Friends and Supporters,
We had a good day yesterday with 9 volunteers contributing 30 hours of service. This brings the weekly totals to 11 volunteers contributing 44 hours. Special thanks to Donna, Claudia, Clarissa, Amelia, Barb, Laina, Brandi, Ken, Shelly, John and Bob.
This week the monthly donations increased to $245. Please consider $5 per month. You can donate easily on our website donate page at Monthly Donation. You can do so without paying any fees or without MH paying any fees.
Also, this week we received $400 in Memorium of Jay Laing Toutenhooft (1945 to 2022). Contributors were Jon and Ann Keckonen, Sue Toutenhoofd and Bob and Susan Patterson-Sumwalt.
On Saturday volunteers harvested 175 lbs. of produce which went to College Court, volunteers and neighbors. Also, we planted 22 of our 85 beds with buckwheat and Austrian field peas as a ground cover. To date we have harvested 2,229 lbs. of produce.
A new volunteer, Shelly came by on Saturday and told me a lot of information about monarch butterflies. She informed me that monarchs like to be where it is quiet and still. They arrive at Mulberry Hill around 5:30 pm by flying over the wall from the north. When they are done feeding and laying eggs, they fly back over the wall to roost somewhere in trees. She also told me about spiders who like to eat monarch eggs and showed a spider nest in one of our milkweed plants. Shelly is also into collecting and drying flower heads for seeds. You can see a picture of the said spider and zinnia heads drying in the pictorial display for this week on our website.
I saw an article on tv this morning on Matter of Fact by Soledad O’brien. It was about a composting non-profit in Brooklyn called BK Rot. They sell a service where couriers on bicycles collect food waste and then compost it by mixing with wood chips. They then sell the finished product. This is something that MH can do once we complete the compost yard where we will have multiple compost/worm bins. This can also be a practice for our Urban Agriculture Science Academy students. With this effort we can teach entrepreneurial skills in addition to plant science, landscaping, good work habits, etc. Any income produced by the students would go directly to those students involved. We will soon launch a fund campaign to finance the start of the academy in our third season.
Thanks to all for your interest and support of Mulberry Hill!
