Hello Friends, my name is Chris Hamlin and I’m the new Grow Appalachia coordinator here at Red Bird Mission and I’m so excited and just wanted to share a few things that’s been happening on campus and in our community this early season. This will be our 12th season in the program but it will be my first as coordinator and I’m pretty excited to have a great mix of veteran farmers and new farmers in the program this season.

Our first meeting of the season was held on March 2, where we had a great turnout of around 60 people, including members and guests. Our friends from the UK extension office came over and gave a great workshop over planning our new gardens before we plant them. Members also brought in soil samples to be tested and received seed potatoes and several varieties of onion sets and seeds to take home.

With several pretty days in the first two weeks of March, it has given us the opportunity to start plowing and tilling a few community gardens. Things have kind of slowed this week with some snow fall here in the mountains but we’re ready to dry out and get our hands back in the dirt. We couldn’t be more excited to get back into our gardens and back to nature.