Cooking up some Compost at D.C. Bilingual

The Bulb Dance!

ROOTS ROOTS ROOTS ROOTS!



BUUUULB



LEAVES! LEAVES!



FLOWER :)

Harvard Street Beginning Bulbs

New site at Community Academy Public Charter School!

This is what gets us all revved up - a new patch of land, ready to be turned into a magical growing playground! This site is next to the Amos 1 campus of Community Academy Public Charter School (where Lola works) and hopefully will have some progress by Spring 2008. To make that kind of progress, however, we need help! Ideas, suggestions, and donations are always welcome! Here are some of the materials we are looking for:

Bags of compost, manure, humus, to amend the soil

Tools to do some major digging and turning

Seeds, plants, etc once Spring arrives (we are already starting some indoor babies)

Volunteers!

In other news, I forgot to mention in a previous post that City Blossoms participated in the CentroNia Holiday Art Sale this past weekend, and it was a GREAT success! Not only did we sell ALL of the soaps and lotions that the kids from our summer programs made, but we were also quite a hit with the children attending the event. Could it be that our table was the only one with free sweets and treats?? Hmmm. Nevertheless, we were very happy with the event and look forward to making more organic products with our youth participants next spring.

YAY!!!

Good News!!!

#1 - One of Rebecca's pictures was given Honorable Mention through the KidsGardening.com Photo Contest! http://www.kidsgardening.com/special/photo/final07.asp This means that the photo will be used in the future on the KidsGardening.com website. Three cheers for Rebecca!

#2 - We have begun a new garden at Community Academy Public Charter School, a D.C. school that serves children grades K-5 in Columbia Heights. It's looking pretty yucky now, but hopefully with some hard work and kid energy it will be a blooming masterpiece in the spring. Resources, anyone? We are looking for sources of low-cost mulch, manure, compost.

We at City Blossoms wish you a fruitful, vegetable-ful, and herb-ful holiday season!

Love,

Lola and Rebecca

garden bike tour

Hello Fellow Fall Foliage Fans,
Open up your calendars. Look at October 20th - are you doing something? Maybe you should join up with the Women Garden Cycles project and check out one of our gardens, as well as several other school gardens in D.C.! That's right, City Blossoms' garden at CentroNia (1420 Columbia Rd NW) will be featured as a stop on the bike tour. The bike tour is part of DC School Garden Week, and we are so excited!

Hope to see you there!

City Blossoms

5 senses in the garden

At our Harvard Street location, there is a 5 senses bed right in the middle. You may be thinking, HOW?

Touch - Lamb's Ear

Taste - Mint, Basil, Chives

Smell - Lemon Balm, Mint, Basil, Chives

See - Bright flowers: Dianthus, Cosmos

Hear - You can't see it in this photo, but there is a windchime above! Tricky!

The lonely tomato.

I am a lonely tomato,

I live all alone on this plant.

I am a lonely tomato,

I'd like to make friends but I can't.

This song was written by Lola after an inspirational night at a rock concert. Sing it to whatever tune suits you!

The second biggest zucchini ever! With cheese!

The best way to get kids to eat vegetables is by adding cheese. How else would these young folks even dare bite into the green monster that was larger than my arm??! Of course, the zucchini was organically grown in the City Blossoms garden, as were the tasty herbs (oregano, basil and thyme) that the kids sprinkled on top. YUM!

Tastes great... less filling!!

"The Garden Spot" made lemony-mint iced tea, and even though we skimped on sugar it ended up being a very tasty treat! The mint came from the organic garden out front. The recipe is on it's way for those of you who need refreshment.

This is what happens when you make lemony-mint iced tea...and let the kids use the digital camera.

Summer 2007

Finally I am setting this blog up to keep all of City Blossoms' friends and family updated on what goes on in our dirty lives. This summer we are working with two CentroNia gardens: one at 1420 Columbia Rd and the other at 11th and Harvard (Carlos Rosario School). There have been 12 different groups of kids coming into the gardens and working on dozens of projects, which we will show you here. If you ever want to come by and check out the greenery up close, just shoot me or Rebecca an email!
lola@cityblossoms.org
rebecca@cityblossoms.org

Hugs and Bugs!!
Lola

Harvard and 11th Children's garden shots

Magenta Cosmos, Giant Sunflowers and a bunch of Broccoli