Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Garden Science

As the fall winds down, we start gearing for Garden Science, our winter program. Garden Science brings us into local DC elementary schools, where we teach an eight week curriculum of garden-based environmental and nutrition education. After being in the classroom, we help to install edible schoolyard gardens and host all students out in the youth garden come spring.



We are looking for dedicated volunteers and an intern to assist with this program. Please contact kwarner@washingtonyouthgarden.org for details.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Taste of Stokes

On the Saturday before Halloween, our Garden Science partner school Elsie Whitlow Stokes held a fall celebration of food. The theme was "Food is..." with fantastic interactive stations that filled in that phrase - like "Food is Math", "Food is Art", "Food is Exercise", "Food is Adventure". There was tons of excellent and healthy food to taste and lots of fun activities based around healthy eating and exercising for all the kiddos in costumes.

For our part, the Washington Youth Garden planted garlic and grilled up some garlic bread.
Chris and Kaifa prep the raised bed for planting. Garlic is planted in mid-late fall and harvested late spring - summer.

WYG volunteer Lisa and Calvin chopping garlic.

Lots of garlic!

Chris planting garlic with a ghost, an astronaut, and spiderman.

Past Growing Food, Growing Together participant, Pat, along with WYG volunteer Alka

WYG staff with Corn Lady

Thursday, October 14, 2010

D.C. Farm to School Week and D.C. School Garden Week

This week, Oct 12 through the 16, marks a celebration of locally grown, seasonal food in school meals. We're also highlighting exciting efforts across Washington DC to create and maintain vibrant school gardens.

There was a fun kick off event held at Thurgood Marshall Academy and Savoy Elementary on Tuesday. The event kicked off with a speech from Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and healthy food supporter Kathleen Merrigan. Then Sam Kass from the White House revved up the audience for a battling chef competition, in which four local chefs were tasked with creating an exciting dish in thirty minutes that contained local apples.

Local apple tasting


DC Schoolyard Greening crew with Sam Kass

The students voted and the winning dish will be served in DC public school lunches.

Chef Lauren Von Der Pool

We then saw the brand new garden at the school, a joint project with Earth Day Network. Some sage and asparagus were planted, garden signs were painted, and a compost bin erected. Check out pictures of the awesome garden below. It sits right across the street from the Anacostia metro station, so lots of passersby saw and were curious about what was going on.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

fall garden


we planted greens (kale, collards, lettuce) and roots (carrots, beets, radishes, parsnips, turnips) and covered the crops with remay to protect them from pests. the remay will also help to keep the crops warmer when the temperature really starts to drop.

the great green harvest



never enough peppers


and feasting on those greens

tuesday crew

family portrait: three moms and a chris.

end of season goodbyes

thank you thank you thank you to our 2010 interns: Annabeth Roeschley, Katherine Collins, and Andrew Plotsky. oh, how we miss you already. as our staff numbers are now cut in half, we realize how valuable the contributions of these three have been to making this organization (and the garden) blossom.


Katherine usually has on a much more pleasant face.


A new apron was purchased for this special occasion.


and allstar volunteer katie, always up for some jamming


Ms. AB




just like a honeybee, katherine is communicating through dance




AB with suprise guest, 2009 intern Sumner


the Saturday team

Monday, October 4, 2010

upcoming Edible Forest Workshop



More info about this and other DC School Garden Week events here.

Growing Food...Growing Together video from WAMU reporter

Friday, October 1, 2010

thanks to our summer volunteers!








the temperature is dropping and garden time is slowing down. we want to say a big thank you to all the volunteers who made the garden as productive, beautiful, and fun as it was this summer.

some last summer memories










Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Join us for PollinatorLIVE


On September 29, 2010, join us for PollinatorLIVE: Honey Bees, Native Bees, Gardening, and More, which will be webcast live from 11 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. ET from the Washington Youth Garden at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. We'll take a tour of the garden, learn about native and honey bees, go on a hunt for lesser known pollinators, and join a chef in Pollinator Kitchen and Café.

39th Annual Family Cook-off



video by Andrew Plotsky