Grow Appalachia: Moving Right Along--- Chad Brock--- Red Bird Mission

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Moving Right Along--- Chad Brock--- Red Bird Mission

This will be another very productive week for Grow Appalachia and Red Bird Mission. We helped the E.C.D Early Childhood Development (2-6 years old) class plan their garden layout and used the mantis tiller to plow up the area, it worked perfect! We provided them with a few cole crop plants we had started in our greenhouse and provided them with a couple different varieties of seeds to plant. They are really interested in seeing these plants and seeds grow into food.

E.C.D Class Garden

We are working toward getting the raised beds filled for the Girl Scout's, DeWall Senior Center and the ones we built for the Grow Appalachia gardens. The beds here on campus will provide produce to be sold to the Red Bird Mission Work Camp and at the Farmers market. We have also added three additional plots here on campus to grow vegetables to be sold and have the benefits added to the Grow Appalachia funds trying to begin being more self - sufficient. Karen and I planted two huge lettuce beds,some onions, and some corn in one of these plots and will plant potatoes in another as soon as the ground drys back up . We also have tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers growing in our greenhouse to use as starter plants for these gardens. Growing our own starter plants will help keep cost of these gardens to a minimum.

Will we have our Grow Appalachia meeting April 19th at 6:30p.m in the Cramer room her at Queendale. The topics discussed will be raised bed's, Organic gardening and "excess planting" to contribute to the needy and or sell at the farmers market. We will be giving cole crop plants, results from the soil samples taken, and fertilizer to the participants that attend so we are hoping for a good turn out. Anyone interested is welcome to attend so we hope to see you there.