Hi all,

This is Leo from Portland, here to tell you about the marathon organizing month we’ve just had. May has been a crazy whirlwind of emotion/progress and it doesn’t look to be letting up soon!

First off, we have confirmed Memorandums of Understanding with all of our community partners! Not only will they be receiving the data that we collect about community interests this summer, but they will also work directly with our participants to refine and upgrade their engagement strategies! As we say, an involved community is a strong community, and as organizers, it is part of our duty to get people involved in the spaces in which they live. What could be more elementary?

May has also been a crazy recruiting month for us. We have not only had rolling admissions from the Grand Aspirations national admissions process, but we in Portland have started another round of recruiting in our public universities in high schools. I personally spoke to over 60 college students about two weeks ago, and many are eager to create the change they want to see in the world!

All in all, it’s been a crazy month for us in Portland. Just when we could use it to slow down, it speeds right back up again. It’s all for the better though… we’ll have a dynamite Summer of Solutions this year!

PS. Congrats to all the programs that have recently kicked off, and any that are kicking off in the near future!

Here in Minneapolis we are making a movable container garden in my yard (since we are renters!)  Early this spring we joined Gardening Matters Hubs program, which provided us with plenty of seeds, and already started seedlings.  We have used found Kiwi shipping containers as movable raised beds, that our peppers and tomatoes are happily sprouting in.    

We have also planted beets, onions, cucumbers, and broccoli in found dresser drawers (untreated and unpainted).  But rabbits and squirrels started eating the seeds so we stapled chicken wire around the sides that that seemed to help keep them out.   

Across the yard is a Scarlet Runner Heirloom Bean Pole!!  They seem to be doing pretty well and are starting to climb the string up to the top of the pole/sapling.  Nestled at the top of the sapling is something called a river tooth, which according to David James Duncan, are remains of old-growth trees that fall into Northwestern rivers and are sculpted by time and water; you can check out his book called “River Teeth: Stories and Writings” if you want to read more! 

Libby

We’ve been busy getting our hands dirty in the Pioneer Valley, but I cleaned up enough for Sunday supper to write a blog post without soiling the computer.  

After a dry March and April, those April showers finally showed up in May.  That means the past two weeks have seen a lot of growth in our various growing spots in Franklin County.  The seeds that would barely germinate are now growing too quick for us to keep up with.  

But it’s worthwhile to take some time out from the weeding and transplanting and word-spreading to do a round up:

-The Summer Workshop Series is taking shape.  Advisory Groups in Turners Falls have provided feedback, totaling about 26 workshops that the Brick House will attempt to put on this summer.  SoS-ers will be in volunteer roles, facilitating some courses and also doing outreach and logistics.  The free workshops will range from wilderness skills to English conversation practice to Kids Gardening.  

-Several rows are planted at Harvest Moon Farm and more are in the works.  Our first SoS workday on Wednesday May 30 had six of us out transplanting tomatoes, spreading mulch, weeding and harvesting scapes!

-We have gotten a lot of great farm donations that will keep us busy filling in the rows.  Plants from Gwen’s work, transplants from Harvest Farm of Whatley, and seeds on the way soon from High Mowing and America the Beautiful. Always plenty of mulch from the farm too!

-We took first place in the Youth Biz Expo Biz Idea contest with our Garlic Scape Pesto concept!  We are now rushing to get ready to go into production, because the scapes are coming in early this year. Once we get a batch out, we now have many local contacts interested in purchasing.  In the meantime, we have very stinky breath from snacking on scapes.

-Program members have also made it out to Laughing Dog Farm in Gill and Warner Farm in Sunderland to diversify our agricultural experiences.  Replete with goats and veggies, Laughing Dog is always a hit, and Warner Farm certainly gave us a lesson in tomato suckering. 

And all this even before the program starts?  There’s no slowing down from here and we’re excited to kick off in one week with all our participants!

Keep up with our adventures this summer at http://pioneervalleysolutions.wordpress.com/.

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UPDATE: As of 12:14PM today, we have raised a total of $4,079 to go toward building Chicago’s first yard sharing network! Thank you to everyone who helped us meet our goal! We cannot explain how excited we are to make this network happen and there is no way we could have done it without your support!

The fundraising window is still open through Friday at 10:42 AM CDT. All donations above the $4,000 mark will go toward making our gardens even more fun, inclusive, and community centered!  See our update about this on our Kickstarter page here. The original post continues below. Continue reading →

Check out this post from Summer of Solutions Hartford!

As we always seem to say, a lot has happened with SoS Middleton since our last blog entry!

Last week, Growing Food and Sustainability was awarded our very first grant, and then two more within the week!  We were one of 20 award recipients (out of over 800 applicants!) to receive Jamba Juice’s “It’s all about the fruits and veggies” grant which includes garden tools and $150 to spend on soil amendments and seeds.  Today we used some of it to buy more seed potatoes!  We were also awarded the Midwest Garden Grant, which will provide our program with $750 worth of garden equipment.  Finally, we were particularly excited to receive a Community Reinvestment Fund Grant from our local Willy Street Co-op.  This grant will fund the entire bike portion of our program including a bike and heavy-duty bike trailer, allowing us to haul everything we need for the program (compost, produce, even a lawn mower!) by bike!  My quads are already feeling the burn…

Our team is getting the word out to the community in many ways.  On May 1^st, we started our weekly Kids Activity Table at the Downtown Middleton Farmers’ Market.  Our goal is to engage kids with fun, hands-on activities, and to talk to community members about our program while at the same time encouraging increased attendance at this somewhat new and small market.  So far, our activities included potting-up tomato plants and playing a seedling guessing game.  We’ve heard from parents that we already have a few dedicated kids who are watering their tomato plants everyday and eagerly awaiting the next market activity!

One of our program leaders, Gabrielle, was recently interviewed on a local radio show!  She got a chance to talk about the goals of Growing Food and Sustainability and what inspired her and her sister, Natalie, to start the organization.  Take a listen here!

As June approaches, we are finalizing our team (stay tuned for team bios, we have a fantastic group!) and preparing for training week and our summer program.  As I write this, the weather is sunny and around 70 and I know that the tomato and pepper plants we are planting on Saturday’s workday are going to be very happy!

– Gabrielle