Carrie's blog

For a lucky few, crops have already come in. I've been harvesting lettuce from the Plant a Row plot since the beginning of May.

 According to a report published by the Center for Disease Control, childhood obesity rates have stopped climbing for the first time in 20 years. Changes in school lunches or physical activity patterns were offered as possible factors. However, this is no time to let your guard down.

This will be a quick update because we are busier than bees around here!

(Earth Day is Wednesday, April 22! Volunteer for the garden's Earth Day event! We have over 300 children coming and we can always use helpers!)

I'm not sure how many of you remember this far back but... At the end of the summer I posted a blog about a new campaign to turn part of the White House lawn into a Victory Garden. It is official, they're actually doing it! The New York Times posted this article yesterday about the future groundbreaking.

Are you ready to start gardening? We are! Here are a few tips about cold weather plants from the UNCE in Reno.

Planting dates depend upon the plant hardiness. Some vegetables are very hardy and can be planted as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring. Half-hardy vegetables can be planted 2 to 4 weeks before the average last killing frost date of May 15.

Welcome to the whole foods blog! Here you will find updates on Health, Hunger & Nutrition programming at the garden, as well as news, recipes, videos, and all sorts of other cool stuff I find while crawling the web.

The goal of the Health, Hunger and Nutrition branch of the garden is to increase nutritional standards and whole food availability in Winnemucca (and beyond!).

New praise from Michelle Obama reminds us that community gardens have become officially mainstream (and unofficially awesome).

During a visit to the Agriculture Department, Michelle praised plants saying:

"I’m a big believer in community gardens both because of their beauty and for providing access to fresh fruits and vegetables to so many communities across the nation and the world." --Associated Press

The Community Food Security Coalition and the National Farm to School Network hosted a contest for K-12 and college kids to make a video on the prompt: "real food is...". I wish I'd found out earlier so we could have submitted something, but alas alack, at least we can watch every one else's video and vote! The winner gets a ticket to the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference in Portland. Here are a couple of my favorite from the K-12 category:

Being a gardener you probably already knew but now we have scientific proof! The NY Times recently published this article in their health section. I've posted a few interesting tidbits, click the link below for the full article.

"In studies of what is called the hygiene hypothesis, researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with “dirt” spur the development of a healthy immune system. ...

1. Happy Belated MLK Day!

2. Happy Inauguration!

3. Local news covers emerging 'food scene'.

In a recent issue The Humboldt Sun published an article from the American Farm Bureau about a new food blog and e-newsletter they have started. It seems a bit of a food craze is upon is--great news for all of us who've always loved good food. (And if you're reading this blog, that means you!) Here's the intro to the article, follow the link below for the whole thing.