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Montgomery Victory Gardens Weekly Update - April 16, 2010

In this update:

* Agrarian Author Steve McFadden - Sat. and Sun., April 17 & 18
* Brookside Gardens Earth Day - Sunday, April 18
* Rethinking Montgomery: Producing More Local Food - Thur., April 22
* Green Thumb-Arbor Day Celebration - Saturday, April 24
* Wheaton's Ed Murtagh and the USDA "People's Gardens"
* Why Ronald McDonald Has No Business Talking to Children
* Another School Planting a Veggie Garden


Agrarian Author Steve McFadden - Sat. and Sun. April 17 & 18

Montgomery Victory Gardens is joining with Montgomery Countryside Alliance, Audubon Naturalist Society, Transition Takoma, Sugarloaf Citizens Association, the Menare Foundation and Northeast SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) to present one of the top agriculture authors in the country today.

Please join us for one of two very special conversations with Steve McFadden,Steve McFaddensustainable farming journalist and author most recently of "The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century." 

Mr. McFadden has spent the past two decades writing about Community Sponsored Agriculture (CSAs) and sustainable farming.  His newest book "The Call of the Land,"was voted one of the "Best Books of 2009" by the NYC Food Systems Network; it provides a road map for communities seeking food security and sustainability, highlighting the connections between our food, the economy, our health and our shared environment.

For more about the book and the author, click here and here.

Our first evening with Steve McFadden is Saturday, April 17 at the Takoma Park/Silver Spring Coop, 201 Ethan Allen Ave. in Takoma Park, MD 20912. The presentation will start at 7pm. The program is free, seating is limited, and donations are welcome. For more information contact us at [email protected]

The second presentation will be on Sunday, April 18 at The Lodge at Little Seneca Creek, 14500-A Clopper Rd. in Boyds, MD 20841. The program will start at 1pm. The program is free but seating is limited, please email to reserve tickets at [email protected]



Brookside Gardens Earth Day - Sunday, April 18

Brookside Gardens in Wheaton is always a delight to visit, and it should be especially fun this coming Sunday when they commemorate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day with their first ever Earth Day Festival.

The all-day, family friendly festival features a series of daytime events and Planet Earthactivities, including a bird walk around the gardens, volunteer planting projects for the Earth Day Network's Global Day of Service, interactive children's activities, and a host of organizations at the educational exhibit fair. Brookside Gardens is always committed to environmental stewardship and sustainable practices, and even more so during their three year focus on growing local food: exhibitors will include the Parks Department Community Garden program and Montgomery Victory Gardens, and there will be a workshop for children on building salad box gardens.

The formal festival runs from 12 Noon to 4pm this Sunday, April 18, but special events start well before that. Check out the schedule here, then come and join us to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day at Brookside Gardens!



Rethinking Montgomery: Producing More Local Food - Thursday, April 22

The Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which has tremendous influence over the future development (or preservation) of Montgomery County land, has launched a "Rethink Montgomery" Speaker Series. The subject of the discussion on Thursday, April 22 will be how we can produce more local food.

While nearly one-third of Montgomery County is protected for farming in the Rethinking MontgomeryAgricultural Reserve, not many local farm products wind up in our farmers markets. Yet county residents garden, shop at farmers markets, subscribe to community-supported agriculture or find other ways to buy local.

What is the relationship between farms, urban areas, consumers, restaurants and communities?  Can Montgomery County support small "metro farms"?  How can rural communities remain vital in metropolitan influenced areas? Addressing these issues will be the following panelists: Ben Allnutt of Homestead Farms; Wade Butler of Butler Orchards: Jeremy Criss, Dept. of Economic Development Agricultural Services Division, and yours truly, Gordon Clark, Project Director of Montgomery Victory Gardens.

Join us for what promises to be an excellent discussion on local food, to be held at the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission headquarters at 8787 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, starting at 7:30pm.

For more information on the event and Rethinking Montgomery series, click here.



Green Thumb-Arbor Day Celebration - Saturday, April 24

Also for the first time ever, the Locust Grove Nature Center, in Cabin John Park in Bethesda, will be holding a Green Thumb-Arbor Day Celebration.

Locust GroveAnother family-oriented event, this one will include demonstrations on container vegetable gardening from the Montgomery County Master Gardeners, crafts, bucket rides in a cherry picker, tree climbing demonstrations, a native plant sale, and several talks, including one on the history of Victory Gardens presented by, you guessed it, Montgomery Victory Gardens! (What can we say, word is getting around!)

Please join us for this great day on Saturday, April 24 from 10am - 2:30pm at the Locust Grove Nature Center. Click here for directions and additional information.



Wheaton's Ed Murtagh and the USDA People's Garden

Who's growing vegetables on the National Mall? The US Department of Agriculture, that's who!

One of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's initiatives is the planting of "people's gardens" at Agriculture Department facilities around the world. The first one was started by Vilsack himself at the department's headquarters at 14th Street and Independence Avenue SW, on the National Mall.

While not an answer to the many food policies we feel need to change at the USDA,People's Gardenthe organic veggie gardens area great start toward thinking about and producing a healthier national diet, as well as a wonderful way to engage visitors (25 million visit the Mall each year!) and motivate their own employees. (Including Wheaton resident Ed Murtagh, who is featured in this piece from the Washington Post, "Agriculture Department Seeds the Way for People's Gardens.")

And motivated to grow food they are: according to the article, as of last week 255 gardens have been established by Agriculture Department workers worldwide, including a vegetable garden on the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in South Korea, with all the food grown at them (almost 30,000 pounds last year) donated to local food pantries and soup kitchens. The DC headquarters filled their required six week Master Gardener class in only 15 minutes - and had to turn away 70 more people. (Interesting that they felt the need to "fly in" experts with so many homegrown experts in the area, but we'll work on that for next time....)

As we at Montgomery Victory Gardens know, it's all about being able to grow your own food (or know the people who grow it for you) - and we're delighted to have the Agriculture Department come on board with that vision!


Why Ronald McDonald Has No Business Talking to Children

It's incredible to think that way back in 1963 Ronald McDonald looked into a TV camera and said:

Ronald McDonald"Hey, isn't watching TV fun? Especially when you got delicious McDonald's hamburgers. I know we're going to be friends too cause I like to do everything boys and girls like to do. Especially when it comes to eating those delicious McDonald's hamburgers."

Since then, this corporate pitchman has gone international. He represents a $32 billion brand, which boasts he is more recognizable than Santa Claus.

Ronald McDonald has also helped create the disastrous national food system we have today in the U.S., and he has done it by taking his advertising directly to little kids.

In this provocative short commentary Raj Patel - activist, academic and author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, and more recently The Value of Nothing - argues that McDonald's should be sued for deceptive practices, and that the whole idea of "advertising" to individuals too young to form rational opinions or judgments about goods and services is an inherently fraudulent business practice.

Click here to read Down with the Clown: Why Ronald McDonald Has No Business Talking to Children.



Another School Planting a Veggie Garden

Pardon us if we sound like a broken record, but as we work to change Montgomery County Public School's anti-veggie garden policy we can't help but keep publishing stories about all the schools across the nation that have figured out the good news of edible gardens.

This latest one is at the Martinelli Head Start Preschool in Watsonville, CA, where a new organic gardening program shows children of low-income families that growing healthy food is fun, easy to do, and it tastes good too. Last month more than 50 parents, teachers and children installed three raised-bed gardens at the preschool, all 100 percent pesticide-free and operated on low-water-use drip irrigation systems.

"When kids have a chance to grow their own food, they're more likely to eat it," said Ana Rasmussen, program coordinator of Mesa Verde Gardens, a new local nonprofit running the gardens at Martinelli. "We have to start changing eating habits before kids enter kindergarten," she added.

Now that's the kind of thinking we could use a little more of here in Montgomery County, huh?

To read about the Martinelli pre-schools new organic veggie gardens, click here.

 

That's it for this week, friends!  Don't forget to send us your feedback, as well as ideas for stories or local food events we can promote, by emailing us at [email protected].


Yours for sustainable local eating in 2010,

Gordon Clark,
Project Director
Montgomery Victory Gardens