Hello everyone, my name is Brian, and I am the new OSM/VISTA for the Grow Your Own program at Appalachian Sustainable Development.  I’m excited to keep everyone up to date on the great work we are doing at the Ecumenical Faith in Action garden.  Everyone at ASD has really made me feel like a part of the family, and I’m acclimating nicely!

Last Saturday, Girl Scout troop 451 helped us plant lettuce and spinach in the EFiA hoop-house.  It was a beautiful day – mid 60s and lots of sun!  Deni and I set up a coloring station, filled with copies of drawings I did of the produce we’re growing and crayons.  They were very eager to get their hands in the dirt, and were fascinated by the worms in the compost pile (well, most of them – some screamed!).  Deni was awesome with the kids, and kept their short attention spans in mind.  It was great to see these girls so excited about growing!  We were also able to harvest a few pounds of kale, spinach, and turnips from the hoop-house for the food pantry!

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Only a few participants showed to our first workshop do to the crummy weather on Thursday morning; but we’re anticipating a big turnout for this coming Thursday.  We had two tons of fertilizer come in last week to hand out for our GYO participants – each will receive one bag in the spring, and another in the fall.

The hoop-house is keeping warm, and nearly all of our transplanted veggies are doing well.  Deni and I are tired of this chaotic winter-spring hybrid weather and ready for true spring!