Houston Community Garden

Hello friends,

Last Saturday, the weather was perfect for a wonderful Pesto Fest-o outside in the bandshell at the nature center. We had 10 different pestos to taste, and they were all so delicious choosing the "besto" was impossible!

3rd place was a three way tie between Ron Evenson (savory mint pesto), Connie Verse (Basil-Beet pesto), and Peggy Kreutzman (kale-chive pesto); 2nd place had a two way tie between Karen Bennett (sun dried tomato pesto) and Audrey Alfson (garlic scape pesto); finally, 1st place was a tie between Ron Evenson (sweet mint pesto) and Audrey Alfson (Cilantro pesto). Whew! Are you hungry yet? (you should have been there!!!)

Roger Meyer's homemade wine remains an all time favorite, as well.

I'm so grateful to him and all the folks who brought in pesto samples and came by to sample, vote and celebrate good food with us! With luck, Ron will send me the recipes for his amazing mint pestos and I'll make them available on the website. www.houstongarden.webs.com

The evenings festivities earned $323.95 in donations for the community garden! Thank you thank you thank you! The money will go toward the cost of putting in a well for the garden.

HELP NEEDED!

We have had a cool summer and enough rain to give us a reprieve from any major watering duties, but there is still lots of summer left!

I will be gone from August 9th - 28th to visit family in Alaska. We need folks to cover the harvest days and any necessary watering and ongoing weeding help during this time.

Right now we seem to be able to keep up with garden growth by harvesting for community on Mondays (for Court and Manor) and Thursdays (for Food Shelf). It's worked well to harvest in the morning around 9 am. usually takes and hour to just harvest, longer if watering needs to be done. On Thursdays, the kids from Hurricane Watch come to the garden to help and usually take the harvest with them and drop it off at the food shelf on their way back to school. (This may change in August, so I need to make sure we have a couple of adults set up for this time)

Box renters: I will place a sign up sheet in the information booth at the garden if you want to sign up for a day in August to help out. Otherwise, please email me and let me know when you can help.

In short, Help is needed in August on Mondays and Thursdays to harvest and other days as needed to water if necessary. Please let me know if you can cover these days for me! If you can help, try to connect with me at the garden before August 9th so that I can walk you though what needs to be done...

Thank you!

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Audrey Alfson,