Wild Edibles and Traditional Medicinal Plants! Community Garden Night on Television!

Have you ever eaten itch weed, or thought of beating pigs to pig weed? Either way, this coming Monday, June 4^th, Sustainable Mondays will be hosting a Local Wild Edibles and Traditional Medicinal Plant Identification Workshop!

Come on down to the Rail River Folk School (303 Railroad St. SW, Bemidji) and learn from Barry Babcock, local historian and outdoorsman, about a wide variety of local wild plants.  We’ll go over how to identify them and we’ll discover which ones are edible or helpful medicinally.

We’ll also listen to stories and lore from Ojibwe and early settler origins about the very herbs and foliage that we often overlook. If you’ve ever wanted to find out more about what beautiful green shoots are coming out of your backyard and spend an hour pondering the great significance that plants have as the supporting base for all life above them, this is your night!

Monday’s Wild Edibles evening is the launch to our entire June line-up for Sustainable Mondays month of programming, complete with Straw Bale House building, beekeeping, and more gardening tips! Click on: June Flyer for Sustainable Mondays to print off your own copy and put it in your work place!

We also wanted to make sure to pass on two other important events happening in the city this coming Monday, June 4.  Both of which conflict in part with our Sustainable Monday, but both of which we encourage those interested in attending!

At 5:00  pm the Lakefront Park plan will be discussed at the Public Works building (1351 5th Street NW) west of town.  This meeting will provide another opportunity to ensure the future of the Carnegie building.

At 7:00 pm the Carnegie Library project will be a main agenda item for the City Council  meeting in its chamber at City Hall.  The current budget, planning, etc. of the Save the Carnegie Library will be presented.  The Council’s acceptance of this report is required for the project to continue.

 Community Garden Success

Last week, in spite of Memorial Day busyness, over 25 community members showed up to learn more about gardening and help out the many gardening efforts going on around the Bemidji community.

We learned about how to build potato boxes and standing herb gardens from Headwaters Castings and Bait’s Josh Burnham, planted Bear Mountain corn in mounds and many other seeds and plants at both the “We Digg It!” Garden and the city’s community garden in Nymore.  The city still has space for both community garden plots in Nymore and space in their summer youth gardening program, so here’s some more information to pass on!

Join the City of Bemidji Parks and Recreation Department this summer for their “Green Thumb” youth gardening program. The Green Thumb program will introduce youth participants to the joys of gardening and the excitement of planting, maintaining and harvesting a garden. This program coincides with the Parks and Recreation Department goal of creating programs that are sustainable and encourage a healthy lifestyle. Green Thumb will have participants learning life-long skills: in gardening and in team work, cooperation and compromise.

Dates: June 11-August 23 on Monday and Thursday afternoons
Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm
Location: Nymore Park Community Garden.
Cost: $12 per participant

Program participants will learn the proper techniques for weeding, direct-seeding, transplanting, maintaining and harvesting fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs in the community garden.

Community members gather around the garden to learn about how to prepare to plant the three sisters with Lakeland News. Click here for Lakeland’s coverage of the event!

And in case you missed it, we’re also attaching the Bemidji Sustainability Committee’s interview with Kelly Stone on Chatabout this Tuesday. They talked about the many exciting upcoming events the committee is partnering with and invited everyone interested to this coming Wednesday, June 6th’s 6:30 meeting at City Hall. To hear the first half, click: Curbside Recycling Survey on Chatabout.

As always, let us know if you have any feedback, ideas, or suggestions and we hope to see you again down at the folk school this coming Monday!