New wonderful gardening blogger!

Greetings from the AHS Symposium on Children and Gardening!

One of the many wonderful outcomes of attending this conference is that we get to meet so many folks doing terrific things in the garden with kids. Today, for example, I attended a workshop led by Shannon Hardwicke from an elementary school in Sacramento, CA.  Shannon is the science and environmental coordinator for this school and described the incredible array of programs she's introduced into her community.  Every week each class (PreK-6th) divides into two groups, with one group having science in the science lab with their teacher while the other half goes to the garden.  There, they have a lesson and then do "garden chores" with the help of parent volunteers whom Shannon trains.  Shannon's created a Green Team of kids, who oversee the recycling program (they compost and recycle almost everything) and who provide leadership for green concerns in the school.  Just this year, the Team made presentations to the school superintendent about the various ways their school could go greener, with the result that a school slated for closure is now identified as the vanguard school for greening!  In addition, she's created a school garden for play, a butterfly house and a kitchen garden, all using parents and kids as labor!  She's one of those folks who has a real can-do attitude and doesn't give up but keeps on pluggin' away.

Here's an article from the local Scaramneto newspaper about the program:

http://www.valcomnews.com/?p=4515


Our suite-mate for the conference was Debbie Kong, a (young) Master Gardener from Chicago, IL.  Among other things, Debbie blogs with two other home gardeners and shares the most interesting and motivating information!  Please give her blog a read.... she has such interesting and low-cost ways to grow food and is another one of those can-do people.  Debbie's background is design, so her gardens are much tidier than mine and she grows the most interesting range of veggies.  You can get to her blog at http://www.greenroofgrowers.blogspot.com/.  Debbie's a big fan of using 5 gallon plastic buckets to make SIP's- Sub-irrigated Planter- very similar to (and much cheaper than) what we know as an Earth Box.  Debbie's posted a video of how to put these together.  She also introduced me to Winter Sowing, using a milk jug.  But, more on that later, when this horrible heat has passed!