As many of you know, Grow Your Own hosts a demonstration garden at the Abingdon, VA Faith in Action food pantry.  Up until recently, it has been difficult to maintain a clean and attractive aesthetic, due to the constant rains causing weed growth, and some overgrown herb areas that weren’t much of a priority.  However, because of the hard and diligent work of our Summer AmeriCorps VISTAs, we have been able to give our demonstration garden a full makeover!

Last week, we pulled up an overgrown herb area, started the foundation for new pathways, and had a bird bath and picnic table donated to us.  With the excess brick we had lying around, we were able to make more bold and beautiful pathways, and create a new herb garden + a butterfly garden!

On the production front, I have sown three 72 flats of spinach, and planted 75 broccoli transplants in a long production bed, as well as 32 kale in a long row.  We recently received our fall brassicas and after our last batch of workshops still have a few 4 packs of cabbage, kale, and broccoli left for any participants who have yet to get them!  Please call me if you would like to pick these up – they need to get in the ground ASAP!

We have also gotten 3 more families involved in selling at farmers market.  A few weeks back, Grow Your Own hosted a table at the Glade Spring Farmers Market, where our participants and the demonstration garden got to sell our fresh organic produce!  It was a big success, and we hope to host another table there in the coming weeks!

Our next pair of workshops will be on Thursday, September 4th at 10AM and Monday, September 8th at 5PM – we will be discussing cover crops, transplant planting, row covering and all participants will take home spinach seed!

Special thanks:

  • Larry Bayes at Abingdon Faith in Action for donating us a bird bath and a picnic table – they both have really spruced the place up!  Thank you for your continual support and partnership with Grow Your Own!
  • And a big thanks, as always, to Tamara McNaughton for seeding our fall brassica transplants!

I will be posting some tips on brassica growth, so be on the lookout for that!

Best,

Brian