Since I haven’t written an update in a while I thought I would just fill all you readers in on what’s going on in Linwood and the surrounding areas.

First, we’ll put anyone to work around here!  Montgomery County, MD Firefighter Dave Kalt getting a taste of country garden life (ladies, he’s single and handy in the garden!):

Note our little summer squash hills behind him, and on the other side of the dirt are melons and watermelons that we REALLY hope will produce!

Speaking of work, our participants have been extra great about keeping their Linwood Community Garden plots in shape and taking care of their plant babies this year.  This is important because we have a bunch of new participants and gardens in the program and I am definitely running here and there much more than last year.  All of our gardens have been very slow to start (the weather has been….challenging) – harvests have been minimal thus far, mostly lettuce, spinach and radishes.  It’s obvious though that the explosion of veggies is just around the corner, and I have high hopes that our food production will far surpass last year’s.

This year we built 3 new very large home gardens and an additional community garden at The Burner Homeplace in Cass, WV.  The Pocahontas Times came out and wrote an article on our inaugural workday – https://pocahontastimes.com/earning-green-thumbs-at-the-cass-community-garden/ .  I also helped with a WVU Extension Jr. Master Gardener class and 15 kids planted several raised beds at the Valley Head Elementary School.  Teaching kids how to do this is an epic experience and it is so wonderful to see them excited about growing their own food!  The other exciting thing is seeing how much our second year participants got out of the classes last year, and how much more capable they are this year.  It’s really neat!

That’s the update for now.  Next blog look for a profile on some of our participants!

Peace,

Kelley