Hello, my name is Alex Sanders and I am the Site Supervisor for the Grow Appalachia Gardening Program at Project Worth Outreach in Menifee County, Kentucky.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful and beautiful fall. The trees in Menifee County have all turned to such vibrant colors and the backdrop is absolutely gorgeous.

It has been a busy month of October. Most of our gardeners have closed our their gardens for the year but we still have a few that are tending to the fall gardens. In one county we have had a pot luck dinner with dishes that included items from our participants gardens. A few of these items included, but not limited to, fresh sweet potatoes, homemade apple butter, fresh oorn, grilled eggplant and a organic pasta salad with organic noodles, organic flowers, tomatoes, asparagus sticks and peas. This event was attended by a large number of our gardeners.

We also had a workshop on the topic of off season preparation, led by Gail Mills, Project Worth Outreach Director. We have spent a lot of time this month on collecting harvest numbers from all of our gardeners for the September-October report. We are please to state that we, as a group, harvested over 236 bushels of produce plus 15 watermelon, 11 pumpkins, 9 cantaluope and 57 heads of cabbage.

This month we also spent a great deal of time putting together our grant proposal for 2014. In addition, we have already started recruiting gardenets for next year. As of this posting we have a verbal agreements with 42 families. We have completed our Grow Appalachia Garden Program participants meeting schedule, for Menifee and Rowan Counties, for 2014. We have discussed and decided the topics, including the topics required by Grow Appalachia, for our Grow Appalachia Garden Program participants meetings. We have scheduled 9 guest speakers to lead our workshops in 2014. These topics include an Organizational Meeting, Garden Planning and Garden Planting, Experienced Gardeners Panel, Garden Maintenance and Disease Control and Organic Remedies, Heart-Healthy Cooking, Marketing Strategies, Heirloom Seeds and Food Preservation, Fall Gardening, Cold Weather Gardening and Off Season Preparation and a Pot-Luck Dinner. We have reserved a meeting room in the Rowan County Public Library and the Project Worth Outreach Community Center for all of our 2014 Grow Appalachia Garden Program participants meetings. All of these arrangements were made with everyone involved being informed that all plans are contingent upon us receiving funding for 2014.

I hope everone has a enjoyable Thanksgiving and I am looking forward to seeing everyone in Floyd County, Ky. on November 4th.