Our Rainbow Children's Garden Fairy Garden party and opening

What a wonderful day!  Thanks to all of the children and families that made our garden opening such a fantastic success.  Lovely food, fun activities and great weather made for a really special day.  It got a little hot (temps in the 90's) but we had plenty of shade, light breezes and fairy punch to keep us cool.  We started off the day with delicious food (potato salad, roasted beets, green beans and salad from our garden along with many other great things everyone brought) and the kids loved our fairy entertainment (face painting, fairy crafts, painting garden markers and hearing fairy stories).  It all culminated in an amazing fairy house village building extravaganza.  We weren't sure we'd know what to do but the children sure did!  They spent almost an hour quietly building and adding to the fairy garden, often coming back to discuss what they thought the fairies might do there or to add another beautiful element.  (My favorite moment was when one little boy solemnly said, while gazing at the garden, "This is the best day of my life"…sniff!). :)  It was such a joy to share that time together in the garden and it was so much fun that we've decided we'll plan a Harvest Festival for the fall so we can do it all over again! 

Here are the pictures:



Have a great week and hope to see you in the garden!  Our garden hours are ever evolving: join us Saturday mornings from 8am-11am or Wednesday evenings if you'd like to help water, weed and pick or plant veggies.  Be well!

Opening Day Fairy Festival and Potluck Supper in Our Children's Rainbow Garden!

When: Saturday, June 26th : 3-5pm Fairy Festival, 5-7pm Vegetarian Potluck, 7-8pm Sunset Watching and Deep Relaxation

Calling all Children young and old! 
Into the Garden to we must go! 
The Fairies are asking for houses that grow.
So we must build four in a row!  
Twigs, flowers, bird feathers, and moss.
They tell us is the home that they know.  
Love, laughter and food galore.
Is how the Rainbow Garden will glow!  
PLEAE JOIN US AND BRING EVERY CHILD YOU KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

3 - 5pm - Fairy Festival 
5 - 7pm - Vegetarian Potluck Supper begins in the Garden - Everyone is Welcome! 
7 - 8pm Sunset Watching and Deep Relaxation

Where: Dauphin County Parks and Recreation Community Gardens - Elmerton Avenue in Harrisburg - Look for the Windsocks!

We have finished composting, planting and mulching and are ready to celebrate the opening of Our Children's Rainbow Garden with a Fairy Festival & Potluck Supper in the Garden. 

We have carefully constructed three gardens: The Fairy Garden, The Mother Garden, and The Flower Garden. They are so much fun to play in and our vegetables, herbs, and flowers are now ahead of the weeds and are really taking off! 

We offer a very special thank you to all of the volunteers that continue to help with the project and are very grateful to Dig My Earth (www.digmyearth.com) for compost, Hershey Nursery for their donations of cocoa mulch, and wait until you see the garden stepping stones created by our girl scout troops for each garden!  


Please join us on Saturday beginning at 3pm to enjoy the festivities as the children construct four Fairy Houses and then roam the garden to place very special Fairy treasures in the secret places they find.  We'll end the day with a wonderful vegetarian potluck supper that begins at 5pm as we relax and watch the sun go down. Everyone of any age is welcome to join us.

Important: We will have coolers to keep the food cool, a tarp-like tent cover for shade, and tables - just bring a portable chair, a dish to share if you can stay for supper, and whatever child you know! We will also provide all of the materials needed to construct the Fairy Houses and treasures to hide. 

OPEN TO EVERYONE AND FREE OF CHARGE

If you need more information, please email or call 717 574-2654.
(If you are unable to join us, check out this link with instructions for building your own fairy house and have fun!).

We've got a garden on our hands! ;)

It's officially a garden, folks!  (Well, its probably already obvious to everyone else, but we are finally realizing the scale of our garden vision and are just so excited to see that the garden is really coming to life!).  We have pretty much all of our plants in the ground and the different garden areas are coming along nicely.  Great news: one of our community garden contributors has contacted the Hershey Nursery and they are graciously donating (and delivering!) 30 bags of cocoa mulch to help make our garden more beautiful and significantly cut down on our weeding time.  We've also been "recycling" grass clippings and cardboard (from our own homes and neighborhoods) and have already been getting those into the garden to meet our mulching needs.

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to:

 

One of our great Girl Scout volunteers

Peas

Rosemary

 Discussing placement of the birdsnest

A little rest in the shade

 
Final plantings in the children's fairy garden

The sunny summer weather on Saturday was lovely for a day at the beach or by the pool but was a bit brutal for gardening, so we're going to plan to meet a little later for the next few weeks to avoid some of the peak sun time (3-5pm on Saturdays).  At some point we might also switch to a morning schedule to be able to enjoy the garden work when it's a little cooler.  More on that later…

Next up will be our official community garden "Grand Opening".  We'd like to have our next potluck at the garden (Saturday, June 26th) so we hope you join us there!

Have a great week!
~Marykaye

Why mulch?

Hello everyone.  Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!  We had so much fun in the garden on Saturday and wanted to share some of our experiences. To this point, mulching has taken a back seat to tasks like preparing the soil, composting and planting but as we travel further into our gardening adventure we are quickly realizing how important it could be. While we are discovering the many benefits of weeding (a time for great conversation and an undeniable "zen-like" experience just being in the moment), we are realizing that a little careful planning can probably save quite a bit of work on the gardening front.  (We also found out that a place in the shade to retreat from the sun for a cool drink comes in handy in a garden!). ;)

Until now, we've mostly used straw to mulch around all of the plants we've put in the ground and that seems to be working beautifully. However, we are finding that the remaining unplanted spaces and the garden paths are quickly seeding and sprouting on their own.  (I've read that you can easily see growth of 2-3 inches per week from happy weeds and we've got 'em!).  As a result, our garden think-tank is turning it's efforts to finding the best options for mulch.  Cocoa mulch would be wonderful (fragrant, attractive and local!) but pine needles, wood chips or garden netting might be more cost-saving options. We'll let you know what works best for us as we experiment!

Here are some pictures from last weekend:

We love to read your comments so if you have anything you'd like to share (including your experience with great mulch materials) please leave a comment at the link below.  Have a great week!

~Marykaye