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Each quarter this year, we're checking in with our friends over at the USDA People's Garden Initiative. To learn more about PGI, read their guest blog post, Meet the People’s Garden Initiative.
Rare Endangered Bumble Bee Attends People’s Garden Festival
The Lily Pad Garden is a USDA People’s Garden of diverse farmers and a 25,000 square foot community gathering space in St Paul, Minnesota. As a People’s Garden, this garden and hundreds of others across the country, work to build and connect with their communities through the production of locally grown food, sustainable climate smart practices, conserving habitat for pollinators and wildlife, and education and knowledge sharing - similar themes of Bee City and Campus USA.
The Lily Pad Garden is managed by Frogtown Green, a neighborhood environmental initiative, which recently hosted their fourth annual ‘Climate Carnival’ at the site on August 17th. More than 350 people and two dozen organizations sampled delicious locally grown food and visited booths on clean energy, nearby nature, solid waste reduction, and more. Activities for kids and adults sparked learning about all the ways we can address and mitigate impacts of climate change in our local communities. Exhibits on pollinator-friendly gardening were especially popular at the Climate Carnival.
Even the endangered rusty patched bumble bee made an unscheduled appearance at the garden that day, at a patch of anise hyssop flowers (found by Dr. Elaine Evans, University of Minnesota researcher and Bee Campus USA - University of Minnesota Twin Cities co-chair). Throughout the growing season, the Lily Pad is the site of many such activities, designed to delight visitors and illustrate the power of community garden spaces for people and pollinators alike.
Learn more and get involved:
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