community garden spotlight •
blue ash,
Ohio Horticulture’s parent company, F+W Media, will be growing a Giving Garden on this slab. Be sure to follow us on HortMag.com and Facebook to watch it grow!
Our Giving Garden We’re walking the talk with our raised-bed garden located at Horticulture’s photo studio by Patty Craft
As I said in my Editor’s Note, growing a thriving community of passionate gardeners is what I do. Often my work involves balancing budgets or collaborating with advertisers to bring their message and products to you. Sometimes I get to write or edit content for one of our publications (“get to” because at heart I am a writer). And occasionally you’ll find me interacting with you online via our social media outlets. But Horticulture’s Giving Garden is my dream-come-true project. We’ve gathered together like-minded local gardeners who will use their talents and time to grow food that will be donated to Cincinnati’s FreeStore Foodbank. It’s true that when you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life! As we prepare this issue, we only have the “before” photo to share with you. But over the coming weeks we’ll construct a raised bed on the left side of the concrete pad you see in the photo above. The idea
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gardeners on the go!
to plant a community garden, one that all F+W employees can tend, grew out of our collaboration with Stacy Walters, registered kinesiotherapist and Master Gardener on The Healthy Gardener program of Garden How-To University. We’re recycling the raised bed that Stacy no longer has room for at her new home, and we’re going to grow ingredients that you’ll find in the nutritious recipes from The Healthy Gardener. The Healthy Gardener is an ongoing program that focuses on the physical, nutritional and wellbeing benefits of gardening. We owe a debt of gratitude to our growing partners for their generous support in the form of either products or services: CobraHead tools, DRAMM watering products, EarthBox containers, Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply, Renee’s Garden Seeds and SeedBallz. Follow our progress on my blog at hortmag.com/blogs, and see how our garden grows. *