24 July Weekly Update | Gardening - Activities

Education By Gardening - Recent Activities

Saturday, July 25, 2009 11:37 AM

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 7 July 21-July 24

Themes:

Herbs and Vegetables

Planning a garden

Recycling, composting, and harvesting

Comphrehension and Garden storybooks

This weeks garden activities were varied in nature even though attendance was low as Wednesday's campers did not join us for the second week and not all of Tuesday's campers joined us. With the main emphasis on vegetables and herbs, campers learned about nutrition and harvesting of both. They learned what makes a vegetable, i.e., an edible root, stem, or leaf. They learned about storage roots (radishes, turnips, carrots, beets) and taproots (carrots are both taproot and storage roots.) This resulted in a quite a bit of time spent in the garden, examining, tasting, and smelling, especially the herbs. It was fun looking for veggies and picking the ripe ones that were found ready to harvest. There was discussion about what a good garden requires; for example, sun versus shade, good soil, weed control, and a water source. The campers evaluated this garden against the criteria. Each camper also "planted" bean seeds between wet paper towels and sealed them in a baggie. They took this home to hang in a window so they can watch the bean sprout roots, a stem, and leaves.

Learning about composting and recycling throughout the summer resulted in several campers bringing donations for the compost bin and to be recycled.

Even the youngest campers on Thursday wanted to get into the action when some volunteers started moving the last of the gravel pile and spreading it in the final area of the driveway near the recycle containers. They were determined that they were going to get the job done regardless of their ages or size.

Campers participated in answering the comprehension questions at the end of reading The Veggie Fair from the Jr. Master Gardener Guide. Then campers took turns reading out loud to their groups from the garden storybooks: Flower Garden by Eve Bunting and Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens.

Of course there was time for playing a game and the day ended with campers enjoying a fresh veggie cup and dip as their snack.

Here are picture highlights from this week's activities: