New Matamoras Harvest Market & Gardens

05/17/2026

05/17/2026

Last week two complete strangers who are students from Marietta College came to help us create the New Matamoras Harvest Market & Gardens 😉 Ava and Brennan helped us get 10 steps ahead!! Thank you!!! They were introduced to us by the Washington County Health Coalition and will continue to help during these first few weeks. Thank you Ava and Brennan!!!

05/17/2026

05/16/2026

05/13/2026

🌱🎡 BIG NEWS, EVERYONE! 🎡🌱
The Harvest Garden Initiative is excited to announce that vendors will be joining this year’s Spring Carnival on Saturday May 23rd for our FIRST COMMUNITY MARKET OF THE SEASON! 🥕🌻

This is more than just a market initiative..
It’s the beginning of a community movement focused on:

🌱 Fresh food
👨‍👩‍👧 Family involvement
🧒 Youth entrepreneurship
🍅 Garden-to-table education
🤝 And creating a healthier, stronger community together

🧺 Stop by our booth to:
🥬 Learn about the Harvest Garden Initiative
🐛 See upcoming youth projects like Bug Condos, worm Cities, and our upcoming Dirt to Dish Event on May 30th at the Township building.

🌻 Find out how to volunteer or join the garden teams
🥕 Support our first fresh market setup of the year

🌼 What We’re Building
Our vision is to create a space where:

🌱 Food is grown locally
🍲 Families learn together
🧒 Kids gain hands-on skills
🥕 Fresh produce reaches the community
From garden beds… to markets… to meals… ❤️

🎉 We’re excited to grow alongside this amazing community and kick off the season at the Spring Carnival!
👉 Come say hello, meet the team, and help us plant the seeds for something special.

05/10/2026

Happy Mother's Day to all the mama's out there, and especially to our Mother Earth 🌱🖤

05/10/2026

Ohio is redirecting millions toward local food systems so more families can buy fresh products from nearby farms and community markets instead of relying on heavily processed packaged foods. Advocates say this move strengthens local agriculture, improves food quality, and gives families better long-term options without removing access to affordable meals. The biggest shift is psychological: people are starting to see food assistance as a path toward nourishment instead of just convenience calories.

05/09/2026

05/08/2026

The bee you're trying to save isn't the one doing most of the pollination in your yard. North America has roughly 4,000 native bee species. One honeybee species gets the campaigns, the bumper stickers, and the documentaries.

Native solitary bees don't live in hives. They nest in the ground, in hollow stems, in tiny holes in old wood. They don't make honey. They don't swarm. Most of them can barely sting. And per flower visit, they transfer more pollen than a honeybee — because they're messier, less efficient collectors, which means more pollen lands where the plant actually needs it.

Mason bees alone can pollinate an apple orchard with a fraction of the numbers a honeybee colony requires. Sweat bees handle low-growing wildflowers honeybees skip entirely. Mining bees work in cooler temperatures when honeybees stay in the hive.

🐛 What's already nesting near you:
- Small metallic-green bees on your flowers are sweat bees — one of the largest native bee families, and they've been showing up every spring without a single headline
- Tiny holes in bare soil patches aren't ant nests — mining bees raise their young underground, one egg per chamber, and they were there before you noticed
- A "bee hotel" houses mason bees and leafcutter bees, but the ground nesters outnumber them and just need a patch of undisturbed dirt

The honeybee got the brand. The solitary bees got the territory 🌿

05/08/2026

Most pollination guides stop at bees and butterflies. But a second round of pollination happens after dark, and the flowers it depends on are the ones most people ignore because they bloom after dinner.

Moonflowers crack open at sunset — deep white trumpets that reflect moonlight. Sphinx moths find them by scent and pollinate while feeding. Evening primrose unfurls pale yellow at dusk, drawing in late-foraging bees and nocturnal moths. Night-blooming jasmine barely looks alive during the day, then floods a yard with fragrance after dark.

These plants evolved for a workforce that only arrives when you go inside.

🌙 How to build a night garden:

- Plant moon-white and pale yellow flowers along unlit edges — color doesn't matter in the dark, but reflectivity does
- Group night bloomers together so moths can find them without crossing a lit zone
- Let them go to seed — sphinx moth caterpillars feed on the foliage through summer

The garden that runs on moonlight doesn't need your attention. Just your restraint 🌿