Saturday, May 22, 2010

Eat More Dirt

Hope you don't mind the post title, but that is the name of a great new book on organic gardening that I'm reading right now.  "Eat More Dirt: Diverting and Instructive Tips for Tending an Organic Garden" is an entertaining resource with great tips and you sure can't beat the title! :)

This past week we were thrilled to have the garden filled with volunteers and they made short work of a field full of weeds.  (The composted area had lay unplanted as we worked on other areas of the garden but quickly seeded itself with life, as good soil will).  We later learned that the particular weed, "lamb's quarters" are actually a nutritious foraged edible that you can purchase by the pound at some health food stores!  (We'll be sure to collect some to try next time we weed!). 

Thanks again to the folks at www.digmyearth.com for the donations of free or discounted compost and the wonderful ladies from the YWCA and our two local girl scout troups.  We appreciate you all so much! Our loaner truck is filled to the brim and ready to be used today when we head out to the garden to plant peas and work on some weeding with our volunteers.

Here are some pictures from last week:







Worms love good dirt



Our wonderful volunteers






Before the weeding (we could have called it harvesting, really) ;)


The field, after everyone's hard work, ready to plant!





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3 comments:

  1. I recently read an article that children should eat a pound of dirt during their childhood for a healthy immune system-- I totally agree! Maybe a pound is an exagggeration, but a little dirt is probably good for their little beliies! (and hand sanitizer is NOT!)

    I've been reading about your community garden project, and I wish you nothing but this best in this endeavor! It's so encouraging to hear about people being proactive to make big differences in little ways in their communities.

    Speaking of community gardens, I am off right now to ride my bike to my tiny little garden plot at the park around the corner run by the Sufi community here in our town. In case youre not familiar, Sufism is a liberal branch of Islam, and there is a sizable following of them in our town. They do alot here in terms of education about sustainability. In addition to a natural foods store, organic farm, and vegetarian coffeehouse/restaraunt, they also run 2 school (one for 2-6, one 7 and up). The younger 'school' was absoltuely amazing, but we had alot of problems when my son moved up to the "Homeschool Co-Op". Religious issues that we were very uncomfortable with. Wonderful people and they do some wonderful things, but there is an undeniable cult-mentality that is often downright alarming. Anyway, I'm getting WAY off subject, but perhaps you've found this all interesting! Amazing how talking about eating dirt can lead to talking about cultishness!

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  3. Thanks for visiting! We are grateful that the garden gives us a chance to connect with people from so many walks of life. It is neat to see how many more similarities we have than differences and so much fun. Have a great day.

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