A brief note -- the Montgomery Herald published a nice story this week on the STARworks community garden and our "master gardener". It is short and sweet but another nicely written piece by Linda Beaulieu. Check it out on the Herald's website.

Anne Partna, the master gardener at STARworks, submitted some information to me about our community garden that we've started. Here is some description

Just before the end of the last school year, we hosted our first hands on composting workshop with Ms. Lamonds' Third Graders. The kids did a great job and learned how to recycle leaf litter, shredded paper, weeds and kitchen scraps to make food for plants.



Today, I spread the first bit of compost made in our own garden around the rosemary plants and a small fig tree. Thank you, young gardeners, for your help!



To date we've had some great produce from the garden. We hosted a meeting with our Fit Community partners last week and served a salad with ingredients harvested from the garden. Delicious! I'll leave you today with an image of some of this year's bounty.

The first greens of the year are in from the community garden! Anne Pärtna (far left) has indicated that she does not want to be labeled as the master garden of Star Gardens but she is responsible for a healthy crop of greens. Everyone who helped work on the garden was treated to the first batch and we took a picture to commemorate the event



Pictured here from left to right are: STARworks artisan and community garden ... person Anne Pärtna, Central Park NC director Nancy Gottovi, Angela Bernard of Wet Dog Glass, and Central Park NC's Jane-of-all-Trades Beth Throneburg.

I know of Panagia Prousiotissa primarily because it reportedly has fantastic homemade breads that are sold on premises and at the Albemarle Farmer's Market. The other reason I know about them is that they require a strict dress code for visitors.

If you miss the market in Albemarle you can always visit the monestary (for women) in Troy. There are directions on their website but we would advise calling in advance as they sell baked goods only at particular times during the week. As the dress code can be out-of-the-ordinary for many, especially during the summer months, visitors are advised to check the dress code in advance.

The folks at Star, NC. The garden will benefit the local community by providing high quality, locally produced food, stress the cultural diversity of the community through connections to food, and help develop sustainable farming skills as well as new culinary skills using fresh, seasonal foods.

The community garden will eventually develop into a full-fledged community supported agriculture project. The CSA will also be a social enterprise benefiting the broader sustainable development of Central Park NC. Central Park NC supports small scale, sustainable and place-based solutions to economic development across our 8-county region.

For more info, contact Anne Pärtna at 910-948-1008 or anne@starworksnc.org.