ACGA conference: City Blossoms

The other organization that really impressed me at the conference was City Blossoms, a garden-based education nonprofit in Baltimore MD. At the conference the Executive Director, Rebecca Lemos, co-led a workshop called "Grow for the Goal" where we the participants were encouraged to think about where our true interests and passions lie in our community gardening efforts. The goal of City Blossoms is to create community spaces that children and their families will bond with and absorb into their own daily lives. To this purpose, Rebecca and her staff make the children the designers and tenders of the gardens, hosting regular workshops and workdays in the garden. They often use visual art (especially sculpture) to give the children a sense of ownership of the space. At some of their gardens the kids create products to sell to the community, like dried herbs, lotions and other beauty products that are made from the garden.



I think I was so struck with this organization and this workshop specifically because Rebecca is approximately my age, and she has done so much that I want to do! Creating children's gardens, each one a unique representation of the specific community of people who created it, using art to tie people to the land, and using gardens to teach children and their parents to care for at least that one little piece of the Earth. I picked her brain a bit after the workshop and took three pages of notes.



Check out their adorable blog, where all the pictures on this post came from!

Next up: Dale Chihuly and the Franklin Conservatory

ACGA conference: Local Matters and school gardens

I attended five workshops and two tours at the conference, all of which were led by fascinating and inspiring people from organizations all over the country. One organization really struck me though:

Local Matters - Columbus, OH

The organization Local Matters is an incredibly successful and influential non-profit collaboration of people who are working to educate the community about everything related to local food right there in Columbus, OH. It is run by a chef, an ecological garden designer, and food and community garden activists who all brought years of experience and passion to the collaboration. The organization consists of several programs:

Food to School - this program uses the "Food is Elementary" curriculum to teach nutrition and healthy living to students from grades K-2. They also help schools develop and build Outdoor Learning Environments on their grounds, which are outdoor classroom and garden spaces.

Urban Agriculture - this program focuses on cooking education, community gardening, and food access; their "veggie van" drives around selling fresh produce in neighborhoods with limited access to grocery stores.

Food to Fork - this program helps farmers create more business markets to sell their food. Local Matters in partnered with a for-profit store called the Greener Grocer which they created to assist their organization in it's operations.

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I went to a workshop led by the nutrition educators at Local Matters, and on a tour led by one of the Outdoor Learning Environment designers, which showcased four of their school gardens:

#1 - Lincoln Park Elementary School

This garden is planted, tended, and harvested by the children with assistance from a local farmer who is paid by the school. During the school year it is tended by an after-school program called FAN (Fitness and Nutrition), and during the summer it is tended by parents and students in the area. The garden is planted in a circular design with kale, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, melons and more.





#2 Early Childhood Education and Family Center

This is a large facility dedicated to the education of developmentally disabled children. There are several gardens located around the property, including this food and flower garden which is used to teach color recognition and light food preparation, and has terracotta columns for wheelchair accessibility.



This is called the Studio Garden and it has native plants, rock piles, work benches with garden tools, logs and sticks for building, and a music station.





At this site there is also a Farm Garden, which is planted and maintained by a local farmer.





The coolest part was this straw fort!



#3 - Early Childhood Learning Community

This garden was my favorite. The staff at Local Matters got to build this garden from scratch, so they sat down with faculty, staff, students and parents at this facility (which is also dedicated to developmentally disabled students) and did a "dreamstorming" to come up with the design. They thought about their wants and needs for the garden, their childhood and their dreams. Through that they came up with the following amazing outdoor playground:


***metal sculptures for climbing with a bell at the top for ringing, designed by a local artist and surrounded by soft wood chips***


***A red mama monkey who is a meeting place and watches over the playground***


***tall grasses and flowers with paths to run through and play***


***Another metal sculpture for climbing and sitting, and hills and valleys to roll down***


***Sand area and water features that are turned on when the kids come to play***


***And a circular edible garden which will tie in to the "Food is Elementary" curriculum they will start to teach this year***

#4 Brookside Elementary School

This is a unique public school where the principal is an engaged and committed member of the community (not that other principals are not committed and engaged, but this one is exceptionally so). His background is in ecology and there is a strong emphasis on outdoor learning and natural history. There is a pond on the property with bleacher seating for conducting classes, as well as two large butterfly gardens surrounding the school building. The school has decided to become a "Monarch butterfly school;" raising and releasing monarch butterflies during the school year and the summer. Local Matters helped them build the first phase of a two phase garden called the Three Sisters/Settlers Garden which demonstrates the gardening techniques of the Native Americans and the Settlers of that area of the country. The Native American garden is shaped like a turtle, one of the prevalent symbols of the tribes from that area.



All of the grades get a slice of the garden to tend, and there is a three sisters garden and a compost area in the garden as well.



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To my eyes, Local Matters is a collaboration of many passionate and charismatic people who all brought their talents and funders together to work as a team. And it's working, what a shock! I was clearly very impressed by the work they are doing and I think their model is a wonderful one that should be implemented all over the country.

Next up: More inspiring workshops from the conference!

ACGA conference: The Franklin Park Conservatory

The 30th Annual American Community Gardening Association Conference "Putting Down Roots" was hosted in Columbus, OH by the Franklin Park Conservatory and Chihuly Collection.



Three days of workshops and talks, tours, networking, and lots and lots of local food. There was a large emphasis on bicycle commuting from your hotel to the conservatory and there was a bicycle tour of the city's gardens, but unfortunately I didn't get myself together enough to bring my bike to the conference. Next time, definitely.



The Franklin Park Conservatory is the new home of the ACGA offices and a 4 acre demonstration and functional community garden! They will cut the ribbon on 9/9/09, but we got to see a preview of the facilities.



Franklin Park is the first public garden to provide rent-able plots to community members. The demo garden also includes a berry garden, vineyard, herb garden, apiary, rose garden, international cuisine garden (with rotating displays featuring food crops from some of Columbus' largest cultural groups including Somali and Japanese), compost area, rain garden, health and wellness garden, trial gardens, wheelchair accessible gardens, and fragrance garden.



They also built a state-of-the-art education building with a huge kitchen inside and a "live fire cooking theater" outside where they plan to do cooking classes on grilling and smoking foods.





Oh, and this happened while we were touring the new facility:



Her name is Brittany.

The conservatory itself is also impressive. It has a huge palm house that is the second oldest in the country, and a Desert Biome room, a Himalayan Mountain Biome room, and a Tropical Rainforest Biome room. There is also a courtyard filled with bonsai, a butterfly garden, and an orchid area. Interspersed amongst the plants are huge Dale Chihuly sculptures, a topic for another post.





With such a gorgeous setting, how could the conference be anything but amazing?



Next up: The workshops and tours of the ACGA conference.

And the winner is . . .

Lila Johnson!

Lila, I will be in touch to send you your copy of "The Urban Homestead" by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen!

I'm back from the conference and catching up on life. Here's a taste of the amazingness that was the American Community Garden Association conference.

School gardens in Columbus, OH:





And the conference host, The Franklin Park Conservatory and Chihuly Collection:





I took lots of pictures so I'll fill you all in on conference details over the next few days. And now, to bed!

Thrift Report*

*shamelessly stolen from Carlene at Knitsquirrel.

Here are the amazing things I picked up at the antique store during our bramble jam weekend:

• Chicken dish towel
• Sifter - Julianne Moore uses an identical one in The Hours!
• Grandma and Grandpa mugs - part of a wedding gift
• set of Pyrex bowls with a mushroom design on them - "Forest Fancies" design
• linen ribbon with an apple tree print - broke my own rule

These purchases are shockingly color-coordinated.

Update and giveaway!

Today is the first day of the American Community Gardening Association Conference in Columbus, OH and I'm here participating! I drove out with Sally who runs the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's Garden Tenders program (that I've raved about enough already). The conference is 3 days long and you can bet I'll have an update when I return.

As for my own community garden update, here's what we currently have at The Woodlands:





Eight 8x8' plots and two 4x6' plots, all filled with gorgeous dark soil. One of our gardeners (Joe) found a gold mine of beautiful dark soil that was hiding under some wood chips in the maintenance area of the cemetery. Apparently someone forgot about the chips and they perfectly composted into dark, loamy, worm filled soil, just for us to find.





The two little plots on the end are going to be used by the elementary school we're collaborating with, the Jubilee school. The UNI crew made a nice little sign for them:



My plot is doing fine, though there's been a significant amount of tomato theft (by buck-toothed rodents, I assume). I hope that once there are other people growing food in the garden less of mine will be pilfered. Plus, there is a pair of hawks nesting in the tree directly north of our garden, so maybe they will take care of the veggie robbers.





Other people have begun to plant their plots as well, I'm so excited!



Now, on to the giveaway.

In honor of all this exciting urban gardening activity, I am giving away a copy of "The Urban Homestead: Your guide to self-sufficient living in the heart of the city" by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, the writers of the Homegrown Evolution blog. Because of an online ordering mishap one of you lucky readers will get to experience this incredible book! When I read it I feel like anything is possible. Just submit a comment by 8am on Monday, August 10th to enter.

The Moo

She loves her new bed.

Mary, Mary

***from the south***

Our little community garden plot is in it's summer stages now. No more chard, lettuce or root veggies, and only a few little potatoes hanging on at the north end. Now we have eggplant, cucumbers, pepper, squash, basil and tomatoes.


***from the north***



On the south side: Desiree potatoes, casper pumpkin, ponca butternut squash, bush pickler cucumber, eggplant, yellow and red bell pepper, and zinnias.



On the north side: Black beauty eggplant, garden salsa pepper, Italian basil, ponca butternut squash, casper pumpkin, bush pickler cucumber, black krim tomato, green zebra tomato, sweet 100 cherry tomato, cilantro, dill, and arugula (hiding behind the tomatoes in the cooler micro climate).



We've been harvesting the cucumbers like crazy and we just picked our first eggplant but otherwise things are growing slowly. But we're watching those tomatoes like hawks circling above, waiting to fold our wings and dive into their juicy home-grown-ness.


***Green zebra***

And that's how my garden grows.

Pickle Me

M and I currently have seven jars of pickled cucumbers, one jar of pickled beets and one jar of pickled jalapenos in the fridge. Whoa. The "Bush Pickler" cucumbers we planted are really living up to their name and we are constantly coming home from the garden with five or more small cucumbers.



So far we've used four different recipes: the Sour Pickle recipe from Wild Fermentation, a recipe for Asian-Inspired Quick Pickles from Food in Jars, and the Cucumber Pickles from Mrs. A. (Marguerite) Miltner at The Pickle Preservation Society. I really like the latter recipe, the turmeric is very prominent. But we wanted something that tastes just like the dill pickles we buy in the store so M came up with the following recipe that seems to hit the spot:

Ingredients:
4 medium cucumbers, cut into spears
2 grape or cherry leaves
1/2 head flowering dill, minced
4 large garlic cloves, sliced
1 T celery seed
1 T ground mustard seed
1.5 c white vinegar
6 c water
1/4 c salt

Stuff the first six ingredients into two 23 oz jars. Bring the vinegar and water to a boil, add salt. Pour the brine over the cucumbers, screw lids on and let sit until cool. Put in fridge and eat within 3 weeks.
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M wants to tweak the recipe by adding more salt and less vinegar, so that might be the next step. We've also found that adding the tannin-filled grape or cherry leaves keeps the pickles nice and crunchy, ala Sandorkraut's suggestion. We haven't made the leap to canning these and sterilizing them for long-term storage but the jars seal as they cool so they keep for a really long time in the fridge.