Gardens popping up around town

It's strange how quickly months of talking, planning and scheduling turn into actions, which then turn into results.

In a matter of weeks, we've built or prepped more than 35 garden beds (counting our community garden expansion, our new Mulberry Street community garden, all of our school and youth center gardens, and six retro-fitted planters in front of the county's busiest food pantry.) None of it really registered until we reflected on it this week; planning is just planning until you act. And so it begins.

We were fortunate this past weekend to dodge the rainy weather in time to finish our garden installations. At each of our sites, we had a great group of Wilmington College student volunteers, who now all have a direct connection to our efforts in building and sustaining a fresh food economy in Clinton County. We hope they're proud of their work.

Volunteer Mike Newman helps 5-year-old Felix Campbell flip sod at one of our garden sites, the Clinton County Youth Council.

GFGH Growers Co-op Coordinator Aileen Ash and WC volunteer Sara Douglass move a garden bed frame to the garden site at the Mulberry Street community garden.

Future garden beds, former vacant planters, across from Sugartree Ministries

All of this, even before we begin our backyard garden installations around the county next week.

Below is a photo slideshow of our Mulberry Street community garden construction.

Building gardens for the Quake, celebrating the Aftershock

As expected, this week has been full of soil prepping, wood cutting, garden building and more. Yesterday's Food Symposium brought three well-known speakers and several impactful exhibits to the college, making it a successful first year for the hopefully annual event. But, just because it's Friday doesn't mean the week is over.

Tomorrow, Saturday, April 24, is Global Youth Service Day, an event with a name that sums up its scope. More importantly though, tomorrow is the Quake, the annual Wilmington College service event that brings students and volunteers into the community to work on specific projects for the entire day. We are working at four different garden sites around town, building raised bed gardens or retro-fitting old planters with fruit, vegetables and herbs. All of our sites could use some help with volunteers, so if you'd like to get out and make a difference for a few hours tomorrow morning, let us know!

Here are the places that are getting some Grow Food, Grow Hope love tomorrow:

The Clinton County Youth Council
We'll be building at least one raised bed garden at the CCYC, as well as assisting in a cleanup effort and helping paint some murals inside the facility. If you are interested in volunteering at the CCYC, contact Eric Guindon, our Community Outreach Coordinator, at (937) 382-6661 ext. 488 or Kevin Walls, CCYC Director, at (937) 728-1328.

Wilmington Childcare & Learning
We'll be building two children's garden beds on the playground of Wilmington Childcare & Learning. If you are interested in volunteering at WC&L, contact Mariah Fulton, our Youth Outreach Coordinator, at (937) 382-6661 ext. 488.

Sugartree Ministries
We will be transforming six dilapidated garden planters in front of the old Verizon building across the street from Sugartree Ministries into retro-fitted, raised bed gardens. We will be adding and preparing soil in the beds and will plant at a later date. We will also be working inside the Ministry on a variety of projects. If you are interested in volunteering at Sugartree Ministries, contact Jessica Braun, our Food Distribution Coordinator, at (937) 382-6661 ext. 488.

Mulberry Street Community Garden
We're very excited about our newest garden site downtown, on a tract of land on Mulberry Street owned by the generous Scott Kirschner. We are building a seven plot community garden Saturday afternoon, as well as adding and amending the soil for each bed. If you are interested in volunteering at the Mulberry Street Community Garden, contact Aileen Ash, our Growers Co-op Coordinator, at (937) 382-6661 ext. 488.

After the Quake, we'll be celebrating our day of service on campus with the annual Aftershock event. Starting at 6:00 p.m., there will be live music as well as the Summer Break Games, a series of games and challenges. The games will include: Watermelon Pig Out, Jello Diving, Suds of War, Breakfast Face and Sit on the Sundae. If the names alone don't entice you, then the games themselves surely will.

So come out on Saturday and pitch in to help your local community. And maybe get a little breakfast on your face afterward.

Adam in the garden

Much thanks to Noah Campbell, pastor of First Baptist Church here in Wilmington, for the inspirational message and GFGH plug on his church's sign on Locust Street downtown. We've all got gardens on our mind this week, as we ready for the growing season and begin the garden builds around town, as well as the start of the expansion of our community garden.

Indeed, it's going to be a busy week. National Gardening Month continues for a third week today. The community garden is slated to get a 20-plot upgrade either today or tomorrow. On Thursday, the college is hosting the first annual Food Symposium, which we are excited to be a part of. And Saturday marks Global Youth Service Day as well as WC's annual Quake and Aftershock, both of which are service related days which will bring students and volunteers out into the community for a day of service.

As part of the Quake, we'll be building garden beds at the Clinton County Youth Council and retro-fitting some dilapidated garden planters in front of Sugartree Ministries.

So check back often this week; there will be lots of updates.

First garden work of the season at Wilmington Childcare & Learning

Yesterday we broke ground on a new garden site for the first time in 2010, as we prepped the soil for two gardens at Wilmington Childcare & Learning. They're the first of several school gardens we have planned for this growing season, and we are thrilled to finally be bringing our hands-on, garden evangelism to Clinton County youth.

Eric, Mariah and I staked out two, 4'x4' squares on a plot of unused land in the back of the facility, right next to where all the children play during their recess. We had an audience of kids to watch us flip the sod and add amendments to the soil, as we readied the ground for the coming weeks, when we'll build the raised-bed frames and add some more amendments.

It felt great to be outside, working the earth after a long and cold winter. We all broke a sweat and our hands showed the early stages of inevitable garden callouses

In the next few weeks, we will be preparing and building gardens at Hillsboro Elementary and Patri-Tots, the childcare facility of Southern State Community College. These, as well as our 12 new backyard gardens builds and the 20 new plots at our community garden. Things are about to get busy, but we're more than ready. The growing season is upon us.

Farmers Market comes to Wilmington College

The "Winter" Farmers' Market is moving to a temporary new location before making its final stop for the Summer season in the Mural Parking lot. You can find your favorite vendors and all of their delicious local products at Wilmington College on Saturday, April 17th from 9:00 am - 12:00 pm. So if you're a W.C. student, come start your weekend off right with some fresh food from farmers you know.

We will be in the parking lot between Kettering Hall and Boyd Auditorium, right off of College Street across from the Douglas Street intersection. Need directions - check out the map here!

Stock up for Spring with amazing homemade breads and fresh meats, get rid of dry Winter skin with all natural-skin care, treat yourself with delicious chocolates and cookies, and spice up your life with fresh herbs!

For your convenience, I have including links to the updated product list (Click HERE for the list), the latest order form (Click HERE for the form), or you can find both documents online at www.clintoncountyfarmersmarket.com.

Hopefully we'll see you there!

W.C. Executive Chef hosts cooking demonstration

Wilmington College Executive Chef Tom Tiner hosted a cooking demonstration at Sugartree Ministries yesterday afternoon, as an introduction to our upcoming Culinary Job Training program that begins on May 4th.

Tiner taught a group of onlookers how to properly chop vegetables, how to safely hold a knife and the best way to bread a meat cutlet. He prepared breaded veal cutlets with capers, Italian seasoning and basil, and sauteed squash, zucchini and red peppers.

"It's food," Tiner said. "Have fun with it."

The Culinary Job Training program is provided completely free for participants, and is a collaboration between Sodexo, the Art Institute of Cincinnati, and Grow Food, Grow Hope. It is an 11-week course that meets once a week on Tuesday mornings, and is open to 8 participants only, so apply now!

More information about the class and more pictures of Tom's demonstration are after the jump:

April is National Gardening Month

Across the country, the month of April is being recognized as National Gardening Month by the National Gardening Association, while communities from Tampa to Tacoma gear up for a fast-approaching 2010 growing season.

We are, of course, participating in this great month of gardening awareness, and we've planned three specific projects for April that we are excited to announce today.

Grow-A-Row 
Every gardener has experienced it-- the realization that you'll never be able to eat all of the food that your garden produces. This year, we're taking that realization one step further, and asking our community to plant a row in the garden, from which you'll donate any harvested produce to an area food pantry. High-yield crops like tomatoes, cucumbers and squash typically work best, but you can grow anything you want!

Obviously the real growing won't happen till May at the earliest, so this month we're asking you to pledge your support, by signing up to grow a row for the hungry.

Click here to sign up for this exciting campaign.

Garden Tool Drive
 Gardening done right can, at times, be pretty expensive. The essential tools needed to tend to your garden are a one-time investment, but for many new gardeners that cost is too much. So do you have any garden tools sitting around your garage or shed that you could stand to part with? How about that rusty shovel or extra garden trowel that have been collecting dust? Donate them to us, and we'll make sure they get into the hands of new gardeners who are ready to use them.

We are expecting most donations to be used garden tools, but new garden tools are by-all-means accepted. There are no restrictions on what can be donated: shovels, hoes, trowels, spades, gloves, watering cans, rakes...if it's used in the garden, we'll take it. You can either drop your tools off to us at the Center for Service & Civic Engagement at Wilmington College, or we can arrange to come pick them up.

Click here to read more about the garden tool drive and to pledge your donation.

Bulk Seed Donation
Thanks to two generous donations from Grow Food, Grow Hope supporters, we have thousands of fruit and vegetable seeds that we are giving away for free. Phil Swindler of Swindler & Sons Florists donated more than a dozen varieties of fruit and vegetable seeds, hundreds of seeds of each. Gary Ibsen, a tomato grower and distributor in Little River, CA heard about Wilmington on 60 Minutes, and decided he wanted to help. Mr. Ibsen donated thousands of heirloom tomato seeds to GFGH, with directions to distribute them around our community.

So take a look at the list of available seeds. Do you want some? Does your neighbor? Anyone who wants seeds can request them, while supplies last.

Click here to view a full list of available seeds, and to request some for yourself.

Hopefully you'll choose to participate in one or more of the projects we have planned for National Gardening Month. The growing season will be upon us before we know it, and we're excited to get ready.

Clean-up at Sugartree

Today's post comes from Food Distribution Coordinator Jessica Braun.

In coordination with the Cesar Chavez Day of Service & Learning, student volunteers from Wilmington College pitched in at Sugartree Ministries to give the place a much needed cleaning and to help paint the floor of a spare room that will be used to store food. Together with the ministry's daily volunteers, the group of 16 students spent two hours remodeling an overflowing storage room into a clean and ready-to-use food storage area.

The ministry's volunteers delivered furniture and other household goods to the Clinton County Homeless Shelter where the items could be put to better use. They also sorted the clothing they moved across the street to Sugartreee Ministries Clothing Cupboard, and helped load the Salvation Army truck which arrived for the excess and unusable clothing.