Thank you Garden District!

This week Garden District, a local garden supply store donated tons of plants City Blossoms to use in our many gardens with the kids. We started getting a bunch of the herbs and annuals in the ground yesterday with the CAPCS kids. After a long spring of planting, these CAPCS kids are now professionals at gently taking the small plants out of the pots, pinching the roots, and tucking them into their new homes in the Amos 1 campus garden. It looks like we are going to have quite a delicious pizza garden very soon! Let us know if you have any good sauce recipes!

More Volunteer Madness!

Apparently 'tis is the season for going crazy with volunteer days. We participated in another two since the Baltimore event - April 26th at Community Academy Public Charter School and the May 3rd Kaboom!/Comcast Cares event at the new CentroNia campus in Langley Park. At CAPCS, we worked with a couple of other volunteers from the school through sprinkles and one downpour to dig up the sod and add compost and manure in three circular garden plots. Since then students have planted radishes, spinach, carrots, beans and sunflowers, and all of the seedling are making their way into tasty big plants.
The Langley Park project was enormous, with over 100 volunteers coordinated through Comcast Cares and CentroNia working together to transform a big parking lot into a playground, complete with custom designed garden space, outdoor classroom and mural designed by Rebecca. It really was amazing to witness the transformation over the 7-hour event. We are hoping to get the raised garden boxes built and planted before the summer gets too sticky. If you are interested in helping us out with this task, let us know!
Now we are finalizing our plans and ideas for the summer programs at CentroNia, Garrison Middle School, and our NEW site in Girard Park. More news about that project later.... until then, go out and get dirty!

Volunteer Day Baltimore

This past Sunday we had ANOTHER volunteer day at the Garrison Middle School Garden in Baltimore. Rebecca teaches classes to middle school girls there, and the garden needed a lot of work to get ready for the growing season. There was a BIG turnout of parents, students, teachers, friends, and Master Gardeners, and everybody was enthusiastic to get heir hands dirty and help out. This weekend, April 12th, there will be a volunteer day at Community Academy Public Charter School to break ground and set up the layout of the garden.
In other news, City Blossoms has been the recipient of two generous grants lately: The Washington Parks and People mini-grant and the Wuzzleburg Preschool Garden Awards. Hooray!! We're on a roll! Please let us know if you know of any relevant grants or funding opportunities we should apply for.

Volunteer Days = Growing Community

This year City Blossoms is expanding A LOT and we are adding volunteer days to our schedule to get people involved, discover their own little special part of the garden, and also help take a load of work off our hands! We had a great turnout this weekend (as you can see from the pictures) at CentroNia on 11th and Harvard, and this weekend (April 5) there will be another at Garrison Middle School in Baltimore. The following weekend there will be a volunteer day to break ground at the Community Academy Public Charter School location (1300 Allison St NW DC), and the weekend after that, well, Rebecca and Lola might just choose to sleep in :) Also, City Blossoms will be participating in the Mother's Day Arts and Crafts Sale at CentroNia on 14th and Columbia Rd. NW DC. If you have a hankering for some organic, handmade soaps and lotion bars, come on down!
Thanks again to all the parents and friends who came out this past weekend - you all get first dibs on the watermelons!

Cooking up some Compost at D.C. Bilingual