20 Mar 2017 Who knew?

by Brenda McClain

The Faulkner County Library’s Urban Farm Project has a Children’s Garden Club that meets at 4 p.m. on Thursdays for elementary school students.

There are also volunteer workdays at 5 p.m. Thursdays and Sundays. Now, there is a much-needed full time garden programmer.

Sean Ott’s position as garden programmer was established last fall to transition the Urban Farm Project (UFP) from a community-driven nonprofit to an extension of the library itself. “While the Urban Farm Project is focused on teaching and educating the community about organic agriculture, home gardening and local food systems, it also allows the library to expand programming offered beyond edible gardening to a range of horticultural areas,” he said.

Initially, the library’s UFP was to bring college students from different schools together. Since, the focus has shifted more toward the community as a whole. Most of the volunteers on Thursday and Sunday workdays come from the colleges, but there are also community members who help and teach through their own gardening experiences.

Ott works to inform the community and volunteers about events at the garden, the library and around the area such as the library event Backyard Gourmet this month or a seed swap in North Little Rock sponsored by Fit 2 Live.

What will we see in Ott’s blog posts (fcl.org/blog/list)? 

According to Ott, “We also use the blog as an education tool to help inform the community with agricultural, horticultural information. We also provide links to publications from the Extension service.

“Our posts include pictures of either volunteers, veggies growing in the garden, flowers in bloom or beneficial insects we find while working.”

For more information on library activities and events, visit conway.fcl.org/events/home.