Project Grow Harvest Hootenanny

We are pleased to announce the upcoming Harvest Hootenanny, a Project Grow fundraiser! This event will take place Saturday, September 13 from 4-9pm. You can purchase tickets in person at the Zingerman's Roadhouse, at the Project Grow booth at the Homegrown Festival the day of the event, at the door, or from the Project Grow website. This is sure to be a great time with a ton of good, local food, so don't miss out!

Early Blight Attacks!

I don't know about you all, but I'm seeing a lot of early blight around the garden this year. It's turning all my leaves yellow and making them die off! I plan to deal with the problem using a home remedy floating around on many of the organic gardening websites. The recipe is as follows:

1 T Baking soda
2.5 T lightweight horticultural oil
Mix with 1 gallon of water and spray foliage every 2 weeks.


You should also be careful to water your plants from the bottom to avoid getting moisture on the leaves.

I will let you know how this works in my garden. Let us know what remedies you have for this pesky and common disease.

Help Us! (please)

Project Grow Supporters,

We need your help next Monday!

The City of Ann Arbor will be considering restoring Project Grow's funding this Monday at its weekly Council meeting. We would like to have a good show of support before the City Council on Monday, July 7 at 7:00 PM at the Guy Larcom Building on Fifth Avenue.

In the past, Project Grow received only $7,000 per year from the City to support community gardens. This year the City notified Project Grow that the annual amount would be eliminated from the City budget. The small amount helps us to keep our plot fees low and to subsidize low income and elderly gardeners at Project Grow gardens. It is an important source of funding for the organization and we could really use the financial support so that we may continue to provide quality space to garden for years to come. We hope that a good showing from our many gardeners will help convince the City Council that our gardens are a great asset to the community.

The City Council meets at 7:00 PM in the City Hall Council Chamber, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. If you would like to speak on behalf of Project Grow, public comment is at the beginning of the session and you will need to sign up beforehand.

We encourage you to show your support for Project Grow next Monday.

Thank you!

Guerilla Gardening

Today I was delighted to read about some "guerilla gardeners" in Tokyo. Check it out.

Gardens are Full!

Hi Project Growers,

Believe it or not, our community gardens are full for the 2008 growing season. Since plots sometimes become available during the course of the growing season we invite you to apply online, but make no payment. If a garden plot becomes available you will be notified.

Contributing to Food Banks

Common Dreams posted a story last week, "Food Banks Ask Gardeners to Grow Extra for Hungry", that is a good reminder of how we can use our gardens to help the community. You can donate produce to your local food bank. I don't know about you, but we always have more than we know what to do with, and it's a joy to share fresh, organic vegetables.

In Ann Arbor, we have Food Gatherers, a local non-profit that always welcomes donations of produce from your garden. Check our their donation page for details on how. We frequently have Project Grow volunteers who are willing to collect produce from one of the community gardens on a regular basis to make it easier to contribute. Watch for emails about that during the growing season.

Gardening to Save Money

An interesting article appeared in the New York Times over the weekend, titled: Banking on Gardening. It's about, what else, saving money by growing your own food. Apparently this year saw record numbers of new gardeners purchasing seeds and gardening supplies. At Greenview Gardens, where my husband and I have kept a vegetable garden for the last four years, we are for the first time seeing no vacant spaces.

Are you new to gardening? Do you garden to save money? Tell us about it by commenting on this post!