Community Meal and Onion Planting Saturday

The monthly Community Meal to support Veggies for All takes place this Saturday at 5.  Join us at the Community Center on School Street for burgers, beans, fiddle heads , lawn games, and more.

And  help VFA plant onions in the library field at 3pm Saturday. No experience necessary.

Sara Trunzo, Colleague on a Mission

Sara receives her award from President Stephen Mulkey and HR's Mary-Cay Pitre.

At today’s all-employee meeting and State of the College address (more on that later!), Sara Trunzo was recognized with a “Colleague on a Mission” award.  Sponsored by Human Resources, Colleagues on a Mission are nominated by their peers for going above and beyond the call of duty.  And few people manifest the mission of the College in their work quite like Sara Trunzo.  Congratulations, friend!  Well deserved. From her award citation today:

Sara knows better than anyone that successful programs are about successful relationships.  In her own modest way, she has been the bridge between Unity College and a great many external organizations focused on food security, food justice, and sustainable agriculture.  She’s worked her tail off to firmly establish campus and community gardens, and has been the primary administrative support to the hunger relief ag. project Veggies For All — now based at Unity College.  You can’t do food work in Waldo County without eventually teaming up with Sara Trunzo.  We’re lucky she’s made Unity her home and made us her colleagues.

A mid-summer’s virtual tour of VFA

For those of you who can’t tour around Unity with VFA, I suggest you take this virtual tour of our fields to see how we’re progressing.  2011 is gonna be big.  How big?  We’ve got:

• over 2000 row feet of onions
• 2000 row feet of potatoes
• over 1400 row feet of winter squash and pumpkins
• 1800 row feet of early cabbage and 2500 row feet of late cabbage
• and roughly 1800 row feet of carrots

….and miscellaneous crops at our Albion Road garden (including beans, tomatoes, corn, and rutabaga).

If you’re not excited yet, you’re not eating enough vegetables, ’cause this is going to mean tons and tons of fresh food for folks in our community!

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Summer in Unity

Our favorite color is definitely green.

Tim, of VFA, marking rows for wintersquash on our new tractor.

Garden Fiesta Community Meal

Come out to the Unity Community Center to support UBR’s Veggies For All project by eating some fresh, festive Mexican-style fare.  It’s that easy!  Eat some dinner with us on Saturday August 6th (5:30-7:30pm).

While you’re in town, why not check out the sweet show at 8:00pm at the Unity College Centre for the Performing Arts.  Yup, Fishtank Ensemble is back in town.  Don’t you dare miss all the good stuff we’ve got going on in our little town on the 6th!

Sometimes you feel like a potato…

…and sometimes you feel like planting potatoes!  That’s exactly how we felt yesterday.

Yesterday, Veggies For All folks put darn near 600 pounds of seed potato in our plot just south of the Quimby Library.  That translates to just under a half mile of row-footage! Thanks a ton to Marty, Tess, Trey, all the folks who chopped seed potato, and big, big, au gratin-style thank you to Moose Tubers for their continued support!

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Commencement Celebrates Grads. and Local Food

There’s so much to celebrate about Commencement on our small campus.  Of course, we’re all thrilled for our graduates — folks who have dedicated their studies to understanding the natural resource implications of their professional and personal lives.  We in the Sustainability Office are especially excited that this year’s Commencement activities and speakers emphasized the importance of local food and food systems.  Speaker and honorary degree recipient Gary Paul Nabhan reminded the crowd that conservation law enforcement officers,  wildlife biologists, environmental analysts, and sustainable ag. folks alike all do important work to safeguard our food traditions — traditions inextricably tied to the land resources that our graduates are uniquely equipped to steward.  In addition to Nabhan’s good work, Unity recognized the achievements of Samuel Kaymen (of Stonyfield Farm, Sustainable Harvest International, and other fame), MOO Milk, Slow Money Maine, and Veggies for All.

Sara Trunzo and Tim Libby receive VFA's citation.

VFA Project Manager and founder Tim Libby was on hand to receive the recognition from President Mitchell Thomashow.  Tim’s vision for and commitment to food security through sustainable agriculture has had a tremendous impact on this community and he and VFA are most deserving of the recognition.  Unity College’s own Farm and Food Projects Coordinator Sara Trunzo has dedicated much of her recent years at Unity in support of Tim’s great vision.  Sara’s effort has integrated Veggies for All — a project of the Unity Barn Raisers — into our campus operation and strengthened the project’s ties to area agencies and community members.  Kudos to Tim, Sara, and all the folks who support VFA.  And of course to our graduates.  Here’s to another great growing season!

All(ium) hands on deck!

Get it, onions are in the allium family…

Yesterday, Veggies For All planted our first big round of onions.  We got some sweet, strong seedlings from the good people at the Village Farm and planted them with the help of super volunteers.  Volunteers included UC students, two local alums (not to be confused with allium), our Unity Barn Raisers ED, and one robust baby.  Thanks to all!

Onions are one of those crops that really demand our attention and consistency as growers.   While last year was wildly successful for VFA (and all farmers and gardeners), we noted that our onion crop had room for improvement.

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Tiny seeds get started indoors back in March, they are carefully tended for months in the greenhouse.  Our field is tilled, beds built, soil amended, seedlings transplanted.  Then we feed, weed, and water for quite a while in the field.  It’s not over at harvest- we’ll pick, clean, cure, and trim the onions, which will need to be monitored closely in storage.  Our onions are then incrementally released from storage and distributed through the VRFP to our neighbors who have reduced access to food like local onions.

The challenge of growing good onions is a lot like the challenge of growing a healthy community.  It’s takes time, a lot of hands, and a good dose of letting the sun and rain do their good work.

Who’s plowin’ your garden now?

Well, we’ll be plowing our own garden any day now!  Pictured above is our new-to-us two-bottom plow, an Allis Chalmers 80.  Thanks to the VRFP for making the purchase possible and to Don for doing the equipment “matchmaking.”  Stay tuned for word on the delivery of our tractor!

Alan Gerber Concert to Benefit VFA

photo: wn.com

Veggies For All is getting all jazzed up for the 2011 season…and it’s only fitting to kick it off with a benefit concert by Alan Gerber!  The show is at 7:30 3/25 at the Unity College Centre for the Performing Arts.  That’s tonight!

http://waldo.villagesoup.com/ae/story/gerber-does-benefit-concert-in-unity/387153

Thanks to event sponsors Unitel and Unity College, this concert will be FREE with a suggested donation to benefit VFA.  Want to hear some Gerber goods?  Try this track, Feed Myself.  The song is chock full of veggies (like us)!

Head on over to the Scuffle Hoe Diary to stay up to date on what we (and other hunger relief groups) are up to.