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🍂Native Plant Workshop: Fall colors and harvest 🍂
On October 15th from 1:30 - 3:30 PM we'll have our final workshop in our native plant series for 2023. This outdoor walk takes place at the instructor's home--a groundbreaking example of sustainable architecture and landscaping in DuPage County. Participants will learn how to identify 39 native trees, shrubs, and plants whose leaves provide beautiful color displays in the autumn and provide food that can be harvested in Fall and Winter. Attendees will also be able to dig Jerusalem artichokes for food as well as sassafras roots and enjoy homemade sassafras tea!
This is an outdoor event so please come prepared for the weather. Bring a shovel and a container to take home your artichokes and roots, as well as a mug to enjoy your tea! Additionally, we encourage you to bring a pencil and writing pad to take notes. This is a paid event, Members please remember to use your 10% discount code when checking out.
For the last 6 years, the Sustain DuPage Gardeners program has been using their garlic crop to showcase the power of selecting and saving your own seeds. Within that time, we've doubled the size of our garlic from around 3 ounces to 6 ounces per head! We grow the popular heirloom, hard-neck variety called "Music", which is cold tolerant, large, easy to peel, and has a long storage life.
Although we keep the largest bulbs for planting in our own garden, we are offering some of our organic seed garlic in the 4-5 oz. range for sale as part of our fall fundraiser. Each head is $10 and we are initially limiting the amount to 2 heads per person. Please pick up your garlic at the Sustain DuPage garden during our work hours from 9 AM-12 PM on Saturday mornings throughout the month of October. This is a first come, first served situation with a limited quantity for sale. Those with SD Membership can contact us ahead of time at info@sustaindupage.com to reserve theirs in advance.
Although we advocate for leaving your leaves in place for insect habitat, we understand most people don't want them in their yards. So, if you're going to get rid of them, why pay to send them to a landfill when you can drop them off for FREE and turn them into soil that will help grow local food?
Bring your bagged leaves to our compost site and we'll take care of them for you. For the health and safety of our volunteers and our garden, we ask that you don't include any of the following:
Large sticks or thorny branches (including rose and raspberry canes)
Plastic garbage
Animal droppings
Chemically treated lawn clippings
If you'd like to save your bags, dump the leaves to the side of our bins and take the bags back with you. We take drop-offs from dawn to dusk at our garden location. Park near the green garages and follow the signs to Sustain DuPage and you'll see our composting area to the right as you come down our garden path.
Please note that the grounds are both a school as well as an arboretum, so we ask people not to drive to the compost pile and to be careful during school hours. Our volunteers can help you unload your car between 9 AM-12 PM on Saturday mornings in October if you need assistance.
If you're interested in volunteering with our Compost Crew, please contact stasiak@sustaindupage.com. It's a great way to get exercise as you help the environment!
Gardeners Project
With the arrival of autumn, we say goodbye to our Wednesday evening worknights--but our Saturday morning workdays will continue throughout October! The last official day of our Gardeners program will be October 28th, however we may continue to meet sporadically in early November as we wrap up additional tasks. Those announcements will be made on our WhatsApp Gardeners group for those interested in joining.
Our last Member Market will be held on Saturday October 7th. Members will be receiving an additional email with details. Thanks for a great season!
Tomato Taste Test Results
We've had some wonderful events these past 2 months! Our third annual Tomato Taste Test in August featured over 40 tomato varieties to sample and choose from. Participants voted for their favorites, and we have your results for the top two in each category below:
Cherry Type
Slicers/Beefsteak
Cooking/Paste
Painted Pink (#1)
Green Zebra (#1)
Korean Long (#1)
Velvet Red (#2)
Rose de Berne (#2 tie)
Sheboygan (#2)
Golden Jubilee (#2 tie)
Tigerella (#2 tie)
This year had many surprises where new contenders overtook old favorites. This was also the first time a paste tomato (Korean Long) beat many slicers and beefsteaks as a flavor favorite! If you're interested in planting any of these varieties next year, please consider sourcing seeds from the Downers Legacy Seed Library, participating in our late-winter seed swap, or attending our transplant swap in May. We'll have some of these varieties on hand in our own Seed Cache as well, which is always open to our Members.
Seed Savin' Social Review
Sustain DuPage often talks about “throwing the bigger party.” The steps we take to respect our environment can also be fun! So when it's time for our Grow Out Crew and One Seed One Community participants to bring in their seeds, why not make that an opportunity to gather, enjoy a beautiful fall day, share some food and each other’s company? In late September we did just that, as over 60 people returned seeds, toured the Garden, learned about Sustain DuPage and Downers Legacy Seed Library and celebrated the harvest with us.
If you’d like to join in on the fun:
We have already stocked up on next year’s One Seed, One Community selection- the Amish Snap Pea. Please reach out to BettyA@SustainDuPage.com to sign up and arrange to pick up your seeds. Seeds will also be available at the following Garden Sessions this season, Oct 7, 14 and 21 from 9- Noon.
If you are a gardener in DuPage County growing as pesticide-free as possible, consider joining our Grow Out Crew. You’ll have free access to interesting varieties of peas, beans, lettuce and tomatoes to try in your garden, save the seeds to add to your own seed stash as you help restock two local seed libraries! We can help add seed saving considerations to your garden planning and practice. Reach out to LSandoval@SustainDuPage.com for more information about Grow Out Crew.
SD Member Market 11:45 AM -12:15 PM Members are free to take first choice from the garden harvest this first Saturday of the month. First come, first served.
10/12
Sustain DuPage Monthly Leadership meeting 6:30-8:00 PM. This event is open to Organizers & the SD Board. Active SD Members are also invited to observe and comment. Contact info@sustaindupage to RSVP
SD Creators Meeting 3:00-4:30 @ Sustain DuPage Garden. This event will be cancelled if raining, otherwise we can have a fire for our crafting circle area to keep warm!
10/28
The last SD Gardeners Workday 9 AM-12:00 @ Sustain DuPage Garden. Seed Garlic for purchase!
Sustain DuPage is a 501c3 nonprofit organization run completely on volunteer time and effort. One hundred percent of donations go back into our projects. Because we are a volunteer organization, we ask for your patience if it takes longer than 3 business days to return your email or correspondence.
