Two programs featuring native plants – identifying maple trees/making maple syrup and gardening with native plants – recently drew dozens of Dunwoody gardeners and plant enthusiasts to the Dunwoody Nature Center. New Program Manager David Boyd led the maple trees program. It began with a classroom presentation on the history of tapping maple trees to extract the sap (which is made into the syrup), included a walk to identify maple trees in the Nature Center forest that featured the tapping of a maple tree outside the main building and ended with a syrup tasting. Pancake syrup that’s …

  The Walmart Foundation and the Dunwoody Walmart have awarded a grant of $1,000 to Vanderlyn Elementary School to be used in the school’s organic gardening program. The grant was awarded through the foundation’s Local Community Contribution/Hunger Outreach Grant Program. “We believe that your organization is doing important work to the communities you serve, and we are proud that we are able to support you in your efforts,” the foundation told Tina Wilkinson, a parent volunteer at Vanderlyn, in an e-mail announcing the selection of Vanderlyn for the grant. Wilkinson, with pre-approval from …

  The flowers of a massive winter honeysuckle sweetly perfumed the air as a small group of Master Gardeners set off on a walk though the gardens of the Donaldson-Bannister Farm last week. Penny Bhim and Janet Hanser led the walk during an off-and-on light mist under a dark and threatening sky. They were soon joined by Rosanne Lutz and Nancy Baldwin. The four braved the elements to identify planting-season projects for the vegetable garden and some of the adjacent areas that the approximately 15 Master Gardeners assigned to the historic site maintain. The project list they put together during …

  If you’ve ever wanted to put ideas about healthy eating choices on the table of those who make decisions about food served to your children in their school cafeteria, now is your chance. DeKalb County is in the process of revising its school wellness policy. All of the nation’s school districts that offer a federally funded school meal program are required by the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 to update their wellness policy. DeKalb’s new policy could go into effect as soon as the next (2012-2013) school year. A work group has been formed with the goal of including consistent …

  The Dunwoody Woman’s Club has leased the first of five new wheelchair accessible raised beds from the Community Garden in the greenhouse complex at Brook Run Park.   Fourteen members of the club have volunteered to maintain the beds, according to Kathy Hanna, a former club president. They plan to raise herbs and vegetables and share them with families living in the Interfaith Outreach Home in Doraville.  The beds were planned and built by Michael Henley, a sophomore at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School, as a service project to earn the rank of Eagle Scout.  Michael, the son of Steve and Jane…

  The numbers are in. The Community Garden’s Food Pantry Team had a very good year indeed in 2011. Team members harvested 3,352 pounds of produce for charity, easily exceeding their goal of a “ton for hunger.” Based on an average of $5 a pound, the total value of last year’s harvest was $16,760. Virtually all of the donations went to Malachi’s Storehouse at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church on North Peachtree Road, which is located across the street from Brook Run Park, site of the Community Garden. In addition to the produce collected from the garden in 2011, produce was also harvested from the…

  Get ready for a busy year, Dunwoody gardeners. The 2012 calendar is already filling up. One of the highlights of the year ahead will be the 20th anniversary of the Dunwoody Nature Center. The Nature Center was incorporated on Jan. 30, 1992 but will hold celebrations marking its two decades later in the year. That’s because the website and logo are being redesigned and celebration plans will be announced with the launch of the center’s updated site and new look, Executive Director Alan Mothner said last week. “The Dunwoody Nature Center is incredibly proud to have been a part of this …

  Look around you. Dunwoody is a city of unsung heroes. They are your next-door neighbors who volunteer their time to plant a row (or two, or three or more) for the hungry. They are 48-year-old moms who climb fences to create paths that lead school children from indoor to outdoor classrooms where they can learn about organic vegetable gardening and healthy eating from the ground up. They are school teachers who help their students think with their minds but show them how to get their hands dirty doing real work in sustainable urban agriculture. They are teenagers who have a vision of …

  Think of the Dunwoody Woman’s Club the next time you drive past the Dunwoody Nature Center on Roberts Drive. Or the Donaldson-Bannister Farm House on Chamblee Dunwoody Road. Or the Ronald McDonald House on Peachtree Dunwoody Road. Or the North DeKalb Cultural Arts Center on Chamblee-Dunwoody Road. Or the Spruill Center for the Arts on Ashford-Dunwoody Road. Or Dunwoody High School or any number of other local schools or city landmarks. The Dunwoody Woman’s Club, one of the largest clubs in the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, has been instrumental in either developing or enhancing each …

If your holiday season wish list includes a guardian angel, Gloria Doxtader of the Spalding Garden Club can put you in touch with one. Doxtader, a late-blooming artist who lives in the Sandy Springs-Dunwoody area, has been creating angels since 2008. At last count, she was at 300. Many of these angels are designed to withstand the elements and are ideal for gardens, outdoor pots or porches. Others are made from materials that won’t tolerate the weather and are intended to hang in homes. All have a similar style and feature various kinds of decorative elements on a long slender body with wings…

  Larry Burdette has found a groundbreaking way to teach his sixth grade health class at Peachtree Charter Middle School how to fish.  He takes them to the Dunwoody Community Garden one day a week.  Burdette decided to go the extra mile in meeting the course objective of teaching his 32 students how to choose “eating patterns that enhance energy, growth, and health.” So he applied an ancient Chinese proverb to the portion of the course plan that calls for demonstrating “awareness of personal food choices on future health.” “You’ve heard the saying ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day…

Of the weekly rain-or-shine harvests at the Dunwoody Community Garden in Brook Run Park, the one last week is the most meaningful of the year. On Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, volunteers donated 122.5 pounds of fresh produce – mostly greens for salads and cooking, onions, peppers, and herbs – to Malachi’s Storehouse, an outreach mission of St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church on North Peachtree Road across from the park. Most of the produce came from the from the hillside plots where the sidewalk ends in Brook Run. Some came from a member’s personal garden and Community Garden volunteers …

Dunwoody gardeners with limited mobility and seniors who need a growing space have something special to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. Michael Henley, a Life Scout in Troop 494 sponsored by Dunwoody Baptist Church and a sophomore at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School in Sandy Springs, is building and donating five planting beds for use by people in the community who are elderly or who have physical impairments. The project – a prototype and four beds built after the initial design – is expected to be completed this weekend. The beds will be located in the greenhouse area of Brook Run Park …

The vendors at the Dunwoody Green Market will show their Thanksgiving spirit at this week’s market by preparing and serving a free thank-you breakfast. The breakfast is the vendors’ gift to the community for its support of the market. They will serve it on Wednesday from 8-10 a.m. at the market’s location adjacent to the Post Office in Dunwoody Village. Food will be served on a first-come, first-served basis and will include coffee, pastries, melons, muffins, breakfast meats and biscuits. There will also be toe-tapping music to help create a festive fall mood. The market will be open until …

With winter approaching and cold weather starting to settle in, it’s time to start thinking about compiling a reading list of garden books to brighten the short, gray and dreary days and long cold nights ahead. Dunwoody gardeners need to look no further than a few area nurseries, bookstores and gift centers. Several local merchants are carrying a recently published book by longtime Dunwoody gardener and first-time author Althea Griffin. The book, Perennials … What you need to know! Tips and Advice to Grow Tried and True Perennials, will be easy to spot. It has a bright yellow cover bordered …

The beautification project in the greenhouse and barn area at Brook Run Park has taken another big step forward thanks to the Dunwoody Woman’s Club. Last week the club donated plants and compost for a new shade garden located beside the barn. They also made a $50 donation to the Community Garden, which is overseeing the project, to purchase additional plant for the shade garden. The donated plants include hostas, hellebores, an Autumn fern, Japanese roof iris, beech fern, pachysandra, hydrangeas, lily of the valley, bee balm and columbine. The donations are a project of the Woman’s Club’s …

Malachi's Storehouse, an all-volunteer outreach ministry of Saint Patrick's Episcopal Church on North Peachtree Road, celebrated Food Day 2011 a few days early this year. Food Day is officially today, Monday, Oct. 24 but is being celebrated throughout the week with numerous events across the nation and DeKalb County. Last Tuesday Malachi's got a head start on these activities when volunteers Kathy Malcolm Hall and Mary Louise Wilson received a call from the Atlanta Community Food Bank (ACFB). The food bank had received an enormous donation of fruits and vegetables from a produce convention at…

 Chesnut’s changing. The children have spoken. Last Wednesday at Chesnut Charter Elementary School, 28 children from kindergarten to grade 5 met after school in Christen Ramo’s third grade class for the kickoff meeting of the Ecology Club. Because Ecology Club was only meant to be a temporary name, one of the main orders of business was to vote on a new name for the group. Ramo asked for nominations for the new name, and little hands shot up across the room with 13 suggestions. Earthy Worthy, shouted one child. Green Marines, called out another. Helping Plants Grow, offered a third. But, the …

O: The Oprah Magazine has discovered what people in Dunwoody’s sustainability community have known for a long time. Pattie Baker is something special. Pattie is featured in the November issue of the magazine (Page 165), which has begun hitting newsstands. The writer, Margaret Rhodes, discovered Pattie this spring after reading about her in a March 31 Dunwoody Patch article. The article is about the Community Garden in Brook Run Park, the food it generates for families in need in Dunwoody and how Pattie is the guiding light and driving force behind the garden. Rhodes connected with Pattie …

The new Ecology Club at Chesnut Charter Elementary School is surveying families of students at the school to determine their level of interest in organic gardening and environmental issues. If the club’s new high-energy website is any indication of the survey responses, the final results are likely to show the school community has a passion for organically grown fruit and vegetables and the conservation and preservation of natural resources. The website is being called "Chesnut for Change" until the club’s kickoff meeting, when students will be tasked with determining the club’s official name…