Goodies From The Garden

We are already almost half way through our summer break! The spring storms have been good to our gardens at Gateway Greening. We are harvesting beautiful produce and having a great time in the garden. Summer programs are also enjoying planting, watering,harvesting, and other tasks that are necessary to maintain a garden.Claire

At one of our summer sites, we have been busy with a garden that seems like it is getting larger every week and kids who are eager to see the results of their hard work. So far this week, we have tackled some important tasks. Today, we noticed there were a few sweet potato beds that were not growing as healthy as we had hoped. While this usually isn’t ideal, it gave the kids an opportunity to test the soil. This lesson involved teaching the kids what nutrients are in ideal soil and necessary for growing healthy plants. Kids dug up soil samples from the sad beds, added and mixed in water, waited for the soil to settle, and used a soil testing kit to test for nutrient deficiencies. As we were waiting for the results, a group of three ladies were busy picking, chopping, mixing and taste testing. We enjoyed this cloudy mid 70s weather with a bowl of fresh salad from the garden. They used dinosaur kale, cucumbers, carrots, snap peas, green bell peppers, broccoli, and strawberries all from the garden. They added pieces of pineapples, a simple dressing, and a cracker on the side. The three young ladies who put this salad together couldn’t keep their hands off of the ingredients as they were making it. The salad seemed to go over well, and if the kids didn’t like it they picked out the ingredients they did like. The children learned that using the food they were growing is simple and delicious. What are you using your garden goodies for?

The soil was taking longer than we expected to produce results, but hopefully we can come up with a solution for our sweet potato beds soon.

– Claire Hagarty, Youth Program Intern

 

Introducing Our Summer Youth Staff

Hello my name is Kortez Nobles. This is my second week working with Gateway Greening and I’m highly enjoying it. Gateway Greening is very passionate about gardening and maintaining to keep our community safe. Gateway Greening educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. Everyday I come to work it motivates me to strive for my best because I like to see a beautiful garden growing. I love working with the kids in the gardens and seeing them laugh, have fun, and so energetic about the garden.

I’ve had some great experiences over the past week. When I first started working I was thinking like “I don’t like this job, I don’t want to work with dirt.” Then it turned out different. I met new people. I’ve had chances to communicate with some of my coworkers. They’re pretty cool. I talked with kids. They were very energetic about learning how to plant strawberries. We’ve had activities and I’ve enjoyed playing with them. My favorite activity was the scavenger hunt. I thought it was exciting. I believe I have more experience within this week than I’ve ever had about plants and gardening. I can identify some plants we’ve been growing in the garden.

kortez intro

Over all I’m having fun with Gateway Greening. I haven’t had any bad experiences. I plan on learning more about plants and gardening. As a personal opinion, I think everyone should have a garden to support Gateway Greening in building a safe community.

-Kortez Nobles