Workday #1: What a great day!

Today was incredible to say the least. We had a great crew come out for the tour and garden workday. We worked for a couple hours and harvested over 40lbs of vegetables (our largest amount ever), and we were able to weed and organize many other areas of the garden. We did so much in just two hours. It makes a huge difference when we have a large group out there. Great work!

If you weren't able to make this workday, have no fear. We have workdays multiple times every week, and I'm usually out there every day of the week, if you want to stop by. We'll keep you updated through emails about wordays etc.

Back to School Update!

Welcome back Sprout!

The garden is in full swing at the moment. We're harvesting more than ever. Almost every day we've been delivering some assortment of tomatoes, squash, basil, parsley, and cucumbers with MANY MORE fruits on the way! We're still going after the woodchucks, insect pests, and powdery mildew, but the garden looks very happy!

We have many events lined up including one today. A Learning Lunch hosted by Sprout!, Dining Services, and the Health Peer Educators. It is at 12:45 in the 1973 Room in Harris. Come to learn about your resources for food on and off campus as well as tips for eating healthy. There will be more events like this coming up this semester.

The New London Farm-to-City Initiative had its second meeting last week. With another great attendance we were able to keep our momentum going. We have set up a website http://nlfarm2city.weebly.com and now a Google Group to serve as a central point for our information gathering and communication. If you would like to get involved or have questions about this initiative please email sprout@conncoll.edu.

New London Farm-to-City Forum #2

The initiative will be having our second meeting this coming Wednesday at 6pm at the New London Public Library. We had a tremendously successful meeting in July and we're very excited to keep this momentum going into our next meeting.

Click here to check out our newly constructed website for more information about this initiative and our next meeting.

Jiǔcài (Garlic Chives)

On Monday, Aug 4, 2008, I planted Garlic Chives, also known as jiǔcài, Chinese chives, Chinese leek, and ku chai. The scientific name is Allium tuberosum. The plant has straight thin leaves that are some where between garlic and onion leaves. It gives off a very distinct smell, and in its adult hood tends to be very fiberous.

Jiǔcài is used in many chinese dishes, dumplings, soups, chinese pancakes, fish, chive pockets, fried dishes, because of its distinct flavor.

David Wu
Assistant Gardener
Enviromental Sustainability Intern
Goodwin-neiring Center

Week 9 Update

The garden is looking great right now. We finally had strong rains this past weekend. It probably totaled a handful of inches. I haven't had to water all week.

The woodchucks are not gone. I found another one in there yesterday eating the kale, which had been starting to recover. The traps are still set and I also have the surveillance camera still set up to see when the animals come in, and if there are deer.

Vegetables now going to Harris: radishes, turnips, tomatoes, watermelon, peas, beans, cucumbers, summer crookneck squash, zucchini, basil, parsley, and nasturtium flowers. More coming soon!

Clockwise from top left: purple podded peas, a sunflower and potatoes, cherry tomatoes, onion.

The New London Farm-to-City Forum on Wednesday night went very well. We had over 30 people show up from all of the stakeholder groups that we were hoping for. We had very productive discussions and advice from CitySeed as well. We will be posting more information including a video of the meeting soon.