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| Orchard Happenings and Updates
🍂Fall Festival, this Saturday at 12pm!🍂 What a busy week we have had at Weaver Creek Park and Jovial Concepts! The biggest reason we have been busy is the Weaver Creek Park/Jovial Concepts Fall Festival to be held This Weekend!, at 1200 S. Cole St., Morrison, 80465, from 12 – 4pm. The weather is going to be just about perfect for a day outdoors, a bit cloudy (you still need sunscreen!), 74 degrees, with a calm breeze. We have been getting ready for 20+ Vendors, a Bounce House, Live Music, a Beer Garden, a Pumpkin Patch, Hay rides, and more! It’s going to be fun time. Come on out this Saturday, enjoy the community, and say hello! —
This week, we also had a busy time with normally scheduled events; such as a field trip that Paige, our school garden liaison, coordinated with 4th graders from Kendallvue Elementary School. More info below! It’s harvest season and we are so grateful for the bounty that Jovial Concepts has been able to harvest and supply to food insecure people in our community. We have been so fortunate to have many volunteers and the hardest working staff any organization could ask for. Our IDD (Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities) Program has been doing an amazing job in the gardens both Jovial Concepts staff and participants have enjoyed themselves immensely. Request for Feedback🙏
If you joined us as a volunteer this year, we’d love your feedback! Please take a few minutes to fill out our volunteer survey. It helps us learn what we’re doing well and how we can improve: https://form.responster.com/hbK9XX.🙏 |
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| 46 Kendallvue Elementary School 4th graders joined us for a fun field trip harvesting the last of the concord grapes in the west vineyard. 3 teachers and 4 staffers had our hands full answering questions, teaching them that grapes don’t just appear in the produce aisles, and how AMAZING fresh off the vine grapes, nasturtiums, and borage tastes. |
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| | It was a wonderful time punctuated by fresh grapes, laughter, and excitement all around! Paige did a great job coordinating the day. |
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Claudia’s Swiss Chard and Pasta! Ingredients: - 2 bunches of chard, rinsed and chopped
- 3 tablespoons olive or avocado oil (my new go to frying oil-thanks Benjamin)
- ½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
- Dash of crushed red pepper
- 2 cloves of garlic minced (can also be a handful of garlic scapes when in season)
- ½ cup pine nuts or English walnuts
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- ½ pound farfalle pasta cooked (any other larger pasta will do i.e. rigatoni, penni, fettucini, etc.
Sauté nuts in one tablespoon of oil in a skillet over medium heat until lightly browned – set aside. Chop stems of chard and sauté in large skillet with remaining 2 tablespoons of oil and balsamic vinegar until starting to soften. Add garlic and stir. Almost immediately add the cut leaves of the chard. Stir and cover with lid. Continue cooking over medium heat for a minute or two until the leaves are wilted but still green. Add the crushed red pepper and take off hear. Add the Swiss chard mixture to the pasta and stir in the parmesan cheese and nuts Serves 3-4 |
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The Why behind leafy Color Changing Leaves! |
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| Technically…
Tree leaves change color in Autumn due to signaling hormones which are produced by trees in response to fluctuations in temperature and sunlight.What & Why?
These tree hormones lead to something called leaf senescence (basically, leaf drop) which is a complex process that allows the tree to halt sugar production and results in leaves falling from trees. This process allows the leaves seal up their connection to the tree and detach cleanly without creating any wounds in the tree. Ultimately, this prevents damage to the tree which would occur if leaves were to freeze while attached to the tree. This creates an assortment of fall color!
The orange and yellow colors we see are due to carotenoids that are present in the leaf through the year. Carotenoids are also what give many brightly colored vegetables their coloration (like carrots, sweet potatoes and tomatoes). During most of the year, the green chlorophyll in the leaves, busy taking in sunlight and producing sugars and storing energy for the tree, cover up these carotenoids which are always present. As the plant slows down for winter, the process of leaf senescence takes hold, the chlorophyll fades, and we can see leaves true underlying coloration! Oak leaves turn Brown in the fall due to brown tannins and pigments which are similarly present throughout the year and also covered up by the active green chlorophyll during summer. |
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| | Reds and Deep Purples? While oranges and yellows from carotenoids are present in the leaves throughout the year, the deep reds and purples we see in the leaves can actually vary in a tree from year to year. A group of antioxidants called Anthocyanins are responsible for the red coloration (these are also present in some vegetables and flowers); only some trees produce Anthocyanins. As the tree gets ready to drop leaves, the leaves continue storing up energy by producing sugars; however, the tree will not be able to absorb all of this energy. This leads to the production of Anthocyanins as sugars accumulate in the leaves. The more Anthocyanins present in a leaf, the deeper red it may become, and also, the more frost tolerant, as anthocyanins promote frost tolerance. This is a highly variable process that the trees enter into in preparation for winter, but at the end of the season the flow of the weather and our trees working as natural clocks is what is responsible for the beautiful tapestry that we find on our lawns, sidewalks, and streets. But don’t just take my word for it! Below are a few additional links to reputable education based articles on this topic. |
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