• Braeburn Court - took us on a tour of their vegetable and flower gardens. The vegetable garden was created by a 90 year old resident named Amel several years ago who had a passion for gardening. The garden has been named in memory of him and residents continue to use the garden and grow lots of food! Colored in impatiens and snapdragons the beautifully manicured flower gardens are mainly taken care of by volunteers from RSVP. Braeburn learned of RSVP volunteers by coming to a CFGN meeting.  In the fall, their apple orchard will be producing more apples than they can use. Ashleigh and Beth plan on taking a kids group from Julia Weaver's PromiseKids Garden to pick apples and make apple butter this fall.
• Focus Corp - they are moving ahead with their golden idea to convert a school bus into a greenhouse. Deb Allen is spearheading the project and has been looking for possible funding sources. She may have located some through the Unviersity Agriculture Department. Another option may be to incoporate it with a Service Learning project through the UW Morgridge Center. If you have ideas for the project, please get in touch with Deb. The garden at Focus Corp continues to thrive, both participants in the program and staff are amazed.
• PromiseKids - they are building a rain garden, the plants are getting tall! A set of compost bins were donated to the garden.
• UCP- Ginger reports that she has knows of a graphic designer who recently graduated who is going to design the pamphlets for CFGN,
• CAC VISTA programs - Beth and Ashleigh are organizing two major workshops this fall. The first is an accessible gardening confrence that will be publicized state wide with Gene Rothhart (hopefully!) as the keynote speaker. With the help of teachers and staff at Olbrich Gardens, they are also planning an inservice for teachers on school gardens and environmental education. 
• Community Food and Garden Network t-shirts are still available for only $10 each, contact Beth or Ashleigh for your shirt.
• Next CFGN meeting is scheduled at Troy Gardens, you won't want to miss it!

  

Beth Holtzman
Americorps VISTA
Community Action Coalition
Garden Program
Madison, WI
(608) 246-4730 ext.238

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