteer interaction and the chance for volunteers to teach clients responsible food choices. But most importantly it allows clients to make their own food choices which boosts client morale and lowers the shame many feel about going to a food pantry. Don't believe us? Visit a Choice Food Pantry online!

Introducing: The Clinton County Fresh Network

On Wednesday, February 10, 2010, you are formally invited to the introduction of the Clinton County Fresh Network.

During this informational meeting, we hope to explain in detail the Fresh Network and explore what the Network can do for you. The meeting will be held from 5:30 - 7:30 at the Pyle Center, Wilmington College, in the dining room C & D.

Those who would like to attend are encouraged to RSVP. For more information and details on how to RSVP, please see our Upcoming Events page here.

Wilmington News Journal: Two gardening projects to apply for

If you haven't already, make sure you read today's Wilmington News Journal, either in print or online. Gary Huffenberger wrote a story about our community and backyard garden recruitment and it landed on the front page.

Since announcing the beginning of our search for families last week, we've received positive feedback and interest from around the county. We have a meeting tomorrow with potential partners and participants for both the community and backyard garden projects, and we expect to smooth out some of the details for both.

Hopefully today's article will reach families around the county who otherwise wouldn't have heard about us or our projects. It's sometimes difficult to gauge if we are reaching our target audience through traditional and new media outlets. Sometimes, we've found, it's best to get our boots on the ground and meet people face-to-face.

Again, if you would like to apply to have a garden bed in our community garden or participate in our new backyard garden project, fill one out here. If you know someone who might be interested, pass this information along to them!

Next 'Read and Seed' date changed, new form available

Our next 'Read and Seed' youth literacy program, which are free and open to the public, will be held on Saturday, January 23, 2010. That date has been changed from Saturday, January 16, so make sure you update your calendar!

The topic for this month's 'Read and Seed' will be herb gardening, and our participants will be given their own herb container to take home. Past 'Read and Seed' events have taught kids about composting, worms and the anatomy of a pumpkin. If you would like to register for the next event, please fill out an online registration form here.

Click here for more information about 'Read and Seed' and here for more information about our Youth Outreach programs in general.

Growing food through the winter

Few places around the country have the luxury of year-round warm weather, suitable for growing food into the winter months. The rest of us must grin and bear it, and we're left to rely on food trucked in from warmer climes at the expense of freshness and overall quality. But we may not be as powerless to the elements as we think.

A few different sources over the past couple of days have written about growing food indoors. The number of plants that we can realistically grow indoors pales in comparison to what we can put outside in our garden, where they have space to thrive, but that shouldn't discourage us. Container gardening, either using artificial grow lights or a sunny window sill, can yield a surprising amount of food in a short amount of time, while we wait for the thermostat to climb.

Most people start their indoor gardening with herbs and spices, which require minimal sunlight and little space to grow. The National Gardening Association has a good article on indoor herb gardening here. Oregano, basil, chives and mint all grow well indoors, and can be grown year round in a container. Leafy vegetables like lettuce and arugula seem to fare better than their fruiting counterparts, as they require less maintenance and sunlight to thrive.

2010 is here, Spring is fast approaching

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to everyone of our followers! Now that 2010 is officially here, we are beginning the process of selecting our backyard and community garden families for the Spring and Summer months. We are extremely excited to begin this process as we expand our community garden from 20 families in 2009 to 40 this year, and we venture into the backyards of at least twelve homes around our community.

We are asking for your help in this process as we begin the search for new families. We've put together a pretty thorough application, which you can download and print by clicking above, and we are officially launching the recruitment campaign this week. We will be reaching out to area churches and need-based agencies to spread the word, as well as using general word-of-mouth advertising. This is where you come in.

If you know of a friend our family member who would benefit from our program (more information can be found on the sidebar at right), please recommend them to us, or pass on this information to them. We are extremely flexible on the application procedure, a la how to submit the completed packet. We will walk, drive, bike or skip most places around this county to pick up applications to make sure everyone who wants to apply is able to. We will also walk potential applicants through the application process if needed.

We appreciate your help, and look forward to hearing from you!