Garden Science is Over???

Lamentably, our eight weeks of classes have come to an end. It was a wonderful ride, and our students have unequivocally acquired mounds of dirty knowledge, and I use that phrase in the best sense.

The program is not actually over – in mid-April we will be installing and/or improving vegetable gardens at our participating schools, and in May all of the students will be coming out to the garden to re-ignite the fire that we have lit in their bellies.

We will not be going back for classroom lessons, and oh, it is sad to think that we won’t be sharing time and stories with the little ones every Tuesday through Thursday anymore. We at The Garden want to give a wide-eyed, uvula-exposing shout out to our volunteers that came out to help in the classroom and our teachers and students from the schools.

Although we breathlessly await the culmination of our GS activities, we at the Youth Garden are gearing up for our delicious summer programs, SPROUT, one-time nutrition and envisci ‘classes’ for youths in the garden; Growing Food Growing Together, a fifteen week family-oriented program that intends to reconnect families with their food and the land from which it comes; and Seed to Supper, an eight week interdisciplinary garden-based program for youths.

Chris, our resident farming expert and garden manager, has been assiduously preparing the garden for the growing season, sitting with the her, rubbing her tummy and singing gentle, waking lullabies to bring her out of the long winter’s slumber.

If you or your children are interested in participating in any of the programs listed above, you can contact Kaifa Anderson-Hall at kanderson@washingtonyouthgarden.org. We also accept, and to a great degree rely on wonderful volunteers to make our programs run as smoothly as they do. If you are interested, you can sign up for our volunteer info list on the website. We also have volunteer days in the garden every Tuesday, beginning very shortly. For more info here, you can contact Kacie, our lovely education coordinator, at kwarner@washingtonyouthgarden.org.

Below, I’ve put together a short compilation of clips from the last few classes of Garden Science, which ended with a bang and sizzle by preparing vegetable stir-fry with the students. Mostly just sizzle, actually. If things go as planned, like the ALWAYS do, we should be producing a more substantial video in the near future about Garden Science. WOOOOOoo.

Love and Asparagus (oh so soon),

Andrew