Merchantville Online
Where Community Begins...
We still have free hop rhizomes at Eclipse. Just come in and ask. If Chris is there, he will give growing tips. Growing your own hops is a rewarding and surprisingly easy way to make your brew. Plant the hop rhizome. Dig a 4-inch hole in each mound and lay the rhizome into the hole horizontally, with the root side down. Loosely pack the soil down over the plant and cover with straw or mulch to prevent weed growth. Keep the soil consistently moist until the vines begin to sprout.
Stop by the Incredible Edible Merchantville table at the Daffodil Fest tomorrow. Help us pollinate the town landscape and learn about our project. Grab a clothespin from the basket and and a bee tag from the bin. Bee very sneaky . . . Just buzz around . . . Clip on a clothespin . . . Before you're found! With lots of kids . . . and adults we'll get this job done,
The Big Dig is an online platform to support food growing in the UK, run by Sustain every spring to promote edible gardens and encourage people to volunteer.. The Big Dig Network is all about getting people involved in their local community garden. During this day, gardens welcome volunteers and visitors, new and old, to explore how to grow food and celebrate the start of spring and the new growing season. IE should plan this for 2020!
A newly-discovered type of mushroom could not only play a crucial role in slashing plastic pollution, but could have myriad other uses in addressing the environmental plastics crises the planet faces. Discovered in 2012 by Yale University students, Pestalotiopsis microspora is a rare species of mushroom from the Amazon rainforest that’s capable of subsisting on a diet of pure plastic, or more accurately, the main ingredient in plastic–polyurethane–before converting the human-made ingredient into purely organic matter. It can live off of our plastic waste, without oxygen–meaning that the rare breed of mushroom would make an ideal agent for landfill clean-up, literally from the bottom-up.
Last weekend, residents Brigid Austin and Jessica Stewart started clearing winter's cover from the planting terrace at Wellwood Park in preparation for their IE small action project called "Blueberry Hill". They are active members of the West Maple neighborhood and Garden Club who help maintain and sustain all the flowers and vegetation in the 23 west end planters and bike path. If you'd like to help them water this year, just let the Brigid, Jess or the Garden Club know.
Warm March wind, flowering redbuds, and the greening of the lawn: all suggestions of spring. Early spring is when some of the most prolific, most accessible wild edibles make their first appearances of the year. It's when edible plants are at their tenderest and tastiest. And your own backyard might just be the most convenient and most productive place you'll find to forage this time of year. Here are a few of the more common edible weeds that are likely lurking in your yard and garden.