Join the Veggielution!

I know that the location of Prusch Farm where the Veggielution gardens are located is pushing the definition of "downtown" but the scope and influence of Veggielution reaches far beyond the farm itself.  I first met the earnest, knowledgeable, Veggielution people at their booth at the heirloom tomato sale.  Their organization began as a mentoring project to help people with backyard organic vegetable gardens in downtown backyards.  It has grown into a large scale educational farm demonstrating best practice organic, sustainable farming methods.  They grow vegetables with the community and for the community.  I have been meaning to go over and work during their two weekly volunteer workdays and yesterday I finally pedaled on over and I WAS IMPRESSED!  There were about twenty volunteers working in the newly acquired, newly planted acre of land.  I settled in and started weeding a row of beans.  I am not a hot weather person and tend to exaggerate how miserable I am in the heat but I'm telling you it was hot, tiring work.  To be fair, I noticed that the young woman working next to me, as well as all the other young workers, looked fresh and cool and not the least bit miserable.  Just when I thought I couldn't take another minute of this grueling work (I did it for about 15 minutes), one of the organizers came over and asked if anyone would like to work on a job in the shade.  I jumped on it.  There were plenty of jobs including pinching flowers from basil, stirring the worm bin, weeding, wrapping twine, sorting seeds and thinning bean plants.  It was really lots of fun to be there with all these people who were excited to be learning about farming and doing good purposeful work.  You can learn more about volunteering by visiting the Veggielution website. I encourage you to read the Veggielution Annual Report to learn more about this fantastic and timely project.  At the end of each work session, volunteers harvest crops and take home plenty of fresh produce.