This is David Cornette from Hindman Settlement School Grow Appalachia, and we’ve been feeling like the Postal Service; try as it might, the weather has not been able to slow us down. We’ve spent the past weeks driving to every nook and cranny of Knott County to visit our returning participants and meet with families who are interested in getting involved for the first time.

I guess they’re all as excited as we are, since we typically end up engaged in conversation for well over an hour. But that’s because there’s a lot to be excited about in our program this year! In addition to having access to our supply of
organic fertilizers and pesticides, each of our participants will receive their own garden tool, 5 gallon bucket, and a voucher to Childer’s, our local seed store.

We’ve also gathered a ton of feedback on how to adjust our program to better suit the needs of our participants. This information has helped us to plan workshops based on their interests in addition to showing us topics that people want to be educated in. We are also pleasantly surprised at how many people would like to take their produce to market this year, and we are actively working to facilitate that process through a series of market readiness workshops hosted by our Extension Agent, Chad Conway.

As you can probably tell, we’re pretty pumped to get started. Tonight, we are holding a recruitment meeting that should bring us close to our goal of 40 families, and our first formal Grow Appalachia meeting is on Tuesday, March 24th.