[Communications] CCGA Eblast

[Lorraine Kells]

Hello I was asked to write up an eblast for gardeners in this new year.
This feels more like a Winter Newsletter, so I'm not sure I got it right.
Please feel free to edit, rewrite, add seed swap lists or whatever other
information is available, what's new for gardeners in 2025.  Perhaps the
Resources request that Mamie sent out for what kind of workshop gardeners
want can be included.

Lorraine

Winter is not a season, it's a celebration.”

Anamika Mishra



Yards and gardens have gone cold, now dusted with snow, but meditative to
look at through a window. While the temperatures dip, we find reports that
2024 was the hottest year on record according to UN weather experts from
the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) who confirmed on Friday that
2024 was the hottest year on record, at 1.55 degrees Celsius (C) above
pre-industrial temperatures.  A dismal thought to reckon as gardeners, yet
words describing or detailing the presence and complexity and nuance of the
ecosystem that sustains us feel so important now.  2025 will be a challenge
and CCGA is up to it.

Some of us have bags of seed pods in our freezers, needing to be stripped
of dried petals and the seeds rolled into seed bombs and planted, or make
winter gifts for birds: basic pine cone birdfeeders—a pine cone, smeared
with sunflower butter (no allergies), rolled in sunflower seeds. For a
gardener’s upgrade, add native tree fruit that anyone might see locally,
like hackberry drupes, sweetgum, catalpa pods, and sycamore balls.
Dark-eyed junco like to stay on the ground but will eat seeds that fall
from feeders. The northern cardinal, the Carolina chickadee, red-breasted
Nuthatch, and the Blue Jay will love this biodegradable wildlife fodder.

There are no longer leaves to break the fall of the sun, and cold, bare
branches are not truly silent. The birds mentioned above are still here and
watching them can help you understand ecosystems and how creatures respond
to environmental changes. It’s easier to spot birds in winter (especially
for little eyes). The stillness of winter allows for bird calls to be
crisper and clearer.

Try identifying trees in winter by their bark, oh, what a challenge but a
glorious endeavor if you can find a walk led by someone knowledgeable. Take
a virtual walk with Tom Ebeling, community arborist and begin to identify
trees in winter at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0818Rf0Ewto&t=1381s.
It's really good.

Finally, winter sunsets can be meditative, the cotton-candy pink with
bright yellow melting at the horizon. At sunset, as we rotate away from the
sun, light must travel farther — through more of the atmosphere — more
atmosphere means more molecules to scatter violets and blues away from our
eyes, leaving other colors, like yellow, orange and red.

Continue to Join with us in 2025......
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://chicagocommunitygardens.org/pipermail/communications_chicagocommunitygardens.org/attachments/20250115/131f6b04/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: CCGA Eblast for 2025.docx
Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Size: 15309 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://chicagocommunitygardens.org/pipermail/communications_chicagocommunitygardens.org/attachments/20250115/131f6b04/attachment-0001.docx>