Root for grassroots and healthy soils sequestering carbon
The Harvest Your Energy Festival is a fun, sustainable event with entertainment, activities for residents of all ages, food, and great raffle prizes to win. The festival will be held at the base of the Medford Wind Turbine in Riverbend Park. There will even be the opportunity to visit “Windy” the wind turbine!
The Ocean River Institute along with 32 plus local businesses and organizations will host tables and get guests excited about green energy, advancing biodiversity, resilience and addressing the climate crisis. Kids activities will be provided by Knucklebones and there will be live music from Matt Heaton and Train Mix.
Keeley and Rob will be completing ORI’s summer Natural Lawns for Healthy Soils Challenge. Twenty-six groups, towns and watersheds have teams that are competing for the most residents pledging NOT to put fertilizer, pesticides or herbicides on established lawns.
Grass plants are the best organisms at pulling carbon dioxide out of the air and pushing out as root exudate carbohydrates to build soil. Grass lawns can build an inch of soil in a year, pulling down 4 tons of CO2 for every ton of liquid carbon. Beneath the turf is a wonderful symbiosis of organisms with fungi, bacteria, nematodes, springtails, insects, worms, tardigrades, and more.
Saturday will be an opportunity for the Mystic River Team to catch up to the Ipswich River Team. The Medford Team is gathering momentum. Meanwhile, Lincoln Sudbury is duking it out with Concord Carlisle. Bridgewater State Environmental Action Team has a commanding lead, but Mothers Out Front Natural Lawns Team will be at the Harvest Your Energy Festival.
Support your greens team or pick a team to support with your pledge at https://www.oceanriver.org/causes/green-teams/
