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,sustainable
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 activities,
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 Agricultural
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.
Another 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,the
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:
"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