Gardens, Gardens, Gardens!
The Spring 2021 BLITZ is over! We have a few stragglers left, but overall this BLITZ we will have 66 more raised bed gardens across Butte County. More on that below…
But first…we need your help. Nature’s Path Organic Foods is giving out 21 grants this year to gardens across the country. Part of the grant application process is to get votes from the community.
We appeal to you to please take a few minutes and vote. The process is a tad wonky but if you copy and past this URL
https://www.naturespath.com/en-us/gardens-for-good/#vecino-victory-garden-by-butte-county-local-food
…then wait a bit. Our garden should come up within about 20 seconds (if it doesn’t you can scroll to Vecino Victory Garden). Then you vote, then you have to confirm your vote via email for it to count. Thanks for showing your support and we appreciate you taking the time to do it. It will mean a pergola, more infrastructure, a pollinator pathway, a childrens’ garden and being able to develop a kids program.
And please joining us at Vecino Victory Garden on April 17 for a Spring Fling Open House. See the end of this email for more information on that event put together by the newly formed Butte County Community Garden Network.
Spring Blitz 2021 is now history
This round of 66 gardens brings the total number of gardens that you, our community, has installed since March 2020 to 169! Wowza!!
Some of the gardens were purchased. Some of them were funded by organizations, businesses and you. All of it exists because we have an amazing community that is growing food together more and more each month.
Thanks to all who volunteered your time, energy and love for your community. We could not have done it without you! You showed up with your trucks, your backs, your smiles and your patience. We had all ages and walks of life there: Seniors, Girl Scouts, families, old friends and lots of new ones.
We want to thank 530 Permaculture Farms (in Oroville) and Jessica and Mike Mackenzie (in Chico) for opening their spaces for the staging areas. It’s no small thing to have soil, lumber, people, cardboard and all it takes in your yards for a week plus! We’d like to thank Chico Natural Food Cooperative for having the BLITZ be the Round Up program this month and for the tasty snacks they provided. Thanks to Payless Lumber for giving us a discount on, what we are learning, is very difficult-to- come-by lumber. Thanks to the Oroville Center For Spiritual Living for donating gardens to folks in Oroville!
And…as we turn our gaze toward the Fall BLITZ, we want to thank North Valley Mutual Aid and the Lundberg Family Foundation/North Valley Foundation for their generous contributions that have jumpstarted the Fall scholarship fund so that 40 families will be able to get gardens in September. Let’s see how many gardens we can get more funding for! If you know of an organization or individual that would like to donate gardens, let us know by replying to this email with your creative ideas. We’d like to stretch ourselves and do 100 gardens across the county next round. We believe we can do it with the ongoing support of your time, your energy, your heart and, if able, your donations. (just be sure to click the scholarship fund on the donation page). We LOVE this community!
Spring Fling in the Gardens
The community gardens of Butte County have recently come together in a loose collaborative relationship to join hands and encourage our community to both work at, and get healthy food from, our local Community Gardens.
We are calling ourselves the Butte County Community Garden Network. Our launch event will be April 17. Most of the gardens are participating at this event. You just have to visit the Garden’s page and find out their Fling times and what they will be offering.
Our Sem-Public Vecino Victory Garden has decided it would be fun to do a casual open house. We are located at 1535 Laburnum Ave and will open the garden from 10-4. We’ll have smattering of fun activities throughout the day, but are mostly opening up to invite the community in to see where we are, where we are going and how we’ll get there. You can join us most Sundays from 9-noon, but due to the Fling that weekend we’ll not be there on the 18 th .
Our schedule for the `17th:
10 Greetings, Play In The Garden
11 Garden Tour
11 Children’s Art Activity
12 BYO Bag Lunch
1 Cooking Demo with Toni and Anika
2 Children’s Garden Story Time
3 Garden Tour
3 Botanical Mocktail Hour
Bring your smiles, a bag lunch and a bucket of compost, if you want, to christen our new Neighborhood Composting Center!
We invite and encourage you to check out the other Community Gardens
in Chico, Paradise and Oroville.
Check in closer to the date at our FB event page for other gardens’ schedules and updates but for now we have info on:
Sol Sanctuary – 4/17/21 – 11am – 1pm- 4791 Round Valley Ranch, Paradise
Bring a brown bag lunch, hat, water, work gloves, and shovels
We will be making compost – Bring your green waste from you house
Possibly planting and other garden maintenance
Green Paradise Garden- 8am-2pm – 6201 Skyway, Paradise
Will be building raised beds, digging a trench for water pipe to garden, breaking up the ground, hopefully digging some holes for fencing. We are going to feed them lunch with Green Paradise Cafe on Wheels, and working on some other things.
Oak Way Community Garden- Butte Environmental Council. 11am-2pm Hwy 32 and Nord, in Chico
“We are inviting our gardeners and friends to enjoy a few hours of camaraderie and teamwork, put on your gloves, and “chip” in on some garden improvement projects. We anticipate cleaning up our pathways, covering paths with wood chips, getting garden beds prepped, working on the composting piles, and more! We will have music and may have some refreshments, but suggest packing your own picnic. We will maintain COVID-safe practices and be sure to keep an appropriate distance from each other. We look forward to you and a few friends joining us for a productive day! For more information about Oak Way Community Garden, including how to become a sponsor, visit “www.becnet.org/community-garden.”
Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for voting and hope to see you decide to come Fling with a Community Garden near you!
Pamm and the Gardening Gang at BCLFN.
We are grateful that the Butte County Local Food Network is powered by:
