Breaking New Ground with E.L. Haynes

This past Wednesday we went outside with our E.L. Haynes 5th grade class and Mr. Franz to finally mark our territory at the new North Columbia Heights Greenspace. This space has been acquired by Washington Parks and People and is planned to be a community space with gardens, seating, and artwork. We have been working with the super-awesome 5th graders in their classrooms to plan out square-foot gardens, grow baby vegetable and herb seedlings, play with worms and distinguish the different bugs by playing BUGGO. Also, the kids created their own signs to invite, inform and inspire visitors to the garden. So far in the garden we have only marked the periphery of the space, but this week we plan to get those seedlings in the ground, aka Grow Bags! These pictures show the space (recently used as a parking lot/ dog pooping yard), kids placing the signs and stakes into the ground, and a lovely post-hard-work stinky armpit/muscle pic. More pics to be posted soon!

Oh yeah - the tasty part!

Since I can only post 5 pics per post, here's the rest of the story of the radishes....after the kids packaged up some bouquets for their families, we decided to munch on the leftovers. By the way, that's italian dressing we are eating with the radishes.

Ravishing Radishes

It's not rocket science to plant radishes, but no other plant gives kids the quickest "I grew it myself!" satisfaction of planting, maintaining and harvesting. Here are some pics of our successful harvest day last week - 200 radishes, and that wasn't even half of what was there!

It's a spring thing.

Now that it's spring again, we have noticed more dirt under our fingernails, more obsessive-compulsive weather forecast checking, and more thoughts flooding our heads about the possibilities of juicy, fresh veggies and fruits. The consistent (and necessary! we will appreciate it in the summer!) rain has been like a big "slow down" sign for us and the kids, eager to be outside all of the time. However, we have managed to squeeze outside a few times in between raindrops! Five volunteer days went by with only one rain date and each garden was given a face lift for the season. Radishes were planted in most spots, and we managed to harvest enough for a farmer's market at Girard. We have become the proud owners of a red wiggler worm bin at DC Bilingual, which has given us hours of fascination and creepy-crawlies. Happily we took on a new class of kids at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, and we are crossing our fingers to break ground at their new location this week! We will add pictures of the groundbreaking - in the meantime enjoy some of the spring snapshots above!

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