GCP's 2008 Fall Newsletter is now published.

Click here for the PDF version of the Newsletter.
Click here to see a snapshot online of the Newsletter.

GCP's biointensive gardening method is all about the soil. NPR's Science Friday discusses why soil is so important. Click here to listen to the broadcast.

07/31/2008 - The best source of good, nutritious food may be your own back yard. Meagan O'Donnell from the Green Corn Project explains the benefits of building a garden. Click here to see the video.

According to the June 2, 2008 Austin-American Statesman, "state health officials are advising that people not eat any raw Roma or full-sized round tomatoes other than those sold attached to the vine or grown at home. Texas is among nine states involved in a Salmonella outbreak linked to tomatoes."

The solution? Grow your own. If you didn't get your tomato crop in the ground in March or April, you can still plant a second crop in late July or early August. Start your seeds indoors now to have a plant large enough to transplant in six weeks.

From the June 5, 2008, edition of the Wall Street Journal:

The Vegetable Patch Takes Root
by Anne Marie Chaken

"More families are looking right under their feet to ease the problem of high food prices.

As consumers balk at the rising cost of groceries, homeowners increasingly are cutting out sections of lawn and retiring flower beds to grow their own food. They're building raised vegetable beds, turning their spare time over to gardening, and doing battle with insect pests.

As mentioned in today's New York Times article, "Banking on Gardening," by Marian Burros, "a growing number of Americans, driven by higher grocery costs and a stumbling economy, have taken up vegetable gardening for the first time. Others have increased the size of their existing gardens."

The article also noted, "Space in community gardens across the country has been sold out for several months. In Austin, Tex., some of the gardens have a three-year waiting list." (Emphasis added)

Check out the latest issue of Edible Austin to learn more about Green Corn Project's demonstration/10th anniversary celebration garden on the banks of Lady Bird Lake. Edible Austin is a "a community-based quarterly publication that promotes the abundance of local foods, season by season." Check their website for where to find the free publication.

In honor of Green Corn Project's tenth anniversary, we installed a vegetable bed on Lady Bird Lake (formerly Town Lake) as a demonstration garden. On March 22, volunteers Roger Mitchell, and Liz and Wayne Kesterson, and I (board member Suzanne Hurley) double dug the bed on the north side of the lake and planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, corn, and herbs donated by Big Red Sun.

In the Green Issue of the New York Times Magazine, author Michael Pollan discusses whether individuals can and should do anything about climate change, then picks one thing that would make a huge difference at all levels: planting a vegetable garden, even if it only grows a small amount of your food: