Cultivating Community Summer and Fall 2011

Now that Mother Nature is settling in for winter hibernation in Michigan, we have some time to enjoy the harvest, eat lots of food, cuddle by fireplaces, and look back on the season.

Here is a taste of how we worked to cultivate community this past summer and fall:

Ginsberg Garden Workdays, thanks to everyone who volunteered!!!

Harvesting potatoes, planting garlic, cleaning up the garden, jumping on the compost to compress it

Giant cabbage

Yum! Kale (top right) was our winning producer this summer!

Harvests!

We were able to share our harvests with others in the Ann Arbor community by donating produce to Food Gatherers, which is an organization that rescues food, cooks meals, and provides tons (literally tons) of food to those in need.

Focused Hands Garden, Detroit!

During the summer, we ran a weekly gardening activity for kids, where they learned how to care for their garden and how to make snacks from the food grown in the garden.

Detroit Urban Ag Tour!

Catherine Ferguson Academy, a school for teenage mothers, has a farm and a horse in the middle of the city.

Green Things Farm!

We helped harvest onions at Green Things Farm which is part of the Tilian Farm Development Center, a farmer-incubator program close to Ann Arbor.

Pickling Workshop!

Using cucumbers, dill, jalapeños, onions, and spices from the garden!

Late Summer Blueberry Picking!

Fall Raspberry Picking!

Almost-Halloween Apple Picking!

Pepper Preservation Workshop!

To preserve our bounty of jalapeños, we tied them up to dry.

Sunseed Farm Volunteer Day!

We helped harvest winter-storage crops, beets, carrots, and rutabagas, at the beautiful Sunseed farm.

We are thankful for all of the food and fun times we enjoyed with Cultivating Community this season, and look forward to an equally awesome winter!

Our giant pumpkin jack-o-lantern says, "Happy fall!"

We think that the giant pumpkin was actually a hybrid giant pumpkin X winter squash due to its curvy shape and stripes.