By MICHELLE SHAW

Do you live in Cedar Riverside, Ventura Village, Midtown Phillips, Phillips West or East Phillips? If so, that means you live in the Southside Green Zone and you’re eligible to apply for participation in the Minneapolis Edible Boulevards initiative. We have funding to go towards teaching people how to transform the space between the sidewalk and curb into an edible boulevard, in addition to free soil testing, seeds, organic soil, compost, garden gloves, and a trowel if you need one. The application is posted on our Minneapolis Edible Boulevards Facebook page, which we invite you to join.

We’re excited to announce a few new community resources that we’ve just completed as a result of a grant we received through the Joint Green Zones Task Force. Janicea Coney, Julius Rennie and Michelle Shaw spent the last three months creating three community resources that can all be found on our Facebook page: the Green Zones Community Garden Map, the Minneapolis Edible Boulevards Map, and the Minneapolis Green Zones Plant-based Budding Directory.

The Green Zones Community Garden Map lists the locations of community gardens where neighbors can grow their own food, harvest food when they need it, and/or volunteer. Please let us know if there are community gardens as described above that we’ve missed or if any of those listed are no longer active. View the map at https://arcg.is/q0fTD

The Minneapolis Edible Boulevards Map lists the cross streets for each participant’s site and gives essential companion data discovered through our soil testing process: lead levels for every site, arsenic levels for 2020 participants and salt levels for a few select sites. View the map at https://arcg.is/LuPaD0

Last, but not least, we want to encourage everyone to intentionally support plant-based businesses in the Northside and Southside Green Zones that are owned by BIPOC and women by using our new Minneapolis Green Zones Plant-based Budding Directory. We learned that 18-20% of these businesses are BIPOC and women-owned respectively, and in order for them to succeed, we need to do our part in letting people know they are out there. Please let us know who we may have missed, or have those businesses contact us with their information. Link to the Directory via our Facebook page.

Upcoming Events:

• On May 21 we’ll be at the Green Summit, which is part of the Community Connections Conference at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Stop by to say hello!
• Keep your eyes on our Facebook page as we’re hoping to add a foraging class with Dream of Wild Health at the beginning of June.
• We’re excited to add a couple more instructors to our monthly cooking classes, which will be starting up again in the next month or two. Join our Facebook page so you know when we start!
• If you’re willing and able to volunteer in any way, we’d greatly appreciate that help. Possibilities include: co-administration of our Facebook page, pick-up and delivery of compost and organic soil to garden build sites, working side-by-side with participants who need help during the instruction phase, and taking photos at garden builds.

Contact Michelle at MinneapolisEdibleBoulevards@gmail.com if you have any questions.

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