Greetings, earthlings. I’m here to tell you about a flotilla (buzzword!) of green events sailing into your weekend and beyond.
Number one, Saturday is Dots Day at the City Market. That’s Dots as in Connect. The idea is to bring people together around the eat-local movement, connecting eaters to farmers and citizens to orgnizations. Between 8am and noon, look for booths housing folks like Blue Ridge Backyard Harvest and the Buford Schoolyard Garden Project. And wear polka dots! For real. All the cool kids will be doing it.
Number two, Saturday is also National Trails Day and Clean the Bay Day, when you get to prove your love for our local footpaths and watershed by helping clean up the Rivanna Trail and River from 9am to noon. You’ll meet up at Riverview and do projects like trail building, river cleanup, and invasive plant removal between there and Darden Towe, but it’s not all sweat—there are also guided hikes, tubing, and free lunch. Sounds like fun to me.
Number three, next Thursday (June 10) is your chance to learn about keeping bugs out of the garden during a workshop out at Maple Hill Farm, the educational farm of the Local Food Hub. The session runs 4:30-7pm and costs $40—more than worth it if you learn a secret that saves your potato crop. Personally, I’ve got something eating my broccoli plants that I’d love to see vanish. (This workshop is part of a series—email the Hub if you want the full schedule.)
Number four, there’s a Facebook group that just started whose aim is to connect local people interested in community gardens. Here you go. Join if you like, find other civic-minded gardeners, and let me know when the tomatoes come in.
Got more we should know about? Put ’em in the comments!