Finally!

ATTENTION!

I'm proud to announce that the website is ready for your viewing and reading pleasure. Keep the URL www.idahofoodbank.org/community_gardens in the back of your brain. Browse, test out the links, visit often... I've proofread it many a time, but I'm sure I've missed some things, links are broken, etc. Enjoy! I'm very excited, and I think this will be a great central resource for community gardeners, local gardening organizations, and general gardening enthusiasts. I'm especially pleased with the embedded material. I know, I know, it's a little off-center, but I'm working on it. I've never embedded anything before then, so I'm actually pretty proud of myself. :)

In that vein, I will soon not write in this blog anymore. One more week and I'll be writing strictly in the blog on the aforementioned website.

In other fantastic news, we now have three bands booked for the Homegrown Hootenanny! This is going to be a great show, everyone!!

Hooray for BSU Service Learning!!

Good news, everyone! Sam Harmer's Public Relations class at BSU has decided to help me promote the Homegrown Hootenanny in May! I'm really excited to work with these students. From what Sam has told me, they're really on the ball and have helped out a lot of businesses in the past. I hope this will be fun for them! I would love to try out all kinds of crazy marketing techniques and generally have fun with it. They all seemed so enthusiastic and I'm really excited to hear what they have to say! Hopefully, this can also spread the word in the world of social media as well...
I'm up to 38 Facebook fans at this point, which is 5 more than a week ago. Sure, it's not like all of Boise is my Facebook fan, but I feel like this is really starting to take off. And with those students to help me... the sky's the limit!!! Wait and see!!

Webpage!

Woohoo! I am constructing the Idaho Community Gardens webpage as you read this! However, I'm going to wait for the initial unveiling until a future date... it's still very bare bones and slightly embarrassing at this point. :)
But I CAN tell you more about the Homegrown Hootenanny! Plans are moving very quickly in that direction. The Homegrown Hootenanny is a concert and fundrasier. The purpose of this event is to promote Idaho Community Gardens, to benefit the Idaho Foodbank through a silent auction, and to celebrate all things local. We'll have local bands playing, local businesses donating for the silent auction, and of course, donations for the silent auction strictly from local businesses!
This event will take place at the Visual Arts Collective on May 7th. We aren't quite certain of the timeframe yet, but it will probably start at 8 PM.
These are all the details I can give you. All I know is, it's going to be a rooty-toot-tootin' good time with some good music and good fun. And, of course, it's for a very worthy cause!
More details to follow...

I have a few more details concerning the Community Seed Swap! March 27th at Edward's Greenhouse. I'm still a little fuzzy on the timeframe, but it's happening at the same time as "Swing into Spring", which lasts all day on that Saturday. There will be classes going on that day with the subjects of containers, new introductions, natives, and soil. I will hopefully be speaking briefly between the various classes, and handing out informational materials.
As I previously mentioned, Edward's has graciously offered their space for the event. Which is great... this means they're going to help me with advertising. And frankly, it's just a great venue for people to get inspired to garden. For anyone who hasn't been out to see their massive greenhouses, massive selection, and overall beautiful grounds, I would highly recommend it! That is, of course, if you aren't planning to head down for the Community Seed Swap! They also have a Farmer's Market with live music every Tuesday evening during the summer. I have yet to attend this, but it sounds awesome. I live right in the neighborhood, after all! On top of helping us so much with this event, they've also offered to act as a drop-off point for produce and canned goods. So bring your extra garden produce to Edward's, and they'll make sure it goes to the right place!
The logistics are still being determined, but my hope is that once gardeners arrive, they will proceed to the informational booth where either I or a volunteer will be sitting. They'll have access to promotional and seed-saving materials, and be asked to fill out a notecard concerning their seeds. My hope is to get people excited and knowledgeable about saving seeds (if they aren't already) and to have a general good time. I hope gardeners will meet each other for the first time!
On that note, I've spent a lot of this week setting up a social network for people involved in or associated with food projects (i.e. community gardens, refugee gardens, donation programs, etc.) in Boise. It's my hope that everyone can talk together, meet, and swap information. There are so many projects going on, and I think they would all benefit so much by being part of a larger community. Kim Metez of the Abundance Project (Another great project to benefit refugees in our area) has helped me out a lot so far. One of the first items on our agenda is to gather these folks for an informal get-together.
So don't be shy... if you'd like to join the network, go to boisegrowers.ning.com and sign up. You don't have to be from Boise at all despite what the name suggests.
In other news, I got the approval today for a concert, fundraising, and promotional event at the Visual Arts Collective (VAC) on May 7th. Keep that date in the back of your mind... I can't tell you much at this point because we are so early in the planning stages, but I can tell you the event is called the Homegrown Hootenanny. With a name like that, how can you go wrong? I mean, honestly?