HomeGrown Directory

The 2008 High Country Farm Tour will be on Saturday, August 2 and Sunday, August 3, from 1 to 5pm each day. Buttons will be sold in advance for $20 and for $25 on tour days. Single-farm visits are $10 per car, per farm. Participants should wear comfortable shoes and bring coolers in case they want to purchase produce, eggs, cheese, meat and other items. The tour is held rain or shine.

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Buttons for the farm tour can be purchased at the following locations: Watuaga & Ashe farmers markets, Footsloggers, Mast store- Boone, Original Mast Store-Boone, BareEssentials, Earthfare, and Spin A Yarn, Weave a Web in Jefferson.

Only one button is necessary for each vehicle, and buttons are good for all farms on both days.

A larger version of the map can be found at: Homegrown Directory.

BRWIA announces the second in a year-long series of potlucks and presentations relating to local food issues. The event will be held on June 10 from 6-7:30pm at the Watauga County Agricultural Conference Center. Bring a dish to share, your own beverage, and join BRWIA in hearing from a panel of local producers of meat products including beef, pork, and poultry. The farmers will describe how they raise their animals and will discuss the pros and cons involved in raising animals on a small scale. There will also be a general discussion about the advantages of purchasing locally produced meats.

BRWIA announces the first in a year-long series of potlucks and presentations relating to local food issues. The first in the series will be held on May 13 from 6-7:30pm at the Watauga County Agricultural Conference Center. Bring a dish to share and join BRWIA in hearing from ASU honor student, Matt Ballard, who will give a presentation entitled, “Canned responses to food insecurity: Proposal of an alternative and just approach”.

Current food assistance programs, although beneficial to low-income Americans, require a better understanding of the context between issues of production (supply) and consumption (demand). The current agroindustrial food system often disenfranchises Americans, particularly those of low-income. These inequities require an alternative approach to improve food security.

Last year, the Watauga County Democratic Party canvassed in a number of areas around Watauga County, and identified a number of needs and concerns, the greatest of which was the need for self-sufficiency and sustainability. Several projects were suggested, but the one that resonated with the largest number of people was the idea of community gardens.
As Watauga county's population has grown and changed, family and subsistence farming has become a vanishing culture. Instead of small gardens dotting the local landscape, food production has become a faceless industry.
A community garden can serve an important role to change that, in both towns and rural areas. It provides a source of high quality food, as most community gardens require organic garden practices. It is a source of low-cost food for low income families and seniors on fixed incomes so they can have access to nutritional meals. It provides a sense of community as people join together to garden. And it helps children form a sense of where their food comes from and feel a connectedness to the land.
To these ends, Community Gardens of the Blue Ridge has committed to and already has possibilities for garden plots in several areas in Watauga County. Gardens in a Habitat for Humanity community and for senior citizens next to the Western Watauga Community Center are already in the works. The gardens would be permanent additions to these locations. We believe that these locations actively express our goals of self-sufficiency and sustainability.
While this project was a Democratic initiative, it has grown far beyond that. Indeed, our core committee is comprised of a wide-ranging spectrum of individuals from diverse religious, political and philosophical backgrounds, ages (students to seniors), and gardening experience (novices to professional gardeners), all working together to nourish bodies, souls and soil.
As with any fledgling project, Community Gardens of the Blue Ridge needs a great deal of help to start out on the right track. While the work of maintaining the gardens will be up to the recipients of the garden plots, our group is charged with providing tools, seeds, plants, wood for raised beds and all the other items that make for a successful garden, and we're asking for your help.
We are open to any suggestions, as well as offers of help.
Sincerely,

Bob Gow

Professional gardener, landscaper

Jasmine ShoShanna

Interim Director

• Garden Sponsorships @ $50, $75, $100
• Hoses
• Spades, forks, rakes, trowels
• Lockable sheds
• Wheel Barrows
• Chicken Wire for compost piles
• Mulch (straw, leaves, cardboard)
• Manure, especially horse, llama, goat & cow manure

Equipment we would like to borrow/ have donated or have you donate time and equipment -

• Tractor
• Roto tillers

• to create self-sufficient people who know how to provide their own food.
• to improve our environment via organic farming techniques.
• to improve our environment via the reduction of the transportation of food to our community.
• to reconnect people to the land.
• to reconnect people with people.
• to revive a vanishing culture.