Blossoming Indoors

It may be the middle of winter, with threats of snow and lower-than-ever temperatures, but we always keep a summertime frame of mind, as you can see in the picture above!
Each week we maintain our classes at DC Bilingual, CentroNia's Langley Park campus, CentroNia's pre-K incentive program at Harvard Street, Community of Hope, and Columbia Heights Youth Club. Since the gardens at all locations are pretty...well...depressing, we are always coming up with ways to brighten up the indoors and plan for spring. This winter we have studied all kinds of critters with pre-K, Kindergarten, 1st grade, and Community of Hope: Bees, Ladybugs, Butterflies, Grasshoppers and Worms. 1st grade at DC Bilingual is starting an indoor vermicomposting system, better known as a worm bin! With 2nd grade and Columbia Heights Youth Club, we are learning about the many animals and critters that inhabit the garden, and building birdhouses to attract some local winged friends to our gardens. In the 3rd grade classes we are getting down to the very start of it all - the seed and how seeds work. Tasty experiments include popping real popcorn off of the cob and dissecting edamame pods. 4th grade is in the middle of an epic unit on herbs, and will be using their own class-grown herbs to design the herb gardens at Girard for spring.
In other news, we will be inviting new groups into the garden this year: an elementary after-school group from Asian American LEAD's program at Bancroft, and some young women from CentroNia's Saturday Arts Workshops to design sculptures for Girard. Also upcoming: monthly Adult and Family workshops starting in April and weekly volunteer days starting in March. Yikes! We will be very busy bees! You know what keeps us bees going: when our friends and neighbors show up to get their hands dirty with us. If you are interested in participating in any City Blossoms activities this spring, please email us at lola@cityblossoms.org or rebecca@cityblossoms.org .
In the meantime, stay warm and start drooling over seed catalogs! Indoor seed planting season is right around the corner! Hooray!
Cheers,
City Blossoms

The bulb dance... latest version!

The season is coming to an end - but we keep blooming!

Hello Everyone,
This past week, we took down a prolific cherry tomato vine, pulled out fragrant cinnamon basil, and said goodbye to some droopy dried sunflower heads, all in order to plant our next round of crops. It is sad to say goodbye to the bright summer flowers and vegetables but we are eagerly awaiting the growth of magenta radishes and a whole spectrum of "greens" - collards, broccoli, kale, chard, lettuce, spinach, bok choy, pac soy, and arugula. The Girard Garden is really popping, and we have already started a first harvest with kids from DC Bilingual Public Charter School, Columbia Heights Youth Club, and Community of Hope. If you drop by on Wednesday or Thursday afternons from 4-6 you are welcome to take a look! Also, thanks to our new volunteer gardeners, April and Adriana, the garden is open more for peeking in and maybe even a little picking.
SPEAKING OF PICKING.... if you are hungering for some tasty greens yourself, our end of the season HARVEST VOLUNTEER DAY will be Saturday, November 15th. We will spend the day cleaning up the garden a bit, decorating, painting, and picking tasty treats. If you are interested in participating, please email Lola at lola@cityblossoms.org
Big Harvest Hugs,
Lola and Rebecca

The article!

I almost forgot to mention that City Blossoms was featured this week in the Washington Times! Reporter Amanda McClure wrote an article about our new project at Girard Garden. Check it out at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/29/girard-garden-targets-crime/

I like how the subtitle says "Residents Hope Calm will Bloom"....because of my last name.....heehee!
Hugs
Lola

Nothing says welcome like....

Goofing off and Gorgeous

These our some of the chicas from our girls' group that came with us to the Penn Quarter Farmer's Market this past Thursday. We learned all about what it takes to sell goods at the market, how to showcase the products, and how to sneak lots of free samples! Soon, the girls' own handmade herbal lotion bars, soaps, and salt scrubs will be for sale at CentroNia. The lavender, rosemary, mint, and chamomile come straight from our organic garden.

Goodbye Sweaty July, Hello Sticky August!

3 more weeks of classes means 3 more weeks of digging, composting, eating, picking, drying, watering, and sweating. 3 more weeks means soon there will be a bunch of happy harvesters in the City Blossoms' gardens! As you can see in one of these pictures, our corn is just reaching the ready point. Last week we picked a few ears at Harvard with the 4 year-olds and learned how tortillas are made. At CentroNia on 14th and Columbia, the tomato plants, much to Lola's distaste, and producing like crazy! Cucumbers are crawling the fence, and the sunflowers are watching over our shoulders every time we step into the building. At CAPCS, the beans and herbs have gone above and beyond what was expected, and it's time for a cutting - anyone interested?
In these next 3 weeks we will be getting ready to plant fall crops: spinach, radishes, beets, cabbage, and all kinds of healthy greens will be going in one seed at a time. We know there are some hungry peeps out there just looking to bite into some fresh organic produce - let us know if you or anyone you know would be willing to trade some volunteer hours for some treats!