A Harvest to Remember

With the cold frosts and wintry chills that have recently greeted Calgary, the gardening season has officially come to an end. A few last minute goods were collected to celebrate the final harvest of our Kids Grow! garden. These lovingly grown garden goodies were perfect for a delectable harvest salad.

 Harvest Salad Recipe

 Lettuce

Green Beans

Squash

Corn

White Radish

Sweet Peas

Thoroughly wash all vegetables to make sure there are no bugs in your salad! Cook up the corn and squash, chop your veggies and toss them into a bowl. We mixed up a nice honey and red wine vinaigrette to liven up the salad and finished it off with grated radish as a garnish. The salad was full of earthy colours and a variety of flavors; the sweet corn and peas, the hearty lettuce and the pungent kick of the radish. All ingredients came from our Kids Grow! plot; all locally grown, fresh and free of any harsh chemicals.

Our garden brought us a lot of joy this year but the Kids Grow! program would not have been such an amazing experience without the opportunity or the great amount of community support we received. First of all, we must thank the Centre for Community Engaged Learning at the University of Calgary for continuing to successfully foster the connection between the academic and community and for giving us the opportunity to be part of such a life-changing project. A huge thank you goes to the Hillhurst/Sunnyside Community for being incredibly open and supportive of our initiative. We also need to thank our guest speakers and workshop experts who generously donated their time to make our events enlightening learning experiences for the children and parents. And lastly, thank you to everyone who attended our events and anyone who supported us along the way. It has been a fantastic summer, a harvest to remember with no doubt.

Even though the gardening programming for the summer has come to an end, Kids Grow! would like to share some exciting news with you. We have been invited to speak at Food Secure Canada's national assembly this November. At this exciting national conference entitled Powering Up! Food for the Future, we will share our story and hopefully spark interest in others to realize the potential children's gardens can have in our society.

 Check out their website

August 18: Scrapbook day

Making Memories !

Today, we spent a while weeding the garden as the radish plants were twisted all together. We also found many slugs which we took out and moved out of the garden. The kids loved getting their hands dirty and pulling all the slimy slugs out!

Then, we handed out sheets of coloured paper and had the kids decorate it as they wished. We also stuck a small bubble to each page that asked a question like, "What is your favourite vegetable?". The kids loved decorating the papers with stickers, paint, glitter, and feathers so much so that many of them wanted to do another one. We will be putting each of these papers into a scrapbook for Kids Grow! to remember this summer in the garden.

We ended the sunny morning off with a few games of farmer and the animals. Thanks for coming out everyone and make sure to join us for the harvest picnic in September!

Scavenger Hunt Extravaganza!

We're into August and our garden is a jungle! The daikon is towering like skyscrapers, and the beans are spiralling into the clouds. The vision of our garden inspires the kids and they sit down to illustrate what they see. How different it looks from the beginning of June, when all that could be seen was the brown soil of the plot. Now green overwhelms the scene, while yellow squash flowers explode joyful blooms. The red and orange vibrance of the nasturtiums contrast wildly with the soft green blades of corn leaves. Everywhere is spotted with colour and joy. We feel calm and awe in the miracle of our garden.

The radishes are in abundance so we try to pull some of them up. Their roots smell sharp and pungent. Some of us crunch on the crisp snap peas, or steal some sweet raspberries from our neighbours stand.
Today we are going to have a really fun scavenger hunt. Each of us receives a card and marker to check off what we find. All sorts of nature things are on our list. We must find a bird, a butterfly, and two ripe strawberries, an orange flower, and a lonely pear tree. We also have to look for a Ken doll doing the splits, a pink pig with blue earrings, and a bunck of puzzle pieces.

The kids scatter with excitement and search all over the orchard to find the hidden things. Some kids work togther, and others go it alone. Sometimes they ask each other for help, utilizing the power of the collective and mutual assistance. Eventually everything is found on our search cards and now we are immersed in solving the puzzle. Both kids and adults work together, sharing in the enjoyment of accomplishing our goal.

A fresh, juicy watermelon is on the menu for snack time. The kids gobble their pieces up and start into making recipe cards for our scrap book. This is a crazy project in which the kids can learn about the types of things needed for a recipe: Ingredient lists, and directions as well as all different types of foods. We need to put measurments in our recipes as well, and of course a great title. The kids create all kinds of recipes some very practical, and others wild and silly.

Our little garden community is getting stronger and stronger. We love spending Saturday mornings together!

Healthy Food

Learning  about healthy food doesn't have to get complicated. When we look at food as a compiltaion of nutrition facts and figures it can start to boggle the brain, but when we keep it simple, things start to make sense.

Today at the garden we discovered the bounty of yummy and nutritious foods growing right here in the city. We found strawberries, saskatoons and raspberries as well as snap peas and even some edible flowers. From our findings we made paper plate faces that were both fun and tasty! There were angry faces, and lion faces, and beautiful gaia princess faces. Making a fun activity out of eating was a great way to encourage the kids to experiment with tasting new foods.

After gobbling up our faces, we listened to a story about the different food groups. We discovered that grains such as wheat, rice, and quinoa give us energy so that we can play endurance demanding games like tag or hockey. The bright colours of fruits and vegetables provide us with antioxidants that protect our bodies from getting sick. Dairy foods like milk provide calcium for our bones to grow, and protein foods like beans, meat, and fish help build our muscles so that we can be strong. Healthy fats are also really important for our brains and organs, so eating foods like nuts and seeds can make us smart!

We enjoyed eating in our garden today, and learning about the foods we put in our bodies.  We all agreed that healthy food can be tasty, fun to eat, as well as good for us.

Wild Medicine

It is a warm and lovely morning as the kids begin to trickle their way to the garden. Hidden amongst the broad green leaves that continue to sprawl from our garden plot, lay the tasty fruit of our labour. We are so excited to see our garden bloom!

We are lucky today, as we have a very special guest. Kalyn Byrne, a Clinical Herbalist, is here to talk to us about responsible wildcrafting and where to find the abundant medicines in our community. Wildcrafting is a term people use when they talk about collecting wild plants. We learn that it is really important not to take too much of the generous plants around us and to be sure to leave a lot for both the animals that rely on them, and the future generations that may need them for their use. Ethical wildcrafting is based on the belief that we as humans are stewards of the earth, and we must protect and encourage the growth of wild medicines rather than exploit and monopolize them for our own selfish desires.

Kalyn has brought some special frames with her for us to create our own plant part collage. After receiving the rules about ethical wildcrafting, we set out to find pieces of plants to decorate our picture. Not only will these plant pieces contribute to a beautiful work of art, but they will help remind us of the plants we sourced, and their magical benefits.

The kids immediately dart off to find interesting shapes of leaves and colourful flower petals, while some of the parents pick Kalyn's brain about the properties and uses of some of the wild herbs we are discovering in and around the orchard. We learn that strawberry leaves contain high amounts of vitamin C, and that every part of the dandelion plant can be used as an effective medicine for our well being.

In a small area by the side of the gravelly road we find a variety of plants, all of which can be used as medicine. What many people see as weeds are, in actual fact, very powerful medicines over which we tread every day.

Finally, we finish collecting our plant pieces and begin to construct our collages. The kids focus on making excellent works of art that they can hang in their rooms and remember the plants they used.

Once we thank Kalyn for her generosity of knowledge, we decide it's a good time to enjoy a snack of sliced cucumbers and grape tomatoes. Then we have a fallen apple collection race, and everyone returns with a ton of apples. Everyone is a winner when we tell them what we will be doing with the bounty of fruit. Apple butter will be on the menu at our harvest picnic!

One more surprise is on the itinerary today, as it is International Day of Dancing! Everone gets on the dance-orchard floor and busts a move in a game of freeze dance. What a way to start the week-end!

Tree Pose

What does yoga have to do with gardening? Well, it actually has a lot to do with gardening. We garden because we want to grow nutritious food for our minds and bodies. We also garden to take part in a community of people who value taking care of the earth and each other. Yoga helps us attain both of these things as well.

Yoga asana is the practice of different postures that can help balance the body and mind. Asana can help improve our strength, flexibility, and stamina. Anyone can practice yoga and our group of Kids Grow! participants proved just that.

Abbie Gardiner, a wonderful yoga instructor from The Yoga Shala guided us through a fun practice which incorporated breathing and postures that resembled various things we would find in nature. Each of us received a flower to remind us to breathe deeply, as if inhaling an aromatic bouquet, while practicing yoga. We became lions and butterflies, dragonflies and bees, and by the end of the practice we lay still under the warm sun and allowed our bodies to completely relax.

The focused attention required to practice yoga helps to cultivate a deep sense of awareness. This awareness can help us make better choices in life. It is often when we are not aware that we make bad choices about the things we say or do. When we don't pay attention, it becomes easy to treat our minds and bodies poorly. We may choose to eat something that might taste good at the moment, but will hurt our bodies and communities in the long run.

Practicing yoga can be an excellent tool young people cab use to develope focus and confidence. The constant bombardment of media, advertising, and technological stimulation can have detrimetal affects on young minds. Yoga is an effective way for kids to unplug, and restore.

Yoga can also be a great activity to share with family and friends, strengthen bonds, and build conscious communities.  

Community Ecology

Every creature, no matter how small, plays a role in our community. Whether it be the ladybug who feeds on aphids, or the honeybee who pollinates the plants, every part of our environment plays a crucial part in sustaining balance and diversity.

Kids Grow! participants enjoyed learning about the unique community ecology of our garden through a fun storytelling activity. Everyone received a card with a particular plant, animal, or element that would inspire their part of an oral round-robin. The activity encouraged radical creativity, but also revealed useful information about each card. We learned that through their tuberous roots, dandelions draw essential minerals to nutrient poor surface soils. We also discovered that spiders, although kind of scary, help control fly populations (and sometimes save the planet from giant worms!)

Strategizing in the safe zone.

After a brief juicy- apple snack break we got our bodies moving with a heart-pumping game of Capture the Crops! We divided the field in half and one side was occupied by the farmer and his crops. The other side was occupied by various creatures whose objective was to capture the crops and return them to the safe zone. The creatures, a motley crew of squirrels, slugs, and ants, were very successful in their endeavours and even managed, at one point, to capture the farmer and hold her hostage! This demonstrates the power of numbers, and the success that can be achieved when harnessing the talents of each memebr of a community.

Weeding the orchard: A community effort!

The Do's and Don'ts of Compost

Did you know that you can compost lint but you can't compost brains? We learned a lot about the do's and don'ts of compost last Saturday, and we even got a chance to mix up our own compost too!

Compost is the remains of decomposed organic matter that can be used in gardens to enrich the soil. It is full of nutrients and good bugs that help make plants grow healthier and stronger. We can make good compost out of a number of things including fruit and vegetable scraps, cow manure, dead leaves and twigs, and even egg shells. Composting is a way to help the earth by honouring and contributing to essential life cycles that feed and nurture all living things on the planet. By feeding the earth we are also feeding ourselves, and other beings that depend on good soil for sustenance.

Anisha helped us learn more about composting by setting up a chart and going through a list of obvious and not so obvious compostable items.The kids learned a lot and laughed a lot, especially when Anisha asked us if we could compost a telephone.

Next, we got to mix up our own compost soup with some fruit and vegetable scraps, paper, lint, and egg carton bits. It was slimy and yucky, but the kids loved it! After mixing our own individual bowls of compost, we brought them to the main compost bin in the garden ( a feature every garden would greatly benefit from having), and dumped the contents in.

The Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Garden has a three stage system compost where there are three compost bins side by side. After filling up the first bin, you move the contents to the second bin and start to fill up the first bin again. When the first bin is full, you move the contents of the second bin to the third bin, and the contents of the first to the second bin. And finally, when you fill up the first bin again, you move all the contents over one bin, and the last bin is rich with dark compost material that can be added to the garden soil. This process involves the turning and mixing of compost to provide aeration required for decomposing bacteria. All the kids had a chance to turn the compost and experience the stench that is decomposing organic matter. Despite the grossness we had a marvelous time!

Ambassadors of Kids Grow!

Kids Grow! is expanding its borders, reaching the minds and imaginations of kids all over Calgary.

Last week, some friends from Lynnwood in SE Calgary contributed their creativity and art skills in decorating our banner. The activity caught the attention of many neighbourhood kids who all contributed something special to the project. This work was an exercise in cooperation and planning as the team of kids worked together to decide on colours and images they wanted to see depicted. Not only did they work effectively in planning, but they also demonstrated excellent team work by sharing ideas, paint and space with each other.

Here are some pictures of the process!

Wisdom of the Orchard

Jim Hollicky holding up some of the fruit of his labour in Sunnyside Orchard

Jim Hollicky, dedicated steward of the Sunnyside Orchard, knows just how important producing your own food is. Growing up in a small town in Saskatchewan during the "dirty thirties," Jim experienced what it was like to live off the land and do without the convenience of grocery stores. We were so lucky to have him share these memories with us in the warmth of the sun-blissed orchard.

As we strolled together through the Orchard it was evident that these trees and plants weren't just items in a shopping cart, but to Jim, they were living beings with histories of their own. We learned about how the variable Calgary winters had affected the growth of the Valentine Cherries, and how important it is to thin out the immature apple fruit so they have room to develop into big tasty fruit. We also heard the lovelorn story of the pear tree couple and how, through an act of vandalism, one  tree was destroyed, leaving the partner to live a fruitless life. We also witnessed a miracle of nature when seeing for our very own eyes a baby fruit on the single pear tree in the orchard.  Jim suspects the pear received the pollen from another tree, a new love from the yard of a neighbour in the community.

The children were excited to discover the massive strawberry patch amongst the flowers in the orchard garden, and even more excited to hear that they were welcome to eat the delicious berries whenever they pleased.

After our orchard tour, we settled in to make pinwheels for our gardens. Pinwheels are great deterrents of birds and other animals intent on pecking away at the food growing in the garden. We coloured the square paper on both sides and cut toward the centre from each corner. Then we glued the holes in each corner into the centre hole. We placed colourful beads on the stick and put the hole in our pinwheels through the stick. We finished off with a few more beads, and Voila!

If you ever stop by the orchard, be sure to try an apple or strawberry, but also make sure to spend a little time doing some weeding or picking dandelions before they go to seed. The Sunnyside Orchard is a product of the community and it takes more than one person or plant to make it beautiful!

The Kids Grow! Team

Hi everyone! I'm sure you're wondering who is behind Kids Grow! and what makes us tick. Well, here is your Kids Grow! team for 2012.

Hey hey! My name is Niky! I am a bird lover, a teddy bear collector and kids make me smile. I love to read books under a tree on sunny days, take naps in the sunlight and gardening – everything in the sun basically! I went on an amazing trip last February to New Orleans and got to learn about gardening and sustainable food production at Our School at Blair Grocery. Following that, I really wanted to grow my own food but my mom didn’t agree. The Kids Grow! program was the perfect fit for me since I get to learn basic gardening skills as well as spend time with kids! The more I spend time with the Kids Grow! program the more I love it! I am upset that I will not be able to be around the whole summer to see the garden grow but I will be back in August and be part of the harvesting process! This program has taught me a lot and I hope to grow my own garden next year =)

Did you know: The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to the store!

Hi, I'm Tamara and ever since grade five I wanted to save the rainforest. I remember my dad taking me to the Greenpeace office in Toronto to become a member, but I was refused because I was too young. Now I'm directing my passion towards saving our local communities by being an advocate of urban agriculture and helping others see the beauty of growing their own food.

Kids are the future of the environmental movement, and I believe that if we can teach them how to become stewards of sustainability by allowing them to engage in projects like community gardens, then maybe we can remediate some of the earth's problems. Kids Grow! has been an incredible educational experience, not to mention inspiring and fun!

Look forward to seeing you at our next event!

Hello! My name is Anisha and I love real food. Growing fruits, vegetables and herbs, all from tiny seeds, is such a rewarding and tasty experience! I feel that many people living in urban areas have lost their connection to real food and I think that it can be healed through the education of children; the pure wonders of life who are open to learn from everything and everyone. I am passionate about ensuring that children can have access to education about food, gardening and the overall importance of being part of a community despite their financial circumstances. I feel that Kids Grow! is a perfect opportunity to make this happen and I can only hope that the program continues to grow in upcoming years. Even though, it has been a lot of work to get this program up and running, it has been well worth the time to receive so many smiles from the children and much appreciated support from across the city!

The Wonder of Worms

It was a wriggly, wet adventure this morning as we learned about the importance of worms in the garden.

There was a mild drizzle of rain which made for excellent worm detecting conditions. We discovered that worms can be found in the dirt, and many like to hide beneath large stones surrounding the flower beds in the orchard. The children had no qualms about getting their hands dirty, as they dug into the mud to find the squiggly bugs.

We learned that worms have no eyes to see and when it's raining they often squirm to the surface and lose themselves on sidewalks where they might get stepped on. The children vowed to rescue worms whenever they were in distress, returning them to their home, the dirty mud, and saving them from the threat of heavy footsteps.


Worms transform rotting food into mineral rich castings that can help feed the plants in the garden. They are one of the many good bugs found in our environment who make up an integral part of the amazing circle of life.

To learn what it's like to be a worm we played a game called "The Worm and the Apple". We selected one person to be the worm and covered their eyes with a blind fold. The rest of us formed a circle around the "worm" and hid an apple for her to find. Sometimes the person closest to the apple would make a sound to help the worm find her way. The kids really enjoyed this game, and it allowed them to understand the importance being helpful to those in need, just like how the worms are helpful to the plants in the garden.

The kids also got their hearts pumping with a game of Squirmy Wormy Jump Rope where they had to leap over a skipping rope being agitated by two people on either end.

 Afterwards we listened to a story about Strega Nona's harvest while having some tasty mandarins.

Join us next week when we decorate our garden!

Building Community and Growing Stronger!

Today we saw some familiar faces and some new faces at the garden! Thank you to everyone that came out and helped us plant the garden!

Ted Bahr from Prairie Sage Permaculture taught the kids about the teams of plants that grow best together and help each other to grow stronger.

Team 1 was beans, corn and squash while Team 2 was radish, peas and greens. The kids learned that the beans and the peas, “the chefs”, fix the nitrogen in the soil while the squash and greens, “homemaker”, shelter the soil. The corn, “lifter”, helps the beans lift off the ground while the radish “guard/miner”, guards against pests and digs for nutrients.

Just like the plants that work together, the kids also worked together to plant all the seeds and set up tepees for the pea plants…

It was a wonderful Saturday morning with all the garden friends, make sure to come out next week to see how far the plants have grown! 

Team Work, Grow!

The garden is a great place to witness team work in action. It is a central location where various plants rely on the same resources for nourishment and growth. At the launch of our garden activity workshop series at the Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Garden, we wanted to highlight team work and its foundational importance in creating sustainable communities and healthy ecosystems.

We were very fortunate to have a number of creative, spontaneous, and active kids join us in a number of activities that required working together cooperatively. We introduced the kids to the space we would be working with over the course of the summer. The strawberry patch was an amazing teaching point as the growth and spread of strawberries is accomplished through a process of root networks which allow younger, weaker plants to access nutrients from the stronger, more established ones.

The garden is neighbour to the city`s first urban orchard, and there was much weeding to be done. Some of our younger participants contributed to the team effort of beautifying our communal space as they enjoyed weeding the orchard.

Next, we all helped paint our Kids Grow! team banner, demonstrating the beauty of collaborating on a creative project, and the wonder that exceeds the sum total of its parts.

Our snack interlude consisted of the sharing of one, very large watermelon, the partaking of which strengthened our team bond.

Finally, we ended our morning playing some fun games like caterpillar and bug tag, the human root, and cucumber tag.

This was a great kick-off for the summer, and we hope you can join us for our next event!

June Calender of Events

All events are free and everyone is invited (recommended age 6 and up). All children must be accompanied by an adult.

Saturday June 2, 2012
Kids Grow! Meet and Greet
Learn about the trees in the orchard and get a tour of the garden. Help us make a banner for Kids Grow! and participate in other fun activities.

Saturday June 9, 2012
Permaculture Workshop
Help design our garden with Ted Bahr from Prairie Sage Permaculture.

Saturday June 16, 2012
Good Bugs
Learn about the various bugs that help our gardens grow while enjoying some fun, creative projects and activities along the way.

Saturday June 23, 2012
Bad Bugs
Find out about bugs and birds that can eat plants and learn how to keep them out naturally. Make a pinwheel and scarecrow to protect our garden space.

All events run from 10am -12 pm at Sunnyside Hillhurst Community Garden/Orchard. Our garden is located in the northeast "corner" of Sunnyside at Sunnyhill Lane and 9 Avenue NW. It's just below Mchugh Bluff to the east of 4A Street NW. See you soon!

Kids Grow! Finds a Home

Today was a wonderful day spent working in the garden and meeting lovely people!

In addition to introducing ourselves to the Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Garden members, we were able to carve out our own little niche in the 'A' plot near the compost bins. Buff helped with clearing out the strawberries and transplanting them to the newly created strawberry patch which we have also inherited as a project for the Kids Grow! team.

The people at Hillhurst Sunnyside Garden were really supportive of our endeavour to bring kids programming into the garden, and are willing to help out.

Thanks to everyone at the garden for making us feel so welcome, and get ready for some little hands to get happily dirty!

"And This is my Garden" Inspires

St. Pius School in Calgary hosted a screening of "And This is my Garden" at the Dutton Theatre last week at The Calgary Library. The documentary is about a small town in northern Manitoba where a dedicated teacher created a curriculum around gardening that extends through the summer and involves students caring for their own raised beds at their homes.

This film demonstrates the impact dedicated teachers can have on their students' health and sense of empowerment by teaching them the basic skills that will allow them to produce healthy food in an environment increasingly controlled by corporate interests.

St. Pius School is home to one of Calgary's school yard naturalization projects that was initiated by parents 12 years ago. It maintains a beautiful school garden that children, parents, and teachers can be proud of!

If you want to learn more about "And This is my Garden," you can check out a copy from the Calgary Library, or go to this site

Kids Grow! Mission Statement and Description

Kids Grow! is a student directed, volunteer led, pilot project seeking to implement children's community gardening activities into existing Hillhurst and Sunnyside community gardens. Student volunteers, selected by the Centre for Community-Engaged Learning (CCEL) coordinate, promote, and implement child-focused, garden-centred, educational and recreational activities.

The goal of Kids Grow! is to involve children in community gardening, to increase gardening and food production knowledge, and to promote healthy and sustainable food choices.