Vanderbilt Educational Garden Initiative

We had some great people come out and help us. Thanks to everyone who came!

The McFerrin Park Community Garden is back for its 2nd year! On April 10th, many vegetables and herbs were planted – squash, cucumber, tomatoes, okra, eggplant, carrots, onions, melons, basil, parsley, oregano, and much more. This year, we built 6 new wooden planters inside the fence, and 2 new planters out on Berry Street.

Everything in the garden is free and available to be taken at any time. Things should be ready for picking and eating starting in June! Enter through the gate on Meridian Street (at the corner of Berry Street).

If you can help to water the garden once a week, please email nashvegi@gmail.com

Here are a few pictures – for more pictures, click here.

When: Saturday, April 10th, 1-5pm

What: The Vanderbilt Educational Garden Initiative (VEGI) invites you to join us for an afternoon of spring planting at the McFerrin Park Community Garden, right across from the Shade Tree Clinic.

Where: 225 Berry Street
Behind the Salvation Army Chapel, across the field from Shade Tree Clinic

VEGI is creating a HEALTHY COOKBOOK, and we need your help!

The cookbook, which is set for a December release, will contain many healthy recipes and an extensive section on food nutrition. For every cookbook sold, another one will be given to a resident of the McFerrin Park Community. Therefore, the cookbook will serve as a fundraiser to support and expand VEGI’s efforts by providing healthy cuisine ideas to local households.

We want YOU to submit your favorite healthy recipes to be included in the cookbook! We are taking submissions of all varieties (appetizers, main dishes, breads, desserts, etc).

Please email your recipe(s) to nashvegi@gmail.com with “Cookbook Recipe” in the subject line. If you would like to be recognized in the cookbook next to your submission, please indicate so in your email submission; if you want to attribute the recipe to someone else, just let us know.

The deadline for recipe submissions is FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9th.

We look forward to seeing all the wonderful submissions, and thank you in advance for your contribution!!
Please contact lauren.mioton@gmail.com with questions.

A pre-production copy of The VEGI Cookbook cover:

Finally, some respite from the summer heat! We had a small problem with a beetle infestation of our leafy greens, so we took those out of the ground and replaced them with some new crops. If the problem persists, we will experiment with some organic pest eradication techniques. But as you can see from the pictures of our open house a couple weeks ago, everything else has been growing very well!

When: Saturday, August 8th, Noon-4pm

What: Come check out the garden!
There will be snacks, and a hands-on cooking session using herbs and vegetables from the garden.
If you like, help plant the fall harvest.

Where: 225 Berry Street
Behind the Salvation Army Chapel, across the field from Shade Tree Clinic

Peppers, okra, squash, zucchini, eggplant! Parsley, basil! The garden is producing some delicious vegetables for the McFerrin Park Community. A big thank you to the group from Gateway Church of Franklin who helped with some much needed weeding and harvesting last weekend. Here are some pictures:

These pictures were taken at the community garden tour last weekend. As you can see, the garden is verdant and luscious!

VEGI is proud to announce that the McFerrin Park Community Garden is a featured garden on a city-wide community garden tour this Saturday June 13, from 9am to 12pm. For more information and a map of the garden sites, please visit http://sites.google.com/site/nashvillecommunitygardentour/
We hope to see you on Saturday!

The Nashville weather has been good to the garden. Plenty of sun and rain in the past few weeks has resulted in a lot of growth!