Archives

Lee Yonish, a Princeton Regional Schools parent and data management specialist, has joined the Princeton School Gardens Cooperative as coordinator. She writes:

I believe that several roads have led to this juncture: my enchantment with folks like Michael Pollan and love for “real food,” my desire to work in the non-profit sector (evidenced by my completion of two noncredit courses last year in Mercer County
Community College’s Nonprofit Management Program), my hope to work among and contribute to our
community, and most of all my dismay with children’s food choices and inadequate food options at
school.

Please join us in celebrating this move forward. And if you need to reach her, write leeyonish@psgcoop.org.

 

 

March 31, 2011. The Princeton School Gardens Cooperative seeks an energetic, nimble, reliable and meticulous coordinator/administrator.

Duties of this position include: 

• Financial: Work with the board and volunteers to effectively use resources. Ensure that comprehensive documentation is maintained.
• Management: Assume administrative and logistics responsibility for day-to-day projects and special events. Maintain task lists and follow up with board members on progress. Establish and maintain records and databases. Ensure that financial and legal obligations of the cooperative are met.
• Board Relations: Attend all regularly scheduled board meetings, and provide support and materials for them. Record minutes.
• Community Relations: Coordinate all work and expansion efforts for all PSGC-related projects of students, teachers and community members; help with volunteer recruitment, development and recognition. Provide regular reports to board.

The programs coordinator reports to the board chair. The part-time/flex-time position pays $12,000 (about $30 per hour at about 10 hours a week) and roughly matches the 10-month school year – though there will be two summertime meetings and coordination of a few gardening/cleanup chores required. 

Skills Desired: Self-starter, ability to multi-task, meet challenges with energy and enthusiasm, motivate and supervise a team of active volunteers. Strong communication skills.

Please send resumés and cover letters to karlacook@psgcoop.org

*The Princeton School Gardens Cooperative, a 501c3, fosters garden- and food-based education in the classroom, cafeteria and community.

Mike McGrath, host of "You Bet Your Garden," on WHYY and former editor of Organic Gardening magazine, reminds us that Thursday, March 17 is the day to plant peas. But as with most gardening projects, there's a bit of preparation to be done ahead of time. To give peas a chance in Princeton, here are his tips: http://www.whyy.org/91FM/ybyg/plantingpeas.html.

Recommendations collected by Philip A. Howard, an assistant professor at Michigan State University: https://www.msu.edu/~howardp/booksfilms.html

Dorothy Mullen, co-founder of the Princeton School Gardens Cooperative, was named “garden artist in residence” at Riverside School.  Her new program “Healthy Children, Healthy Planet” represents a policy shift in school garden participation at Riverside. For the first time since she started the program in 2001, every child in the school pre-K to 5 will participate in six to 12 classes per year (and more for the younger children).  She’ll be training Master Gardeners and community volunteers who want to learn gardening in the school setting.  Teacher workshops, garden lessons and free tours will resume in March.  Call Dorothy to schedule: (609) 683-8309.

Chef Christopher’s Braised Rainbow Swiss Chard

6 garlic cloves, peeled
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1 bunch rainbow Swiss Chard (about 1/2 pound), cleaned, with stems cut away from leaves
2 leeks
1 cup verjus* or white grape juice
2 cups    vegetable stock (or chicken stock)
4 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1/4 teaspoon dried
1 bay leaf
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. In small saucepan, simmer garlic in 1 cup of olive oil until soft. Drain oil from garlic, reserving oil.
2. Clean leeks: Cut white part of leeks into coins about 1/4 inch thick and float them in a bowl of cold water. Agitate to help sand fall to the bottom. When clean, remove leeks, drain and pat dry.
3. Cut Swiss chard stems into uniformly sized pieces: squares or sticks.
4. Place remaining olive oil in heavy-bottomed pot. Add leeks and cook on low heat until they are tender, about 10 minutes. Season to taste.
5. Add the cooked garlic and about 1 tablespoon of garlic oil.  When garlic becomes aromatic, add verjus and simmer until liquid is reduced to half of its original.
6. Add the vegetable stock, tie the thyme and bay leaf together with some kitchen twine and add to stock. Return to a simmer.   Adjust seasoning.
7. In the meantime, bring a medium sized pot of salted water to a rolling boil.  Add stems and cook for two minutes, then remove them from the water and add to the leek mixture. Simmer for two minutes.
8. Add greens to boiling water; remove after 15 seconds, drain and add to leek mixture. Adjust seasonings, remove herb bundle and serve.

VARIATION: Braised Rainbow Swiss Chard with Bacon: Cut 2 ounces of bacon or pancetta into postage-stamp sizes. Cook over medium heat until almost crisp. Add to cooked leeks at the end of step 5.

*Verjus is the bottled juice of unripe grapes.

AgDevONLINE had collected maps and databases detailing the food system infrastructure across the country, including those showing food policy council locations, watersheds, farms and CSAs (community-supported agriculture efforts), farm to school programs, farmers’ markets, and mobile meat processing units.

Sustainable Princeton and the Princeton Environmental Commission are seeking 50 households in the Township and Borough to volunteer for a demonstration leaf corral project. Each household will receive free materials and instructions for installing a backyard leaf corral. The sides of the corral are typically 5′- 8′ in length and leaves are piled to a height of 3′ within the enclosure.  Leaf compost from the corral can be used as mulch or as a soil supplement for your gardens. Keeping leaves off the street improves safety and drainage along our roads, saves public money spent on collecting and disposing of leaves, and saves you time and effort in bagging leaves. To sign up, visit the Sustainable Princeton website. – Diane Landis

With help from IESI, a New Jersey-based waste management company, the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York has succeeded in composting about 90 percent of its food waste, creating a soil supplement and reducing landfill contributions at the same time.

Originally, Diana Beltran [environmental development manager] told the staff she hoped to divert just one percent of the kitchen’s food waste into composting.

“If you put it that way, you put less pressure on the duties you’re adding to work,” she said. “They are more passionate about it. You’re going to do it because it’s the right thing to do. There were no expectations, just more than we were doing than before.”

It’s time to plant starts of fall vegetables and sow lettuce for fall harvest. I’ve got kale, collards and broccoli already started. Cucumbers and zucchinis are dying back. Untreated they go to wilting diseases but not until I’ve had a good harvest. Don’t compost diseased plants, it spreads the problem.

– Dorothy Mullen