Veggie Pizzas

Students from the SPIN program came out today and made delicious veggie pizzas using some of the produce that was harvested form the Giving Garden. (Click here for the recipe that the kids followed today). While this is the last time for the students to help out before school begins, the students and their families are encouraged to stop by at any time to check on the progress of the Giving Garden. The kids also presented RCS with a large tomato thank you card signed by evryone that is hanginin in the RCS lobby.

An RCS staff member will be contacting the SPIN students this fall so that they can come back and help “roll out” the potato barrel’s that they created back in July. Thanks to all the SPIN students for you help with the Giving Garden this summer and we will see back you soon!

QUITE CONTRARY!

Pioneer Press 08-12-2009
By Bob Shaw bshaw@pioneerpress.com

If lawns had legs, they would be running scared.

This summer, volunteers are tearing up the manicured lawns of corporations, replacing them with "giving gardens" to raise produce for the food shelves.

Click here for the full Pioneer Press story on the RCS Giving Garden!

Students Donate to Local Food Shelf

Today students from the Stillwater Spin program harvested some of the vegetables from the RCS giving garden. The students then came inside and weighed and logged each type of produce using a digital scale. A total of 42 lbs of produce was harvested and donated! The kids decided to have some fun with the scale and all jumped on and as you can see from the photo below, we had 531 lbs of kids working in the Giving Garden today!

The Students then headed out to the Valley Outreach Food Shelf to drop off the 42 lbs of fresh produce, tour the food shelf with staff members and get a better understanding of how their efforts are helping those in need.

U of M Master Gardeners Visit

Yesterday, Master Gardener's from the University of Minnesota's Extension Program paid us a visit to check on progress and continue their mentoring. While walking near the squash plants, they noticed that some of them had a "powdery mildew" that we will have to end up treating with an organic fungicide. Never would have seen that had the experts not been out here! Thank you to our Master Gardeners. To read more about Master Gardener's working in Washington County click here.


Tricia Jorgenson, Karen Thielman, Ron Pierce, Paul Richtman