Monday, August 31, 2009

where did August go?!

They say time flies when you are having fun, but geez, we can't believe how quickly these summer days have zoomed past. It's really hard to believe that it's already September and both of our summer programs have finished. The youth garden will be a much quieter place now that we won't have 25 children and a dozen DC families weeding, singing, harvesting, sharing, and getting dirty almost every day of the week.

However, we are still available for school groups visits throughout the fall. For more info, go to our website and read about our SPROUT (Science Program Reaching Out) program (http://www.washingtonyouthgarden.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=44).

The last week of both of our summer programs focused around one of our favorite things to do and the best rewards intrinsic to gardening: eating! Below are some pictures of youth garden style cooking (fresh, colorful, full of garlic) and some other pictures from our last couple weeks of the Seed to Supper program.

Jonathan, our summer youth intern brought to us thanks to the Kaiser Permanente Foundation, helps a camper season with fresh herbs from the garden. Lucky for us that Jonathan was not only a great worker out in the garden, but is also enrolled in a culinary training program at his high school in Bladensburg, MD. Just look at how professional he looks in his chef jacket!

The run and scream: a game introduced to us by education intern Lindsay Sumner. It's literally just that: run and scream until your breath runs out. We enjoy the simple things here at the youth garden.

Besides running and screaming, we all really enjoyed singing together this summer. Michael Jackson songs were quite popular, but we also had a context-appropriate song about gardening that we sang every morning. The song of choice is "Garden Song" by Pete Seeger (inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow, all we need is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground...). One of our dedicated volunteers, Becca, taught us all sign language to go along with the song as well. Our summer interns were also musically talented, so we brought out the guitar every morning too. Now if I could only get that song out of my head...

We are often blessed with the presence of Damali, Program Director Kaifa Anderson-Hall's daughter. Damali isn't the biggest fan of soil or bugs, but we're working on her.

Garden Coordinator Chris Turse gets in on the cooking. Chris sure does love his veggies.

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