Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

by Jonah Holland, PR & Marketing Coordinator, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

Award-winning author, Leonard M. Adkins, will speak at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden tomorrow night (Thursday, January 5) at the Virginia Native Plant Society (Pocahontas Chapter) meeting. Adkins, profiled by Backpacker Magazine, and referred to as the “Habitual Hiker,” will present Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains.
Adkins has walked more than 19,000 miles in North America, Europe and the Caribbean.   The Society of American Travel Writers Foundation awarded Adkins the Lowell Thomas Journalism Award for his book,  The Appalachian Trail: a Visitor’s Companion.  

by Jonah Holland, PR & Marketing Coordinator, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

Did you know that you could buy plants and seeds with food stamps? Over 46 million Americans use food stamps —  nearly 15 percent of the population — but many don’t know they use food stamps to buy plants that will produce food for them all summer long.  And while having  a big plot for a garden is a plus,  you can grow food on containers, and even urban rooftop Gardens.  Gardeners tend to be creative types. I’ve seen Christmas lights used in green houses to warm early seeds,  gutters attached to walls of buildings for a creative vertical garden,  and even HGTV has  a story on rooftop gardens:  “No yard? No problem.”

Here at the Garden, we’ve done our best to help produce  fresh, local veggies and deliver them, with our partners, to those who need them most. Each season we  grow nearly 10,000 lbs of greens, squash, tomatoes, califlower, zucchini, peppers, broccoli and more  in our Community Kitchen Garden. Those veggies go to nearby nonprofit, FeedMore, the parent organization for The Central Virginia FoodBank and Meals on Wheels of Central Virginia to feed those who need fresh veggies most, but can’t buy them.

I love how this video from non-profit, Snap Gardens, explains how growing your own food when you are living in poverty is empowering. It offers a way for parents to spend time and connect with their children and to actually teach their children about gardening.  So cool.

The non-profit,  Dinner Garden,  sends starter seeds to anyone who wants them.    Dinner Garden founder, Holly Hirshberg, makes preparing veggies and fruits less intimidating by illustrating how to cut and eat everything from cantaloupe to cucumbers on her YouTube channel.

With the help of a $1,000 microgrant from Awesome Food, SNAP Gardens will start working with The Dinner Garden … to set up a telephone hotline with gardening information. (Simon said that Dinner Garden founder Holly Hirshberg didn’t know about using SNAP benefits for seeds until he told her.) Part of the grant will also pay to include a flyer about using EBT for seeds with every packet The Dinner Garden sends out, with the assumption that many of those requesting free seeds might also be eligible for SNAP.

Or, if you are not a gardener, you might consider using your  SNAP to buy fresh local produce at the Farmer’s Market. Often the prices on veggies at the market are cheaper than the grocery store – especially at the end of the day when the market is closing.  Fresh veggies, weather you grow them yourself, get them at the local farmers market or get them from FeedMore, can’t be beat when it comes to taste & nutrition.

Read more of the article from Grist.

by Albert Brian Vick, Community Kitchen Garden Coordinator,  Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

We’re only about one week away from shutting down the 2011 Lewis Ginter Community Kitchen Garden. We still have some kale and a few red cabbages growing, but it’s likely those will not contribute substantial weight to our total yield for 2011. We’ll end the season with a total yield slightly north of 9,825 pounds of fresh, high-quality produce contributed to Feedmore’s Community Kitchen. While that number falls short of our 10,000-pound goal, we are still celebrating: our 2011 yield represents a 7.4 percent increase over the 2010 yield.

Kudos to the many volunteers who contributed sweat equity to the Community Kitchen Garden over the 2011 season. Your efforts produced a significant benefit for the needy in the Greater Richmond area. In addition, the success of the Community Kitchen Garden was a major factor in the National Medal recognition bestowed on Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden by the Institute of Museums and Library Services.

Here’s some special recognition for those dedicated volunteers who participated in the most work sessions in the garden this season:

by Jonah Holland, PR & Marketing Coordinator, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

A few words published in Sunday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch from the Garden’s President & CEO, Frank Robinson, captured it better than anything else:

It seemed an improbable uniting of people and place. A strikingly beautiful refugee from Southern Sudan, mother of 10, glowingly represented the Erie Art Museum (in Pennsylvania) as it received one of the national medals for “service to the community” from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Through the art museum, Victoria transformed her traditional African dance into a full-time career in her new homeland to support her family.

We were on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in the impressive and somber Cannon House Caucus Room. Cokie Roberts, the renowned journalist, was presenting the keynote address and handing out the 10 coveted awards presented annually by the IMLS and the White House. There was every reason for humility and serious reflection.

It was impossible to miss the tears of pride of the mother sitting in front of me as her son accepted the medal for his employer, the Madison Children’s Museum (in Wisconsin). Benjamin suffered a brain hemorrhage at 7. After years of surgery and learning to walk and talk again, his volunteering at the Museum resulted in his dream job — as a full-time visitors services associate, daily welcoming patrons, young and old alike. When we met later, his warmth and smile immediately showed how perfect he was for the role.

And then, there was Chris…..

Chris Corsello, Lisa Watts, his aide, and Garden CEO & President Frank Robinson

Chris is the Garden’s own volunteer who accepted the National Medal along with Frank Robinson & the Garden’s Chair of the Board, Bill King.  If you have time, click through and read the entire piece.  You’ll be glad you did.

by Jonah Holland, PR & Marketing Coordinator, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

“The water coming out of your kitchen tap is four billion years old and might well have been sipped by a Tyrannosaurus rex,” says author Charles Fishman.

Wow, never really thought of it that way. It certainly does make you stop and think before you sip!

Our fledgling Botanical Book Club got some great news this week when we were contacted by Charles Fishman,  author of the book they are reading, The Big Thirst.  The book club meets today at 11 a.m. in the Lora Robins Library in the Education & Library Complex.  Needless to say, this is going to be a very special book club meeting.

The Garden’s Executive Director, Shane Tippett, will start the meeting by  speaking  for a few minutes about Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s water management plan and our plans to build a demonstration garden to educate the public about what they can do in their own back yard to help keep the Chesapeake Bay clean. Then Mr. Fishman will join the book club conversation for 15 minutes via conference call from Mexico City.

Americans spent more money last year on bottled water than on ipods or movie tickets: $21 billion. A journey into the economics — and psychology — of an unlikely business boom. And what it says about our culture of indulgence.

Gretchen Friday, the book club’s leader and founder says, “We are all thrilled to have been offered the unique opportunity to speak to Mr. Fishman about his book. We are looking forward to hearing his thoughts and being able to ask him questions about The Big Thirst. ”

The Garden’s Botanical Book Club meets the second Friday, every other month at 11 a.m. in the Lora Robins Library of the Education & Library Complex.

If you’d like to learn more about Charles Fishman and his ideas about water, you can also listen to his interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. 
Photos courtesy of http://www.thebigthirst.com/