Fall Fest pics and see you next year!

Our 2012 season came to a close on a beautiful, cool day in October and we were lucky enough to celebrate it with our third annual festival in the garden.  This year part of the fun included the kids picking lots of colorful veggies and playing in the garden.  (I think we adults enjoyed it as much as they did). :)

You can check out some pictures of the fun here:

There's still plenty of life left in our garden but as the days are getting cooler, we'll be planning to close down for the winter by the end of October.  (Stop by at the garden if you'd like to pick your own abundant harvest with your favorite kid).  We hope you enjoy these cozy days and some great family meals made with the amazing local produce grown in our area.  Soup, anyone?

Have a great holiday season and check back at the blog and Facebook page in the Spring! ~Marykaye :)

Class this Saturday cancelled but save the date for our Fall Festival 9/29

Hello! Hope things are going well with you at the beginning of the new school year! Warm, sunny weather is keeping things going full-swing in the garden. We apologize but we are canceling this Saturday's children's class, "Eating the Colors of the rainbow" due to the forecast of inclement weather.

Please save the date for our Fall Festival in the garden: Saturday, September 29th at 1pm. It's always a fun day with great food, music, pumpkin painting and crafts.

Until then, get out there and enjoy these gorgeous last days of summer!
~Marykaye

What's cookin'

Well, the glorious abundance of late summer is here and delicious fresh-picked garden vegetables are a big part of the fun! We've been enjoying huge harvests every week with plenty to share and are constantly (and pleasantly) surprised by what we find.

Here's an update from Angie:
We picked an impressive harvest of hot peppers, bell peppers, carrots, tomatoes, eggplants, and squash last evening. We also have pumpkins! Several pumpkins are developing in the curcurbit patch. They're green right now, but of nice size. The corn is coming along nicely, too. I picked an ear last evening to gauge its progress, and it was well developed with no bugs. The turnips and radishes are going NUTS. While I was thinning the radish seedlings, I found several helios radishes that were cherry tomato size, to boot. I didn't realize radishes grew this fast! :)

So what do we do with all that produce? Fresh veggies are a perfect inspiration for trying new recipes. Here are some of the ones we've enjoyed:

corn, tomato and zucchini salad with honey-lime vinaigrette (click this link for recipe)


grilled Asian salad with seaweed rice


Al's baked beans and rice with rainbow garden tomatoes

Why not try something new for dinner this week? Stop by the garden to pick up some fresh vegetables to inspire your creation. Or if you are hankering for a fresh tomato sandwich (the epitome of summer "cooking"), we've got them too. :)

Enjoy!
~Marykaye

Save the Date: Eating the Colors of the Rainbow class moving to September 8th

We wanted to let you know that we'll be rescheduling our next children's class in the garden "Eating the Colors of the Rainbow" to Saturday, September 8th. (The class originally scheduled on Aug 11th is now cancelled).

Hope we see you in September for more learning and fun in the garden!

Discovery Garden

Well, our first class in the garden was a wonderful success! Kristen led a fun and educational tour of the garden and everyone had a chance to meet many new friends (kids and bugs alike). ;)
Snacks, activities and stories made it a lovely day all around. It's so great for us to have a chance to invite lots of little ones into the garden to explore and be inspired!

















For more pictures of the fun day with our Bug Detectives, check out this link: garden detective slideshow


And insects aren't the only thing that can be good (or challenging) in a garden. If you've ever had a garden, you know that the same goes for "weeds". Did you know that a variety of plants that we call weeds are edible? Check out this link for more on tasty edibles like dandelion, purslane, lambs quarters, nettles and more: Wild edibles

Hope to see you one day soon in the garden. Until then, happy hunting!
~Marykaye

Bug detectives!

Join us this Saturday at 10am in the garden for our next children's class: Bug Detectives!
Are bugs good or bad for a garden?  Children will learn which bugs are helpful to a garden and which bugs are not.  With magnifying glasses in hand, the kids will explore the garden to find these little critters and make some new friends!  (This class was a hit last year).  Class is free but RSVP is welcome.  Just let us know by leaving a comment, sending an email or posting on our Facebook page.

We hope you can join us!  Check out our Events page for other fun activities coming up in the garden...

Happy Hunting!
~Marykaye

Remembering cooler days

How are you staying cool on these 90+ degree days?  Gardening in this heat can be a challenge, so we're taking cues from the experts.  Watering in the early morning or late afternoon/evening is best.  Resisting the urge to skip breaks in the shade and staying hydrated with homemade fruit-infused waters or agua fresca helps too (click for recipes).   They say the lycopene and carotenoids in the brightly colored fruits also help us handle UV radiation a bit better as well!

Looking over these pictures from our Grand Opening Festival in the garden a few weeks back is another way to dream of cooler days!  We were blessed with a lovely breezy day and plenty of umbrellas and sun shelters kept everyone comfortable.  Such a fun day...

Here are some of the pictures:


Plants that love all of this sun include the nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants) but make sure to pick and enjoy those fresh lettuces; very hot sunny days tend to make them bitter if you grow them outside during this stretch of the summer.  For more info on which veggies and fruits love sun and shade, check out this link from ehow.com.

Hope you stay cool and have fun!
See you soon. :)

~Marykaye

Join us this Saturday for our 3rd annual Grand Opening Festival in the garden!

Canopy? Check! 

Cocoa mulch? Check!

Fabulous memories waiting to be made at this weekend's festival? Checkity check!

We're readying the children's play area, stocking up on face paint and supplies for this year's fairy garden and browsing for scrumptious vegetarian recipes for this Saturday's grand opening festival in the garden.  Why not bring your favorite kid and join us for some fun?  The festival is free and all ages are welcome. 

Here's a few things you might see if you visit:

Our first tomato this year!



The man behind the canopy.  Thanks Don!! :)

Carrots ready to be thinned and lettuce ready to 
be featured in a salad near you

We'll be having a grand time from 3pm on: just look for our sun shelter along Elmerton Ave, right across from the new PSECU building.


Hope to see you there!

~Marykaye

Getting ready for our festival (Save the date: June 16th)

We're speeding along towards early summer but the 80-90 degree weather makes it feel like late June! Our plants are happy to oblige and are already filling out nicely in the bright sunshine. We've been weeding and getting things looking pretty in preparation for our 3rd annual opening festival in the garden, so save the date and join us from 3-6pm on Saturday, June 16th for food, kid's activities, music and a tour of the garden.

Here's what we've been up to:

Framework for this year's Fairy Garden

Happy plants love all this sunshine

Weeding, weeding, weeding!

Hope to see you all on June 16!  Until then, here's a great site with a similar mission: helping kids connect with nature in their area http://www.naturerocks.org .  They have some great downloadable resources including activity guides and a nature treasure hunt.  Print one out and have some fun in nature with your favorite kid!

Happy Memorial Day and a big thank you to all those that serve peace and keep us safe, happy and free. ~Marykaye

Coming right along

Thanks to gorgeous weather and a perfect mix of sun and rain, things are coming along nicely in the garden.  We continue to mulch and prepare beds, but many plants are also making their way into the ground.

This season it's tomatoville in the garden and some of the players we'll enjoy meeting include Paul Robeson, St. Pierre and St. Marzano, along with the cheeky Garden Peach, Ivory Egg and Isis Candy.  We know how to party in this garden! ;)  Other delicious additions will include Cumin, Sorrel, Celery, Anise and Stevia, all of which should be very interesting for the to kids taste and watch growing.

The pace is lovely and we get a lot done, but we also enjoy the time together with friends.  Many a problem is unwound and new solutions uncovered, all while weeding or laying out mulch under a beautiful blue sky.  

Here's what's been going on this week:

Chris contemplates a tomato plant.  Which one will this one be?

Awww, baby rainbow chard, our signature vegetable!

Lovely vistas and images abound every day in the garden

This is the lovely Pam of Pam's Creature Care, by the way.
(You may have heard of her)

Fairy ring still life, the first of many.  (We'll need a time-lapse photo).

The garden is a lovely place for an impromptu gathering.

(We do that a lot). ;)

Many helpers make light work

But you have to take time to play!
(And nothing beats a big pile of dirt).

Hope you have plenty of meaningful work AND time to play this week.  Wishes for a happy Mother's Day for all, including our beautiful Mama Earth!

~Marykaye

Earth Day 2012

Happy Earth Day!

What could be a greater blessing for the earth than rain on Earth Day?  Our plots were getting pretty dusty so this must be a welcome gift to the soil.  We're hoping that all who had celebrations planned were able to move them inside or enjoy them with a little rain gear and a hot drink.  More about some of them at http://www.earthday.org/2012 

Even on a rainy day there are so many fun activities to bring Earth Day inside. Painting coffee cans to plant with fresh kitchen herbs,  creating a recycling station for yourself or a neighbor or reading a great book about Earth Day with your favorite kid.  Another way is to explore a bit of the webisphere for all of the creative ways that gardens are blooming and nurturing children.  You can find a great resource here at: http://www.kidsgardening.org/groups/gardening-our-way-vermont  

So get cozy, breathe in the cool, fresh smell of rain and say a little word of gratitude for this big beautiful planet.  Let's keep it healthy and safe for generations to come.  :)

Happy Earth Day!

~Marykaye

Spring is in the air

It's been feeling like Spring out in the garden. There's still a chill in the air but we're enjoying the glorious sunshine even on the breeziest of days.  We've been out here for weeks but the cooler weather reminds us that it is still just early April with time to dream up a fabulous season.

Our progress so far:
We've been planting more potatoes and onions along with preparing beds for the tomato seedlings that are currently snoozing on cozy windowsills.  A few radishes have even made it into the fresh cool earth, a bit hardier than some veggies in case of frost.  Most exciting of all, we laid out the pattern for this year's fairy ring along with walking paths and a kid's play area near the back of the garden.  We'll plan to plant in expanding rows to increase yield and to include an area for the adults to congregate and stage produce as needed.  As always, we enjoy our time together with tea and treats as much as the gardening. :)

Here are some pictures from this week:

straw mulch keeps prepared beds ready and waiting for planting

outline of the fairy ring

you can see us from the road by the new PSECU building

looking good!

rest is as important as hard work in the garden :)

Starting seeds indoors is another great way for kids to connect with the earth so feel free to bring your seedlings out to our garden for them to plant when they are ready!  You can also check out our "Events" link for more details of this season's schedule or scroll down the right side of the page for a quick list of dates.

Happy planting!
~Marykaye

We're back!

What a glorious first day in the garden!  An early season is always great and we are out there more than a month earlier than last year.  It means more time to prepare the earth and an opportunity to plant many different waves of crops, season by season.  Right now is a perfect time to put in cooler weather crops that can easily withstand any frost we may still see before the end of May.  

This evening we spread organic compost, mixing in greensand & gypsum to create a comfortable home for some potato and onion sets.  (Favorite first veggies that are now a part of the 3rd annual Children's Rainbow Garden project.  Yea!).  A special thank you to Jill from Robertson Excavating for the donation of a dumptruck-full of organic compost.  Happy earth means happy veggies...

Here are some pictures from this evening:

Potatoes find a happy home

Huge pile o' compost

Glorious sunset

Usual garden shenanigans 

Regular hours in the garden will be starting again this week, so please be welcome to join us on Wednesdays from 6pm to dusk and Saturdays from ~10am to noon.  Kids and their favorite adults welcome! :)

In the meantime, check out these links for more creative ways kids benefit from community gardening:

San Diego school buses will become "Farms on wheels"

"School buses will be turned into "farms on wheels" to teach students in the San Diego Unified School District about nutrition and sustainable agriculture. The buses will travel from school to school and complement the district's Farm-to-School program."

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2012/mar/26/stringers-farms-wheels-program/

Greenhouse supplies vegetables for Minn. high school

"Students in a Minnesota high school are served fresh lettuce grown at a community greenhouse. Students say they can taste the difference between the fresh greens and the bagged lettuce they eat between harvests. So far this year, about 165 pounds of salad greens and other vegetables have been harvested at the greenhouse and served at the school. "We've never had a bad batch," said school nutrition professional Bonnie Nordmeyer. "How lucky are these students, to get lettuce from two blocks away.""

http://www.wctrib.com/event/article/id/91532/group/homepage/

          We have lots of fun things planned for this year's garden,
           so stop back for an updated list of events!
           ~Marykaye