Media Green Exchange

The past two weekends, the Media Green Exchange was suspended due to rain. We are hopeful that this weekend’s exchange, our last for this fall season, will coincided with cool, bright, fall weather. Please bring your goodies to swap: perennial plants from your yard are an exceptional offer this time of year, as well as any late-in-the-season garden harvest, seeds, canned goods, unwanted houseplants, or even offers of help in preparing your garden for winter. I have mushroom compost to offer, and will bring a sample to the swap. What treasures do you have to share with your neighbors?

Also, we welcome all comers to the next Media Green Exchange organization meeting on Nov. 8 at 7pm. Please contact Shannon at: tatima23@gmail.com for further information about the when, where, and how of the meeting. Come and share your thoughts and enthusiasm about how to make this idea of community building through gardening grow and thrive.

This Saturday will be the second-to-last swap of the season; 10am on the Plum Street Mall. Bring your seeds, perennials and any fall veggies you might still have to trade for other goodies.
On Sunday watch Fresh: The Movie, 7pm at the Delaware County Institute of Science. Hosted by Transition Town Media and Greener Partners, this film explores the sources of our food and the movement towards more sustainable agriculture. Following the film will be a panel featuring local food providers, including a farmer, a store owner and a restauranteur.

The nights are beginning to get chilly, and my worms are not happy about this fact. I’ve spent hours and hours picking thousands of them out of the outdoor bin and placing them into our indoor bin, but now the latter is full and I still have worms freezing their wiggly little tails off.

I love my worms, and want to see them happy. They provide such rich goodness for the garden, turning my kitchen scraps into black gold in mere days. Effortlessly, they provide my plants with the ultimate in nutrition and they do this for free. Have you ever researched what a cubic yard of worm castings costs? A cubic yard weighs about 1100 lbs. If you were to purchase 1100 lbs from this source, you would spend $3300!

So, are there any MGE members who would like to adopt some cold worms and give them a home? Let me know. I’ll bring them on Saturday.

Tomorrow’s meeting, that’s October 4, will be at Amy’s house, 121 Edgemont St. at 7pm. Please email me, tatima23@gmail.com, if you have any questions. We are fans of short, efficient meetings, and we’ll plan to move through our agenda as efficiently as possible.

Last sips of nectar.

We will be deciding how to grow the Plant Swap next spring (and when to end it this fall), what other events and efforts MGE will undertake, such as a January seed swap, sustainable greening efforts in Media, and maybe even a farmer’s market. There are some exciting upcoming collaborative opportunities. Inevitably we will discuss how to organize ourselves. It’s an important meeting, and we hope to see you there.

Marion, what's the name of this beauty?

Today’s swap, what with it being a drizzly October morning, was a small group, but with incredible bounty and great conversation about seeds, butterfly gardens, and community. Marion (of Transition Town Media) brought gems worthy of the envy of a master gardener, Gabe brought his carefully harvested seeds as well as his incredible knowledge about the subject, Barbara brought green peppers, Susanne brought fragrant herbs and other goods from her veggie garden, and I brought the workhorse perennials – bee balm and day lily, as I rearrange things and create new beds. I felt extremely fortunate to walk away with a wagonful of plants.

What a beautiful fall day it was yesterday. And what a great turn out and a great variety of swapping goodness! There were some new faces and some new items to be swapped and even given. Morning Glory and 4 O’clock seeds carefully packaged,counted, and labeled were a big hit thanks to Gabe! Beautiful leaf mulch and moss brought such beauty to the mall thanks to Steph! I walked home with Echinacea (purple comeflower), and a perrenial variety of Ageratum. Thank you Amy!  I also got some Bee Balm that I have been wanting from Shannon. Meg brought yummy Lemon Balm. Can’t wait to make some tea. And Susanne brought a beautiful bouquet of basil. Hello Pesto!!! I again brought Black Eyed Susans and some herbs and flowers. I also had harvested some Hollyhock seeds to share as well as some eggs. What a fun way to start a Saturday!

We’ll be having our weekly swap again, Saturday at 10am sharp on the Plum Street Mall.
Last week I made a delicious thai red curry with the butternut squash and lemongrass that I swapped for my bee balm and hosta.
What have you got in your garden this week?

Maybe some seeds?

Norah and the wagon

I had to miss the first swap today for something as equally as important and fun but I did enjoy packing up the wagon with rudbeckia, a half dozen eggs, mint, oregano, parsley, and a bucket of string beans. I sent the family off to the swap.

And came home to hear tales of fun had by all. Raspberry plants, swiss chard, butternut squash, cherry tomatoes, jalepenos and bay leaves adorned my kitchen and porch.

Chris and the girls had a blast swapping and catching up with friends.

And the best part of all was that Norah wanted to make something with the bay leaves, so she and Papa made a huge batch of tomato sauce. When I got home I was just in time for the taste test. YUM!! What a great day.

Can’t wait for next week’s swap!

I used to go back and forth between wanting to live on a “farmette” and staying where I am in a small town. I do have the luxury of having a farming career and it is always nice to come home to our tiny space. I love our house, and our community and the fact that we can walk or bike everywhere. We have over the years turned our little urban space into our own custom built farmette with chickens, composting, rain barrels, fruit, herbs, vegetables, and flowers. Sometimes I kid with everyone and say “if only we could fit in a sheep or goat.” I am very inspired by Food Not Lawns and other movements which encourage the use of under utilized space for food production. I have been slowly getting rid of most of our grass and turning it into growing space. I have been focusing on even the grass strip between the street and the sidewalk as a place for growing. I have a combination of shade, part shade and full sun so it allows me to grow a bit of everything. I love inter-planting vegetables with perennials and flowers. My goal has been to turn our home and garden into a demonstration plot to show others what one can do with a tiny space. Since we live on a corner, we have many people stop and ask us about backyard chickens, vegetable growing and more. On days when I am wishing for a bit more land and a bit more privacy, I remind myself of what we are teaching others. I love the challenge of trying to fit it all into a small space. I may not have room for a goat, but I am still thinking of roof top gardens and maybe even a small greenhouse!

I’m excited to get together with others interested in sharing the bounty of the season.  It’s great that this is happening in our town!