The Education by Gardening program at FHC is blessed this summer with a busy schedule serving children from Fervent Prayer Outreach Ministries Church, Zion Hill Baptist Church, Oasis of Hope Baptist Church, Edna Martin Center, and IPS #51.

This summer's activities have been made possible by grants from the Summer Youth Program Fund (SYPF) Partners: Annie E. Casey Foundation and from Lilly Endowment. Additional aid has come by way of the Lilly Day of Service with donations of man power along with plants, compost, mulch, and hand garden tools, etc., Community Hospital's Wellness Program's donation of a RN's time, Jr. Master Gardener guidance and volunteers from Purdue Extension/Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIB), science kits from Lilly's Science Education Outreach, and an intern from the Indianapolis Peace Institute. Of course nothing would be possible without the donation of time and energy from many volunteers who lovingly work with the Indianapolis inner city youth and in our garden.

Summer Education by Gardening Week 6 July 14-July 17 

Themes:

Vermi-composting follow-up

Fruits and Nuts

Garden storybooks

This week's attendance was down a little as Wednesday's campers and most of Thursday's campers chose to participate in Indiana Black Expo's Summer Celebration. However, campers who participated in FHC's garden activities had lots of fun learning about fruits.

Starting last week with National Summer Learning Day, each day's activities include reading stories with garden related themes. FHC is fortunate to have the Children's Librarian from Brightwood Library participate and bring a variety of books for different age groups.  Although each group did not read all books, below are the books read during this past week:

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

Quiet in the Garden by Aliki

Up, Down and Around by Katherine Ayers

Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert

The Berenstain Bears Grow-It! by Stand & Jan Berenstain

Fluffy Grows a Garden by Kate McMullan

One Watermelon Seed by Celia Barker Lottridge

Paddington Bear in the Garden by Michael Bond

Campers were excited to check out the vermi-composting bins and to see what progress the worms are making turning food wastes into soil. They were pleased to see that they needed to feed the bins this week and to see that the worms seemed yet longer and fatter than before and that there is more soil in each bin.

Campers began their discussion on fruits and nuts this week by acknowledging which one they had tasted, eaten, and enjoyed. It was interesting to see that some campers had been privileged to taste many of them while others had tasted only a few. Camper's favorites included apples, bananas, grapes, oranges, lemons, peanuts, strawberries and watermelon. Those that got the least votes were avocados, figs, mangos. papayas, pecans and walnuts. 

Campers learned the differences between fruits/nuts and vegetables. They learned that there are two ways of determining a fruit or a vegetable; botanical or cultural. In botanical terms, a fruit is the reproductive part of the plant that develops from the ovary of a flower and produces seeds (this is review from week 1). These seeds produce the next generation of plants. (Check back next week to see what makes a vegetable.) Participating in Fruit Frenzy was an activity enjoyed by all. Campers guessed the number of seeds in various fruits. These fruits were cut open and the seeds were counted to see if their guesses were correct of even close. The fun part came in getting to eat the fruits after they were cut open.  In the table below, you can see what some of the guesses were and how many seeds were found:

At the end of Fruit Frenzy, each group listened to a story about the Great Fruit Debate, from the Jr. Master Gardener Guide, and answered questions that reinforced what they learned about fruits.

Composting and recycling continued this week, along with getting into the garden to harvest (green tomatoes, squash, green peppers), water, or check on progress on plant growth. In keeping with this week's theme, the snack was fruit cocktail.

This week FHC said goodbye to several youth volunteers from Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIB). They have been coming on Thursday's and Fridays helping campers in the morning and working the garden in the afternoon. This week they finished making picnic tables for our use. Each youth was recognized for their efforts at FHC.

Tuesday's picture highlights:

Reading and documenting the tally of seeds. 

Follow this link to see more pictures of Tuesday's campers.

Thursday's picture highlights:

Checking on vermi-composting and counting kiwi seeds. 

Follow this link to see more pictures of Thursday's campers.

Friday's picture highlights:

Composting and harvesting.

Follow this link to see more pictures of Friday's campers.

Here are pictures of some of the KIB volunteers and the picnic tables they built.

Here are pictures of Wednesday's volunteers when campers attended Black Expo.