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Bigfork/Ferndale Community Garden 2014 Update

Monday, September 8th, 2014

by Catherine Haug, Sept 8, 2014 (photo, below, by Sally Finneran/ Bigfork Eagle, used with permission)

Bigfork/Ferndale Community Garden, 2014

Bigfork/Ferndale Community Garden, 2014

The garden is located next to St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, near the corner of Hwy 209 and South Ferndale Road in Ferndale. ESP helped start the garden in 2007, and a member of our core team – Mona Rae Tuhy – is the Master Gardener. This project has come a long way since its humble beginnings, with seventy-two 4X4 Square Foot Gardening plots actively maintained (2).

Participating in the community has several benefits; you can:

  • Grow your own food or flowers;
  • Grow food for the Bigfork Food Pantry (see below for more);
  • Participate in the  gardening community that forms naturally between the members, making new friends;
  • Help less experienced gardeners or get help from more experienced gardeners.

If you are interested in buying a plot for next year, contact Garden Chairperson Michelle Patterson (406-837-0982) or Master Gardener MonaRae Tuhy (406-837-9979). Plots cost $15 for the season if purchased before June 1, 2015; after that date, the price is $20.

See also related article in the Bigfork Eagle, by Sally Finneran: Community garden thrives in Ferndale (1) (more…)

Posted in Community, Community Garden, Gardening | Comments Closed

Sharing your garden’s bounty with local food pantry

Sunday, September 7th, 2014

 

Cat's First Garden: Lettuce, Spinach, Garlic and Onion

Cat’s First Garden: Lettuce, Spinach, Garlic and Onion

By Catherine Haug, September 7, 2014 (photo, right, of Cat’s first garden, by Cat)

Many of us in the Flathead valley have gardens (or participate in a community garden). At the same time, many are going hungry. There’s a great program that connects these two groups in the same community: Ample Harvest.

Mercola featured this in an article this week (1), that includes an hour-long YouTube video about Ample Harvest, with Gary Oppenheimer (2). Mercola’s emphasis in his article is two fold:

  • the ‘feel good’ aspect of helping to feed the hungry; and
  • solving food waste.

If you’re like me, you grow more food than your family can eat. What do you do with the excess? I give to neighbors and friends, but there is still food left over which inevitably ends up in my compost pile to nurture next year’s garden. While this is better than throwing it in the garbage, there is a better use for your leftover bounty.

Read on for a program to minimize food waste and hunger in your community, and about the partnership between the Bigfork/Ferndale Community Garden and the Bigfork Food Pantry. (more…)

Posted in Community, Food-Nutrition-Health, Home & Ranch, Local Food System | Comments Closed

Major grocery manufacturers pledge to clean up their act – but not totally

Saturday, August 23rd, 2014
Chicken Factory

Chicken Factory

By Catherine Haug, August 23, 2014 (photo, right, from Factory Farming.com (3))

Take Part news blog reports that three major grocery manufacturers pledge to force positive changes in their supply chain, affecting animal cruelty and climate change. But they have so far refused to force another needed change; can you guess what that is? (more…)

Posted in GMO, Home & Ranch | Comments Closed

GMO vanilla in ice cream and other desserts

Friday, August 22nd, 2014
Frankenfood

Frankenfood

By Catherine Haug, Aug 19, 2014 (Image, right, used by permission from Organic Consumers Association

Vanilla is a wonderful flavor for baked goods, yogurt, puddings and frozen desserts like ice cream. Until recently, we had the choice of natural vanilla extract from the vanilla bean, or imitation vanilla (an industrial duplication of the vanillin component of the vanilla bean). But now there’s a third option – synbio vanilla – used in commercial products like ice cream , and is genetically engineered by a computer.

Haagen Dazs, one of the largest “natural” ice cream companies int he U.S., prides itself on natural vanilla, but it has not yet committed not to use synbio vanilla. Friends of the Earth have a petition to Haagen Dazs; if this interests you, see reference (1) below. To learn more about this new technology, read on. (more…)

Posted in Food-Nutrition-Health, GMO | Comments Closed

GMO Alert: New GE Crops to be Approved

Tuesday, August 19th, 2014
Frankenfood

Frankenfood

by Catherine Haug, August 19, 2014 (Image, right, used by permission from Organic Consumers Association)

You have undoubtedly heard that as the growing of Roundup-resistant crops increases, the number of Roundup-resistant weeds increases as well, which in turn requires increased spraying of these GMO crops with Roundup and other herbicides. It’s a vicious circle. It isn’t just herbicides, but also pesticides and GMO species resistant to the effects of these pesticides that are increasing.

Monsanto, et.al., come to the ‘rescue’ by developing new chemicals and GMO varieties resistant to them, so that the toxic load of ag sprays on these crops increases as well. And, of course, these new chemicals and GMOs are approved before longterm studies on their safety can be completed.

Two new GMO crops and related new herbicides are awaiting approval: (more…)

Posted in GMO, Organics | Comments Closed

Avoiding, treating mosquito bites

Saturday, August 16th, 2014
From Wikimedia commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aedes_aegypti_E-A-Goeldi_1905.jpg

Mosquito

by Catherine Haug, August 16, 2014 (Image, right, form Wikimedia Commons)

Those dreaded bugs of summer – mosquitos – can drive you crazy and almost make you long for winter. Not only do their bites itch incessantly, but they can also spread disease like encephalitis, yellow fever, malaria, West Nile virus, and dengue. What can you do? (more…)

Posted in Health, Kitchen Hints, Remedies | Comments Closed

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