Dear Stamfordians,
This is the big week for Stamford Growing Thyme Garden Camp AND the HarveStamford community dinner! There are 25 Stamford campers and several parents who have been meeting every week and learning about foods and gardening, and Wednesday is our last day of camp! It has been wonder-filled! We will be harvesting vegetables from the Gardens, including lots of potatoes, basil, green peppers, hot peppers, kale, chard, and other possibilities (tomatoes are still green)…Now, it is time to put it all together and celebrate our community on Saturday August 17 at 5pm, as you all know.I would love it if everyone could contribute even a single cuke or tomato, so that we can make a vegetarian vegetable Stone Soup and a potato salad, and if enough veggies show up we will turn them into a salad.
I also hope everyone can attend on the 17th! Bring your friends, families and any strangers you haven’t met yet in town! I would also like to ask you to help out in any way or time that you can spare with the following:
a. bring ANY organically raised vegetables you can share to Helen’s or I can come pick up, by Tuesday afternoon, to be used at the last day of CAMP on Wednesday. We are going to learn to hold a Farmers Market and need a variety of veggies. Any not used by camp will be in the fridge until Friday and/or Saturday, when we (I and anyone who wants to help) will make a mixed vegetable soup, which could be predominantly tomato if any show up!Kids will also harvest one bed of potatoes, and we welcome anyone else who has grown their own organic potatoes to bring them and cucumbers, in particular.
b. come at any time you are available, on Friday or Saturday, to work in the kitchen OR gardens (pruning, tying up tomatoes, sweeping, etc.) to get them ready for Saturday. That could mean chopping vegetables, stirring soup, slicing cukes or tomatoes, or pruning tomato plants. I will be starting at 6:30am on Friday.
c. Help set up or clean up Saturday afternoon and then evening.
d. come down to see the gardens (we are hoping for a wagon ride; porta-potties are on site) on Saturday either before or after the meal.
NUTSHELL: please contribute your veggies and time at your convenience, if able to do so.Next Step: email me and let me know what you can bring, and when, and if you can help out at any time.
Contact me to let me know when you are available, and I will give updates of what there is to do!
n.b.: I will also be interviewed Wednesday afternoon by Libby Wieland, a Board Member of NEGEF and Education Trainer with VCGN (our two grantors).She has recruited me to be a volunteer Ambassador for Vermont Community Gardens Network, and this is an exciting venture.She will be looking at the gardens and participating in camp that day. (nervous laughter here) (we have been working together for years on school garden programs…)
Wish us all good luck! Looks like the weather may be with us on both Wednesday and Saturday at this point.
Call or email (or text!) if you have questions…Helen
