Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska --
The 477th Fighter Group Headquarters Building is just within
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson runway bird exclusion zone. Additional research
demonstrated a marked decrease in moose-human encounters in base housing areas
when Aurora Housing added a clause in their lease to prevent housing residents
from creating vegetable gardens. Therefore, the 477 FG Earth Day 2017 event will
still focus on food production—just food production off-site.
The 477 FG Earth Day 2017 event will now be a competition to
see who can produce the best home-grown salad. On Saturday, May 6, the 477 FG
Earth Day committee will hand out seeds and seed starter kits to anyone who
would like to participate in the challenge (or to those who just want to get
started growing their own food). On Saturday, Aug. 5, we will hold a
taste-testing competition and determine our winner.
The prize: An Aero Garden so you can continue
your gardening in the post-season
The competition: Grow ingredients to make your salad. You
may use other natural ingredients you don’t grow (except absolutely NO
store-bought salad dressings!), but your score will go down according to the
ratio of grown to purchased ingredients.
The help: the 477 FG is lucky to have many talented
gardeners in our unit. If you need help growing along the way, just ask.
Anyone who would like to volunteer to be a judge for the
competition, please contact: Maj. Chris Castaneda, christopher.castaneda@us.af.mil.