Check out our new Events Calendar to see all our upcoming gardening workdays and events.

​In this hands-on workshop we will learn about and help construct an AERATED compost system. This type of system can produce beautiful pathogen free and weed seed free soil in a short period of time. This workshop is limited to 20 participants. Please sign up in advance here to attend: ​https://docs.google.com/.../1-mSU0Hq1t94g2kBV1abo.../edit...
These workshops presented in conjunction with The City of Asheville.

Pearson's New Growing Space!
 Bountiful Cities has been gifted a beautiful glass greenhouse from the Sovereign Oaks Community in Asheville. We will be relocating it and installing it in our Pearson Garden and Nursery in Montford. At this garden we grow out plants to share through our Community Garden Network. Free plant starts enable communities to get a jump start on the growing season and grow as much food as possible.
We need your help! Moving and reconstructing a greenhouse is an exciting and expensive project. Please support us as we support the community. Donate to our Greenhouse at Pearson Project and get involved in growing food, and building climate resiliency for our community.

​This month in the Bountiful Cities FEAST program, Fourth graders at Lucy Herring Elementary completed a nearly year-long project following the cycle of the potato. These potatoes represent a lot of firsts for this group of kids. Back in April as 3rd graders, they planted these potatoes during their first in-person FEAST class after a year of virtual learning. Then back in September, they harvested these potatoes during their first FEAST class as 4th graders. And during their first FEAST class of 2022, they packed them into paper bags with some rosemary, sage, and garlic also grown in the garden and excitedly brought them home to cook for dinner. School COVID policies may prevent us from cooking in FEAST classes, but it won't keep us from getting kids excited about growing and cooking vegetables at home!

​Our End of Year Fundraising was a Success!
Our goal was to raise $10,000 to support our programs at the end of 2021, and with lots of community support we surpassed that goal and raised $11,692! This will help us grow climate resilience and long-term food security in 2022. Our programs impact the community in a multitude of ways. This is just some of what we do:FEAST - School-based cooking and gardening education.
Asheville Buncombe Community Garden Network - Over 30 community gardens with access to our tool library, seed library, and free hands-on educational workshops. 
Windfall Collective Plant Nursery - Growing out seedlings to support community gardens and local urban agriculture. 
Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council (ABFPC) - Coordinating across multiple organizations to support local sustainable agriculture policies. Bountiful Cities serves as the fiscal agent for the ABFPC.

The Community Garden Network Seed Library is going through some changes this year!
The Seed Library is a series of shelving units containing free seed packets. In the past the majority of those seed packets were donations from companies like Sow True Seed and High Mowing. We have been working to create more Seed Library locations around the city and also to include more community growers interested in saving seeds at their own gardens to stock libraries, to create a free inter-community seed network.

There are several new locations of seed libraries that can be accessed around town.
There is still a location at the Burton St Peace Garden, with new Sow True seed packets.
The Stephens Lee Center has also started an independent seed library project that will be partnering and sharing resources with our CGN library. 
There is a small seed library shelf in the free food pantry at the Shiloh Community Garden. All the seeds in that shelving unit were saved from that community garden this past year.

The Lucy Herring Garden at Vance Elementary School has also begun Saving Seeds from their garden this fall for the new seed library locations.
The Windfall Collective has a seed farm at the Pearson Community Garden and they have been saving seeds from medicinal herbs this year to help the different seed library locations.

The Utopian Seed Project will also be involved, providing education on how to plan a garden for seed production, and seed saving basics.

This is a continually growing project. Any community growers who would like to participate in saving seeds for the library from your land or community centers interested in housing a seed library location please let us know! 
lydia@bountifulcities.org

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 Did you know that ladybug larva look like that?! And they are getting ready to hunker down for the winter with other insects like fireflies. They’ll stay warm and be ready to emerge in the spring. The best thing to do if you want to have lots of beneficial bugs like ladybugs and fireflies is LEAVE your LEAVES   You can pile them in your yard, or just let them fall  In the garden you can let tall stems stay to encourage praying mantises to leave their eggs for spring. But if you really do want your yard debris-free, call Bountiful Cities Grass to Greens (G2G) 828-775-0614 and we’ll come pick up your leaves and compost them for school and community gardens. 
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​Meet Ms. LaKyla, the new Bountiful Cities FEAST Program Assistant at Lucy S. Herring Elementary! LaKyla is finishing up her senior semester at Warren Wilson College where she is studying Environmental Education. She brings to us her enthusiasm for working with children and engaging them with food and nature. She also loves curling up with a good book and her cat, Sprout. 
The Herring Elementary FEAST garden is planting a new pollinator garden in the dappled shade of our plum trees! We are collecting divisions and seeds for native plants including: phlox, coreopsis, ferns, bee balm, day lilies, turtlehead, brown eyed susan, mountain mint, fire pink, cardinal flower/lobelia, foam flower, green and gold, asters. Please contact Jordan@bountifulcities.org if you have anything from your garden that you would like to contribute!
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​We need 1-2 folks with some experience laying paving stones to help lay pavers for the Herring Elementary Garden Greenhouse floor. We have done the hardest part of installing the gravel and stone dust base- all you have to do is place the stones. We will work on this during the Thursday workdays, and can also train you so you can come at your convenience on evenings/weekends.
The goal is to finish this project by Oct 31 so we can use this space for our outdoor classes during the winter months! Please contact Jordan Diamond, garden coordinator, for info- Jordan@bountifulcities.org
More Volunteer Opportunities...Pearson Garden and Nursery Garden workdays Wednesdays from 3-5pm. Located at 408 Pearson Dr. in Montford. Join us for weekly community workdays at Pearson Gardens, the home of Windfall Collective Nursery, the Community Food Hub and many other Bountiful Cities projects. For the month of October we will be focusing on seed and medicine harvest, as well as processing and preservation of the harvest.  Please click this link to sign up. Contact Lynx at Alex@BountifulCities.org for more information. 
Hall Fletcher Elementary School FEAST Garden Wednesdays 2:45-4:00pm, 60 Ridgelawn Rd. Please click this link to sign up. Contact Jacob@BountifulCities.org for more information.
Lucy Herring Elementary School Peace Garden (formerly Vance Elementary School) in West Asheville.  Workdays Thursdays 2:45 pm- 3:45 pm. Beginning August 23, the garden will again be closed to the public from 8 AM- 2:30 pm so that classes can use the garden for outdoor learning. Please contact  jordan.diamond@acsgmail.net for questions and to RSVP. We give away free produce donated by Mother Earth Food every Tuesday at our Sharing Table on Tuesdays after 3 pm.

GWC Edible Park Community Workdays: https://fb.me/e/YoC1XZ6H
Tempie Avery Community Workdays: https://fb.me/e/TC4lALFL
West Asheville Park Community Workdays: https://fb.me/e/2J8M3oeFx
Pearson Garden Community Workdays: https://fb.me/e/1k2rd2jkr

​SAVE THE DATE
On Sunday December 5th Bountiful Cities will be celebrating healthy soil with others from around the globe. We will host a FREE educational Vermiculture Workshop. The Hop Ice Cream will be creating a signature flavor to support our work! More to come! Stay Tuned!
Healthy soil, saving seeds, growing food close to home, and free accessible education are all supporting solutions to the climate crisis listen to this Inspiring Podcast with Krista Tippett and Katharine Hayhoe at On Being to get informed and take your own climate change action!

​We welcomed the Asheville Garden Club for a progressive garden tour this month. We started in the Shiloh Community Garden and enjoyed hearing about that historic neighborhood and the garden that delivers weekly produce to residents, then we toured the Pearson Garden and heard about the new solar project and the seed farm and plant nursery. The Asheville Garden Club will be celebrating their 100th year in 2023!  They have a scholarship fund to support college students studying horticulture and sustainable practices.
They are having a fundraiser for their scholarship fund selling holiday wreaths. For more information and pricing contact Anne Kime agkime1958@msn.com. Please mention you heard about it from Bountiful Cities!

Wreaths will be delivered to the North Asheville Community Center for pick up on Saturday, November 20 from 9am-noon. Anne says, "I can attest  that they are very full and seem to last forever!!"

​Our Pearson Garden is well on the way to getting solar power after a series of recent workdays and lots of volunteer hours. We also were able to remove a huge old dead tree in collaboration with arborist Tim Hinebaugh. We also had help from Chloe Cuturic from Asheville GreenWorks.  Thank you Tim and Chloe! There is lots more work to be done, and fun to be had in the Pearson Garden. Our Wednesday garden workdays include veggie snacks in the pavilion. See below, and stay tuned for more info on that!

Pearson Garden and Nursery Garden workdays Wednesdays from 3-5pm. Located at 408 Pearson Dr. in Montford. Please click this link to sign up. Contact Alex@BountifulCities.org for more information. 

Free Veggie Mondays
We give away produce donated by Mother Earth Food every Monday after 3pm at two of our partner schools:
- Lucy S Herring Elementary Peace Garden: On the Sharing Table to the right of the Cob Shed
- Hall Fletcher Elementary: Under the awning by the front entrance to the school

The Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council working in collaboration with Keenan Phillips and residents of the Deaverview Community has installed the third in a series of free food pantries in the Deaverview Neighborhood. The other two pantries are located in the East End Neighborhood and Shiloh Neighborhood. For more information on donating shelf stable food or household goods for these pantries please contact Cathy@BountifulCities.org or to get involved with the food council contact Coordinator@abfoodpolicy.org

​Do you need a late summer clean up of your yard or a fresh garden plan for fall?
Call for a free consultation (828) 775-0614

This recipe contributed by Cathy Cleary from The Southern Harvest Cookbook
1 cup pureed paw paw 
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup half and half
1 cup sugar
½  teaspoon salt
 
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Stir well. Freeze in your ice cream freezer according to its instructions. Serve alongside pound cake, sugar cookies, or all by it’s lonesome.
Do you have delicious seasonal recipes you would like to share in our newsletter? Please send them to cathy@bountifulcities.org along with a photo if you have one, and information on where the recipe originated. We would especially love to feature treasured family recipes!

Hot Springs Elementary School Garden summer produce distribution update:
Through a partnership with the Lords Harvest we were able to distribute between 30-40 pounds of fresh produce each week during the summer months while students were on break. The continued maintenance, harvesting, and distribution of this garden is possible because of a grant from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina. The Community Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1978 to build a permanent pool of charitable capital for the 18 counties of Western North Carolina including the Qualla Boundary. 
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