Green Thumbs Sprinkler Day

The June 3, and final Green Thumbs event for this year, was another success.  To keep with our tradition, the third program included a fun sprinkler day, where the kids got the chance to cool off by running through the sprinklers.  It was a great time and we all had a blast! 

 The theme for this year's Green Thumbs was color in the garden.  The program started with Prissy Rouse, McFaddin-Ward House docent, reading, "The Indian Paintbrush."  Then the children were divided into two groups.  One group went to a station where they were to paint with watercolors made from natural dyes, made from food items like berries, beets, and coffee.  At the other station, the Green Thumbs got a lesson on nutrition, the importance of eating colorful foods, and were able to make their own appetizer from hummus, herbs, and cucumbers.  

Children that attended all three programs were given a special prize and were encouraged to bring their bean seedlings, planted at the first Green Thumbs program on April 8 to show off their progress.  At the end of the program, we turned on the sprinklers and museum curator, Allen Lea made giant bubbles for the kids.  It was a great day and we will be looking forward to next year's Green Thumbs events!  Follow us on Facebook for the latest details on all our events. 

 

2010 Green Thumbs Program Takes Root!

A lot of joy, greenery, and snacking facts were spread around in yesterday's Green Thumbs Program. Started off with a fun book about garden vegetables, and then on to hands-on activities. The children planted peas in recyclable containers to take home and watch their pea-plants grow. They also learned about the rainbow color of foods and which vegetables are good for what parts of the body. For extra attention, they saw how a compost is made and why. Then a stop by the vegetable beds for a sniffing--that is to smell how wonderful fresh herbs smell.  Can't wait for next month's program. Sign up now, as space is limited and the cutoff for registration is two days before (we need time to buy food and prep the garden activities).

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Spring is Here!

Check out the latest harvest from victory garden! We have been picking herbs, broccoli, daffodils and greens. We are getting ready to plant our summer garden and would love your help. Call us today at 832-1906 for more details!

Spring is Springing

We have endured a cold winter! Most of our crops did not survive the fluctuating temperatures, but a few tough vegetables are holding on, despite the freezing weather.

Throughout the cold season, we were able to harvest carrots, while the cilantro and dill are still going strong. The broccoli is growing slowly, but surely, and tiny florets are forming in the center of their masses of blue-green leaves. We are looking forward to their maturity so we can make some delicious broccoli-cheese soup!

As we gladly welcome the warmer weather that will come our way in the next couple of months, come by to see the garden. We are awaiting a spring surprise of daffodils and muscari that have been lying dormant during the winter months. Their lovely yellow and blue blooms are sure to be a real treat.

 

 

We would love for you to be a part of our fun victory gardening program. We have such a great time together and would love for some new gardeners to join us. The program is a wonderful opportunity to learn more or to share your knowledge.

Winter Woes

Brrr! It has been cold! Freezing temperatures have really done a number on our garden! We lost our lovely basil and our peas have given in to the harsh temperatures. Though there is not much to look at right now, we have a few tough veggies holding on, despite the blustery winds.

Last week we harvested some carrots, leaving a few in the ground to get a little bigger. Our broccoli is holding on and maybe in a month's time we will have some ready to harvest. We have some dill and cilantro as well as some chives that have survived. Just like our shivering veggies, we too will gladly welcome the warmer temperatures that are sure to come our way in the next month or two. Once the warmer weather comes, we will enjoy a Spring surprise of daffodils and muscari that have been lying dormant during the winter months.

We will soon be planning our Spring garden. We will host a volunteer meeting in a few weeks and are looking for more volunteers. The meeting date will be posted soon, so stay tuned! We would love for you to join us!

Are you gardening this winter? Tell us about it by clicking on the comment link below this post!

Getting Ready for the Fall Season

Many workers make the job go quicker, with more laughs, and generate "best ways." The four garden beds were cleaned of dried up or harvested plants and made ready for the autumn season of growth. To winterize the area, more compost and organic fertilizer was amended into the ground (yeah! for composting). We did keep some of the herbs in the garden, like our basil, as they were still producing lovely additions.

The group of volunteers planted peas, potatoes, green onions, broccoli, carrots, and spinach. A joy to plant are the daffodils which will bloom in the springtime. We also planted more sunflowers. We have harvested the sunflowers from the summer, in anticipation of drying and then roasting those seeds. Yum!

The garden may look bare, especially with how abundant it looked earlier in the year, but just wait. We will once again produce food, treats, flowers, and other garden delights.

As always, we are looking for volunteers -- who get treated for their labors with produce from the garden. Call 409-832-1906 to be a garden volunteer.

Fall Garden Prep

As the summer comes to a close, we are looking forward to the fall season by making plans for our next planting. The garden has been a success with a plethora of okra, herbs, beans, sunflowers and wildflowers harvested. We even had a few cantaloupes, potatoes, tomatoes and are waiting for our eggplants to become ripe. We survived the summer heat and are anxiously awaiting some cooler temperatures.

Over the weekend we had our first tiny taste of fall and welcomed a bit of a cool front. It is getting us excited for the cooler temperatures ahead and we look forward to planting our fall garden. Last Wednesday, in preparation for the new garden, we had a work day to remove some of the plants that have stopped producing and made plans to improve our soil with compost. We started bright and early and were able to get a lot done before it got too hot.

We removed the beans, tomatoes, cantaloupe, squash and sunflowers-turned-trees. We are now drying the sunflowers and will roast the seeds in a few weeks. We are all looking forward to that! Yummy!

After we finished our work for the day, we made a list of veggies to grow in the fall. We are working on making our garden layout and will post our plans in a few days. On the list are pumpkins, potatoes and leeks to name a few. We look forward to having some delicious leek and potato soup in the cooler months!

Thank you to all our volunteers who have helped with the garden so far. It was been so rewarding and fun! We are always looking for more volunteers, so send an email or give us a call to see how you can help.

Stay tuned to see what else we’ll be planting!