Work is in progress on the website to keep it current and make it ever more useful. Next steps are to upgrade the security of the site and to add design enhancements enabling electronic forms and payment online by credit card. It hasn’t happened yet. We are taking small steps within the boundaries of the ‘potatoe fund,’ so named by Nora Tebben when we passed the hat to see what we could collect on short notice.
The latest magazine is uploaded; what a beautiful work of art by our new editor, Mary Pat Ford! Dee Welsh is the faithful and tireless webmistress who receives and distributes all general ‘contact us’ forms. It is her handiwork that brings about the updates.
In an effort to give some special attention to the Centennial Projects of Local Food and 100,000 Native Plants, articles by the respective National chairs of each are posted below.
Send us your thoughts!
Farming and gardening with love,
Dee Welsh dwelsh149@comcast.net Susan R. Yeager yeagerrsue@yahoo.com
Webmistress, Ambler Keystone Branch VP & Communications Chair WNFGA, Ambler Keystone Branch
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A DELICIOUS OPPORTUNITY!
Growing, Cooking and Eating Local Food
Local Food – why it matters and what you can do for our Centennial Celebration
By Sandy Heng, Vice President Ann Arbor MI Branch
On many a dark morning I carried a lunch bag and water jug on the way to earn a day’s wages. I know the indignity of squatting down in the fields amidst the toads and dirt clods to relieve myself, the itchy rash caused by sweat-drenched shirt sleeves brushing against vegetation, and the bliss of shade under a canopy of brilliant gold corn tassels.
Gritty and glorious at once, life on the land, raising life from the land, is hard.
The notion of food quality and security is changing from the days of my young adulthood of picking strawberries, cutting velvetleaf from soybeans and walking miles of fertile farm fields. As we look toward our future as an organization, it is instructive to fully understand how we came to be here so we may chart a course to tomorrow.
My parents and their generation survived the depression and the food rationing of the war. Feeding people, maximizing production, making it affordable; they dedicated their lives to making sure they did not allow hunger to knock on their back door again. They brought us lettuce in the winter and made good on the slogan ‘a chicken in every pot.’ They invented irrigation systems to water the lettuce and planted acres of corn to feed the chickens. (Continued) Click ‘Magazine’ on the menu button to see the rest of Sandy’s comments and her lovely photo of heirloom tomatoes.
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The Importance of Native Plants
Suzanne Smith-Oscilowski, Environmental Chair
What Are Native Plants?
They are plants that have been growing naturally in a particular area before humans introduced other plants from distant locations. Native plants typically grow in communities with species adapted to specific soil, moisture and climate conditions.
What Makes Native Plants Special?
- Native plants have deeper root systems that help the soil absorb and retain water.
- Native plants have co-evolved with native insects over thousands of years.
What is the Benefit of Native Plants?
- Low maintenance requirements
- Increase water infiltration
- Important to wildlife
- Beautiful
Find much more information under the menu tab ‘Focuses’ and chose ‘Environmental’
