California Conservation Corps

Thanks to the San Diego branch of the California Conservation Corps (the CCC), the gardens at River Road got a good weeding on Saturday, January 14th. We have had quite a few of our beds overgrown with weeds, especially Bermuda grass, and the CCC made a big impact on getting it out of there! Although Bermuda grass is good for lawns, it is a invasive weed that can quickly take over a vegetable garden. It is amazing how much work can get done by 16 people in two hours!

Thank you California Conservation Corps! For more garden pictures, click the blog title for the Facebook album!

~Abby Weglarz~

~North County Community Services~

~Garden Program & Volunteer Coordinator~

prAna Sale will benefit North County's Food Bank!

Looking for some new outdoor gear or yoga clothes? If you are, you do not want to miss the prAna Warehouse Sale this year. Not only will you get amazing deals on high quality prAna goods (we are talking 50-75% savings), but they are donating 1% of the profits from this sale to North County's Food Bank. You can give back and get great goodies for yourself or holiday gifts at the same time! What could be better? So here are the details:

WHEN:

December 9, 2011 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM

December 10, 2011 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM

WHERE:

prAna Warehouse Sale

3275 Corporate Way

Vista, CA 92081

REMEMBER:

1% of sales go directly to North County's Food Bank!

I hope to see you there!

MiraCosta College Makes a Difference!

Click on the title of this post to see the full album on Facebook!

MiraCosta College Service Learning Department did a complete overhaul of River Road Gardens on Saturday, November 5 for their annual volunteer project, Make a Difference Day. It was possibly our largest volunteer projects in the garden ever, with over 70 MiraCosta students, faculty, and staff volunteering in a single day! We cleared out summer crops and replanted most if it, covering about 600 square feet in new seeds and seedlings. We put in onions, peas, celery, spinach, chard, kale, mustard greens, broccoli, cabbage, cilantro, parsley, garlic, lettuce, and carrots.

It has been two weeks since the project, and now we have lots of baby plants coming up from seeds they planted! Spinach, peas, and salad greens are emerging from the soil, promising a great winter harvest.

This work crew was so positive, energetic, and hardworking. We could use MiraCosta giving back every month! If that is asking too much, I hope to see them next year.

~Abby Weglarz~

~Garden Program & Volunteer Coordinator~

~North County Community Services~

One last Serve-a-thon

Before:

Here at North County Community Services, we are greatly saddened by the news that Volunteer San Diego has shut down. They have helped our organization with projects and volunteer recruitment over the years, and their partnership will be greatly missed. Every year in October, they helped put together projects all across San Diego County, and they called it Serve-a-thon. Even though Volunteer San Diego closed, we went ahead with our planned Serve-a-thon project and it was a great success.

After:

The project was a complete overhaul of the vegetable gardens at one of our preschool sites in Escondido, as well as painting tricycle tracks and playground games. Two organizations came with volunteer support, so thank you to Hewlett-Packard and Teradata! Teradata was also so kind to bring the plants that went into the garden! Our materials for replanting were supplied by a very generous gift card from Home Depot. We planted a full winter garden, including lettuce (my favorite is a green with red-speckled variety called "freckles"), broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, chard, beets, cilantro, parsley, onions, garlic, celery, carrots, and peas.

Click on the blog title for the full picture album on our Facebook page!

~Abby Weglarz~

~Garden Program and Volunteer Coordinator~

~North County Community Services~

Garden fun with Girlscouts troop 4296

With summer coming to a close and the fall season rolling in, it is time to get seeds started for winter crops! Here in San Diego, you can grow many vegetables in the winter that don't like our summer heat, like lettuce and other greens, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, and herbs like parsley and cilantro.

The Girlscouts troop 4296 has been helping out in the River Road Gardens on a regular basis since May, and now they have started a take home project: turning tiny seeds into seedlings for our winter garden! When they bring back the seed trays in a few weeks, the little plants will be ready to transplant into the ground.

The vegetables we grow at the River Road Gardens go directly to our 8 preschool kitchens throughout North County San Diego. Starting seeds and fostering the seedlings for North County Community Services is a great way for kids and adults to give back to their community! Even with fancy seed-starting trays, it is still highly cost effective when compared to buying baby plants.

We also have beds for rent to community members to grow their own food. If you are interested in helping in the gardens or renting a bed, contact Abby, garden program and volunteer coordinator at volunteer@sdnccs.org.

And now, some pictures from Girlscout troop 4296 from June 2011.

Above: The girls take a break for snacks

Below: We learn where potatoes come from

Below: starting seeds in the garden

For the full album, click here!

Fitness in the Garden

Recently, employees from 24 Hour Fitness joined us in the garden for a work party. Having a group of gym professionals in the garden made me curious about how many calories are burned gardening. I found this website that calculates exactly that! I put in my stats and learned that I burn 260 calories per hour gardening. Now, I'm not the fitness expert, so I have no idea what this means, but it sounds pretty good to me!

Want to know what is even more exciting than the calories we burned? The calories we harvested, of course! During 24 Hour Fitness' one day volunteer event on July 19th, they harvested 276.5 lbs of food. If anyone can figure out how many calories that is, let me know. (I'm serious- my email is volunteer@sdnccs.org)

And now, the pictures.

Below: 24 Hour Fitness poses after the volunteer project. The wheel-barrow full of weeds is evidence of their hard work.

Below: A volunteer shows off a monster of a zucchini. No wonder we have harvested 262 lbs of zucchini alone this summer.
Below: A load of Armenian Cucumbers (yard-long cucumber). Used like a cucumber, it is actually a kind of muskmelon, so it likes our So-Cal heat more than your regular 'ole cucumbers.
This volunteer project was made possible by 24 Hour Fitness, bringer of volunteers; and by Cedros Gardens in Encinitas, donor of flowers to replant our beds with.

~Abigail Weglarz~

~Volunteer Coordinator~

~North County Community Services~

Navy Volunteers Visit River Road Gardens!

On July 1 2011, 22 volunteers from a local Navy unit visited North County Community Services child development center and gardens at North River Road in Oceanside. The servicemen and women harvested potatoes with four-year-olds and improved the gardens that raise thousands of pounds of food benefiting hundreds of North County Families. Thank you to all who participated in today's event! Below are pictures highlighting the days events! For a full photo album, click here!

Below: The Navy volunteers gather up for a group shot at the end of the day.

Below: While loading up a wheelbarrow with mulch, one volunteer found a lizard living in the wood chips!
Below: Volunteers weeded, watered, and wrapped two garden beds in plastic in order to solarize them. We will leave the plastic on for about a month, and when we uncover them, all the weeds, including seeds, will (hopefully) be gone!
Below: Volunteers work hard to remove all the weeds from one of the paths in the garden.
Below: After weeding the pathway, Navy volunteers spread out weed-block and wood chips to suppress new weeds.

Below: Four-year-olds from our preschool, show off the fingerling potatoes that they dug up with the help of Navy volunteers!

~Abigail Weglarz~

~Volunteer Coordinator~

~North County Community Services~