In order to be more inclusive to the city of Concord and the surrounding area, we have decided to change our name to the CAPITAL CITY ORGANIC GARDENERS (CCOG).
For information on our club, see our new blog at CCOGNH.WORDPRESS.COM.
Get Your Garden Started!
DIG OUT OF THE SNOW and come plan your city garden with us!
The South End Organic Garden Club is sponsoring a get-your-garden started informational event. We will gather at Havenwood Heritage Heights on March 11th at 7pm.
Julie Steed Mawson, UNH Cooperative Extension Educator and coordinator of The N.H. Common Ground Project will introduce us to some of the delights, rewards and how-to’s of city gardening.
Gardeners and “wanna be” gardeners are invited. There will be great discussion among gardeners of all ages and abilities. Don’t miss this great opportunity to learn more about starting your own garden. We will be offering free incentives, refreshments and raffle items!
Details…
Thursday, March 11 at 7 pm
Havenwood Heritage Heights
33 Christian Avenue
Havenwood Auditorium
For more info: laust@csd.k12.nh.us
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VOTE WITH YOUR FORK!
It was heartening to see Michael Pollan featured on Oprah yesterday. He gave a short tutorial called “Food 101″ to educate Oprah’s audience about their food…where it REALLY comes from and the true cost of consuming cheap, processed foods. He wasn’t able to go into any real depth but I am hoping his message came across to the viewer and raised their curiosity.
He talked about the american consumer “voting” with their forks three times a day at mealtime…
“We all can vote with our forks. We get three votes a day,” Michael says. “You don’t have to get every one of them right. But if you get one of them right a day, if you vote for food that has been sustainably grown or humanely grown, whatever your values are, … you will change the food system. It’s happening now.”
If you purchase your food with some care and consideration, your voice will be heard as a powerful consumer! Choose healthy, wholesome, unprocessed foods. Try and find food that is produced locally and (ideally) organically. Grow your own food! Reject the junk foods and overly processed foods full of sugar, salt and fat. By doing so, you are voting for good food with your pocketbook and your fork! You are supporting your local economy and improving your health at the same time.
What’s not to love?
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Spring is right around the corner!
Mark your calendars for our first meeting of 2010! Here are the details…
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at Wesley Methodist Church, 79 Clinton Street, Concord
Schedule:
Potluck Supper and Social Time (5:45-6:30)
Meeting/Workshop Presentation (6:45-7:45) Meeting topic TBA
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Maria Noel Groves
Maria Noel Groves, Clinical Herbalist and owner of Wintergreen Botanicals, LLC, gave our club a wonderful presentation on Great Garden Herbs: Grow Your Medicine. She gave us a good overview on growing a few herbs in our garden and how to preserve them by either drying them or making tinctures. The herbs she focused on that evening were Anise Hyssop, Holy Basil, Bee Balm, German Chamomile, Lady’s Mantle, Lemon Balm, Lemon Thyme and a variety of Mints. Planting these herbs will give you the basics for starting an herbal apothecary in your backyard!
Maria’s website is jam-packed full of useful information for anyone interested in growing and using herbs. The Herbal Education section of her website lists the classes she is teaching and offers “Learn For Free” where you can download class notes for some of the classes she teaches. Her wealth of knowledge is reflected in the clear and concise way she presents her materials and teaches her classes.
If you are interested in growing herbs in your garden for medicine, food, tea or just for fun, Maria’s site is a good place to start!
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Sunapee resident, Mario Capozzoli, launched this website after reading Michael Pollan’s groundbreaking book In Defense of Food, An Eater’s Manifesto. On page 148, Pollan writes: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”
Mario remembered his great-grandparents’ gardens, an Italian homage to the old country—with ripe tomatoes reflecting the sunshine off their tight, bright skins; musty plump grapes shadowed under broad green leaves; and lemons so yellow that after holding them in his eight-year-old hands, he could smell the fragrant glories of citrus oil all day long.
Using his Great Grandmother as his launching point for inspiration, Mario built an amazing, ever growing website that brings together the Locavore (or localvore) movement, the Slow Food philosophy, the whole foods movement. He believes that when we bring together our families and communities around food, we accomplish more than the act of eating—we build community, we strengthen families, we laugh more and cry more, and we create deep within us an ability to nourish each other with our inherent sensibilities. Food—good food—paves the way!
So, pour yourself a hot beverage and spend some time exploring and being inspired by Greatgrandmother.org. Winter is here and the gardening season is over, but good, local food is available year round!
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October's Potluck, once again...a super yummy dinner!
Our last potluck dinner and workshop for 2009 will be held on Wed, Nov. 18th at Wesley United Methodist Church, 79 Clinton St., Concord. The potluck dinner starts at 5:45 pm and the workshop starts at 6:30 pm. We’ll once again have a “harvest exchange”… bring any surplus items from your garden (or canned goods from the kitchen) to trade.
October's Food Exchange...lots of kale.
The agenda will be a little different for the last meeting. We’ll have a guest speaker, Maria Noel Groves, who will introduce us to herb gardening. Maria grows her own herbs in gardens around her house, and more important, she uses the herbs in a variety of teas and medicines. It will be a “hands on” presentation, with handouts and samples. You will enjoy her teaching style.
We won’t have a Children’s Program this time so both Ruth and Beth can attend the workshop. They have worked hard this year for our club. Thank you Beth and Ruth!
Pumpkin Fun! The kids carved pumpkins and did some experiments at the October Kid's Program.
After the workshop, for those of you who are interested, we’ll have a meeting to work on drafting a Board of Directors. We are targeting seven people to oversee the activities of the South End Organic Garden Club, and provide the group with a broad perspective of how we should grow and develop. We will also take a first pass at a 2010 calendar of events. Contact Scott Morrison at scott.gardener@comcast.net if you are interested in volunteering or if you have any topic/activity suggestions for next year.
Meetings will start again in March, but we will be busy this winter planning for next year. Keep checking back on the blog or even better, add it to your RSS feed as I will be hard at work adding in more content and blogging all winter long!
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Late Autumn at Apple Hill Orchard
It’s late autumn and if you haven’t done it already, it is time to put your garden to bed for the winter. Sad but true. Winter will be here before you know it so it’s time to get to work!
Some of us still have food in the garden. Right now, you may have cold weather crops like kale, radishes, greens, broccoli, brussel sprouts, chard, mint, herbs and root veggies like carrots going strong. You can leave those alone or cover them with Remay to extend the harvest. Clean up those beds next spring.
As for the rest, it’s best to clean up any diseased plants and get them out of the garden first. This year, throw away tomato and potato plants…even if they didn’t get the late blight. Clean out those beds really well and DO NOT COMPOST! It’s also a good idea not to compost anything that got powdery mildew like your squash vines, cucumbers, etc. Bust out those purple bags and toss it all! Your garden will be happier in the long run.
The next plan of action is to cut down all of the dead plants. If the plants were healthy, leave the roots in the ground. They will compost in the ground, nourish the soil and prevent soil erosion.
Now is the time to send in your soil samples. You might be able to add amendments to the soil before winter. If not, you’ll be all set for next spring.
The last step is to mulch your garden beds to prevent soil erosion. Chopped up leaves are the best. Rake your leaves into piles, chop them up with the lawn mower and put them on the garden beds. Maple and birch leaves are ideal. Avoid oak leaves. If you don’t have leaves, I’ll bet a neighbor would be willing to give you some! Failing a friendly neighbor, grass clippings or straw will work as well. Add in some manure if you can get it. The idea is to prevent soil erosion and the decaying mulch will also add nutrients to your soil.
As those first snowflakes begin to fall, bring in all of your hoses and garden “flotsum” like clay pots, tomato cages, etc. Take some time to clean up your storage area and make it all nice and clean for next spring! Think of the joy you will experience on that first lovely spring day when you waltz into your clean, well organized storage area and can actually locate a shovel for planting your peas! Ahhhhh!
For more information about soil testing, contact the UNH Cooperative Extension.
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Mid-summer garden at the Morrison's
At our September meeting, Beth talked about what you can plant this fall in order to get crops next spring and summer. You can plant most cold weather vegetables now like chard, carrots, mustard, spinach, kale, beets, and parsnips. Lay down about an inch of compost, throw in a light feeding of blood meal, plant your seeds and water well. Then, put in hoops and cover with a layer of Remay and then a heavyweight floating row cover so you have two layers. Make sure the sides are secure. Keep your seed beds watered and right before Thanksgiving (or the first snow) put on a layer of plastic. In the early spring, remove the plastic and your seedlings will have a big head start next year.
Will everything you plant for your spring garden come back? Maybe, maybe not. But, think of how thrilled you will be if just a little spinach, lettuce and chard survive. They are forecasting another long, cold winter. Seeing just a few shoots of green in March is a balm to the soul…especially the soul of a gardener. Take a chance and plant your spring garden this weekend!
GARLIC…
A crop you must plant now in order to harvest next year is garlic. If you don’t get your garlic in the ground in the fall…don’t bother next spring. It’s too late. The good news is that you have until mid-October to plant your garlic bulbs. Lay down about an inch of compost first. Then plant the bulbs down about an inch and 6-8 inches apart. Cover with a heavy layer of straw and you are DONE!
Take advantage of these lovely cool days with NO BUGS and get out and spend some time in the garden.
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Hope shows off the amazing carrots that Claudia and Steve brought. They were delicious!
The Food Swap at our September meeting was a big success. Lots of gardeners brought extra produce from their garden, both fresh and preserved. We had a table FULL of produce.
The only problem is that the gardeners didn’t want to take any produce home with them! After much urging, eventually about half the table was cleared off and the rest of the produce was dropped off at Cheryl Bourassa’s to give to some refugee families.
I admired the great restraint that everyone showed because we only had three small heirloom zucchini’s to swap. Thanks to everyone who participated!
Karen unearthed this loving couple having a good time in her garden!
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