Thank You For Another Summer!

Today, was the last event of the 2015 season! We started the day by tending to the garden. The usual weeding and watering was thankfully ended with the reward of harvesting our plot. The kids and their parents were able to dig up a few carrots, some radishes and gathered a lot of lettuce, peas, chard, thyme and sage!

 

We were so fortunate to have Nikita Scringer, top 25 contestant on MasterChef Canada and fundraiser for the 2015 season of Kids Grow, lead the day's activities. She sent them off on a scavenger hunt around the garden to find items to collect and put in their very own fairy gardens. Nikita was really engaging and patient with the kids as she helped them create some sample fairy garden with the trinkets they found on their scavenger hunt, she explained about how seasons change, and all the change that comes to plants and trees when autumn rolls around.

After creating some sample fairy gardens with the kids and scavenging for more rocks, sticks and grasses that could be used for their own fairy gardens, the kids had a snack of carrots and bell peppers in the orchard, followed by story time. We read two different stories and the kids enjoyed them very much! The first was about a pumpkin patch, and the second was about planting a little seed and exercising patience in helping it grow throughout the season. Afterwards, the kids played their favourite game: Capture the Crops! We played about four rounds before everyone decided they were tired and thirsty and it was time for the sharing circle. We shared our favourite moments, games, stories, snacks and speakers from the summer. 

Thank you so much to all of the volunteers for all of your hard work and contributions to this summer's programming. Without the support, leadership, expertise and generosity of the strong team of volunteers, this program would not be able to run! We would also like to thank everyone that came out to participate in our programming; children, parents, friends and family. Whether you came once, three times or showed up every week, the dedication towards gaining an education around food and gardening as well as supporting small but uprising community programs and spending quality time with your child investing in their education is very much appreciated! 

We are really hoping to continue programming in Sunnyside next summer in addition to expanding the program in upcoming years. We are seeking a local organization interested in one or more of the following; food, education, community building, and gardening, to form a partnership with for the summer of 2016. To inquire about this opportunity, please contact Anisha at KidsGrowGardening@Gmail.com. 

Let's Go on a Scavenger Hunt!

Upon visiting the garden this week, we noticed that our garden beds were covered in a luscious forest of greenery. After weeks of hot and dry weather, lots of garden maintenance was required in order to ensure the ultimate well-being of our beloved Kids Grow garden plot. We started with some pruning of our spinach as they had all gone to flower. Did you know that spinach plants are more likely to bolt in hot weather? It is a self defence mechanism to make sure that if all the leaves dry up, the flowers will produce enough pollen to grow a new plant if necessary. If we let the plants go to flower, all of the plant's energy goes into producing the flowers and in turn, the leaves grow small and taste quite bitter. We snipped off the flowers to make sure all of the plant's energy is making it's way to the producing large, dark green and tasty leaves. The kids took turns to water the garden and also lent a helping hand by watering any of the plots in the community garden that belonged to vacationers or those unable to come out to the garden and water on a regular basis. After all, it is a community garden and we want to make sure we can do everything we can to help out our fellow community garden members! We lovingly watered these plants with great care as to be careful not to get too much water on the leaves. It water sits on the leaves in the hot sun, they can be singed and in very wet conditions, mould has a more suitable environment to grow. 

Following our gardening segment, we decided to read a story, in fact a guessing game, about plant identification! This was in preparation for our scavenger hunt in which the children and their families were asked to search the garden for various greens, veggies, flowers and berries! For some extra excitement, we also asked the kids to retrieve scattered puzzle pieces around the garden/orchard to build our mystery puzzle in conclusion of the day's adventure. A lot about plant growth was learned at this event, especially when our participants had trouble finding potatoes and beets in the garden! We also asked families to find some fun artifacts such as a crazy hamster (picture found below), a ken doll doing the splits and a pig wearing earrings. The kids searched high and low, far and near for all of the items on the list and were able to find almost everything. We also had them on a hunt for nature's creatures; a worm, a beetle and an ant. We had to pur our thinking caps on to find these creatures, as they aren't always visible to us wherever we look. After checking under rocks for beetles, digging in the ground for worms and peeking into cracks on the sidewalk for ants, we were successful in finding all the items on our list!

Since we've had some picky eaters at Kids Grow, especially in the department of vegetables, one of our awesome team members created rainbow cards for each child that pose the following question: Can you taste the colours of the rainbow this summer? The purpose of these cards is to encourage trying new vegetables in the garden and embracing new looks, flavours and textures. This week, we shared a snack of mini cucumbers and French Breakfast radishes. The kids were able to add fresh raspberries from the communal plot. Our day ended some exciting games of 'Fruit Salad' and 'Capture the Crops' and of course our weekly sharing circle to share our favourite part of the day!

You don't have to be an plant expert or hiking enthusiast to take a nature walk. Go on a hunt outdoors, spend some time in the sun and make time to appreciate the wonderful creations of nature that surround you. 

Snug as a Bug

On Saturday August 8th, we arrived at our garden to find that it was hit relatively hard by the hail storm earlier in the week. Thank goodness we harvested some of our veggies last week! The kids helped us by turning over the soil that had been flatted by the harsh weather. Although this turned mostly into looking for worms, the soil in our garden received the love that it needed.

After a few minutes of turning soil and finding worms, the kids met Judy Marsh from Outdoors In to learn all about bugs. Judy's philosophy is all about learning to care for the environment through experiential learning ie. hands on learning. The first thing she had the kids do was find all the parts of an insect that she hid around the orchard. When the kids brought all the pieces back, they assembled the mystery bug. It was a dragonfly! We learned all about how wonderful dragonflies are for the environment.

Judy also played several games with the kids including 'The Bat and the Moth,' which had a child blindfolded in the circle trying to find another child who was ringing a bell. This game emulated the way a bat uses its superb hearing to look for food at night. She also played a game which had the kids running a relay race as bumble bees getting pollen (tennis balls) from the other side of the park. The children (and adults) had so much fun playing bug games with Judy that they didn't even notice how much they were learning. The time we spent with Judy this morning was awesome.

After all the fun games, our little bugs worked up an appetite and met Laurie on the blanket for a snack and a story. Today's story was about caterpillars, another one of our favourite bugs!

We had so much fun today. We can't wait to see what next Saturday brings.

How Do Plants Grow?

This week's activities centred on exploring the plant life cycle. After some very productive work weeding, watering and tasting some delicious edibles from the garden, the kids headed over to the orchard to get started on our first activity of the day.

They were quite adept at piecing together the whole narrative from the seed to the plant which flowers before finally bearing the fruit containing the seeds to start it all over again. It’s definitely a process that we overlook too often, yet it never ceases to amaze us when we contemplate how all the potentialities of a plant are contained in the seed – life’s original ‘miracle,’ that sustains all other life on this planet!

We also read a little story together that visualized this idea beautifully by illustrating the diversity of flowers and fruits carried on this Earth (who doesn’t love children’s books?!) and the kids were definitely recognizing a lot of the plants! The kids harnessed their artistic talents in composing some really creative pictures that incorporated actual plant-material with colourful additions of their own which all melded nicely together on the page, I have to say! 

Naturally, we finished off with a game full of laughter and fun, 'Capture the Crops'. It was a wonderful way to  enjoy the beautiful weather, get some exercise and end our wonderful day. 

Waste in Our World

When we hear cycle of life our minds may not immediately go to what this really entails but thanks to Chrissy from Puzzle Permaculture we got the full low down on Waste in Our World. She talked about the sun side of life and the dark side. The sun side being those creatures that get their nutrients from the sunshine, plants, etc. But what about the waste these creatures create... yes humans too! What is our waste and how does this tie in to a positive life cycle? Hmmm well lets talk about the dark side and see if we can figure it out. As you may have guessed it, the dark side involves all that mysterious land under our feet in the vast and amazing earth. We put our waste into the earth and somehow this helps other creatures and plants obtain nutrients. So lets get to the bottom of this! What kind of creatures are down there and what really is our waste? Some that Chrissy talked to us about were bacteria that feed on waste.... then other creatures feed on bacteria... continuing on a cycle. What else? Fungi is a big one that looooves the dark side. Now here is the giveaway... a DUNG beetle. Okay so you guessed it folks! Poop. We're talkin' about poop. Many creatures survive off our bodily waste! Chrissy had some pretty neat examples for us and we even got to spread fertilizer created by worms and fungi in our garden so it's sure to grow wonderfully with all the added nutrients. It was interesting to learn that the best fertilizer is created by animals that eat only grains... so no, unfortunately, your dog is not helping out your garden! It is so interesting to learn as plants and creatures how we all really are connected in the cycle  of life.

For story time we read the book, "I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean" by Kevin Sherry, and I really suggest checking it out! It is hilarious and in a child-like manner puts things in perspective! Then we enjoyed a delicious snack of blueberries and grapes and had lots of fun playing games in the orchard!

A huge thank you to Chrissy and all the wonderful families that made it out!

See you next week!

Making Pesto with Sharon

On Saturday July 18 the crew at Kids Grow! were fortunate to have Sharon from Poppy Innovations teach us how to make pesto using the ingredients the kids grew in our garden. Sharon talked about the importance of nutrition and how important it is for people to eat healthy food.

While Sharon was setting up, we played a game of Fruit Salad in the picnic area. Everyone had fun running around and thinking of our favourite fruits! Strawberries, raspberries, saskatoons, bananas (& banana bread!), apples, grapes, and more! There were so many fruits to choose.

Then, the moment we have all been waiting for finally arrived: we got to pick the spinach! Using the freshly picked spinach, Sharon taught us how to make some delicious pesto. Sharon delegated various tasks to the kids so that everyone had a part in making the pesto.

We had some people using a mortar and pestle to crush the spinach and greens, others were grating cheese, cutting pita, squeezing lemons, and some were even shaving the garlic with a micro-plane. Everyone worked together to make the pesto, and when we were done mixing the ingredients we were able to eat it. Yum!

With bellies full of our fabulous pesto, we said our goodbyes.
What a fantastic day!

Do you hear what I hear?

Birds seem to be abundant in the city of Calgary but we tend to overlook and become oblivious towards the common group of pigeons that hover over a green field in the summer or the crow that caws at you on your daily commute to work. What role do these birds play in our community, the greater ecosystem and more specifically our garden?

These are a few of the questions we began to explore at our Kids Grow event on Saturday, July 11th. We began by familiarizing ourselves with the common birds of Calgary. Many people are familiar with the Mallards and Geese that inhabit the surrounding bodies of water and the crows and pigeons that socialize in public areas but how much do we know about the starlings and sparrows? After our information session conducted through a fun game of matching bird pictures with their corresponding facts and bird calls, we took a nature walk to see what birds we could find. Our hearing skills were surely heightened on this adventure as we had to find the proprietors of each distinct sound amongst the harmonious bird chatter.

After our nature walk, we headed back to the garden to make some bird feeders. Many varieties of bird seed that can be bought at your local grocery stores contain preservatives and other not-so-nice things that can harm our wildlife. We decided to make our own using goodies that are safe for birds and completely edible for humans. Another problem highlighted with bird feeders is the sheer dependence birds can develop to an man-made source of food. The bigger your bird feeder and the more you refill it, the greater the chances are that birds in your area will keep coming back for more and develop a reliance on your goods. Ensure that your feeder is small and contains a variety of seeds and dried fruits that can be supplementary to their diet and not fully meet their dietary requirements. We made bird feeders out of orange peels! Click here for the instructions.

Succeeding our bird feeder construction were some fun bird-themed games! We began with the 'Duck Waddle' and finished with 'The Little Lost Birdie' in which parents and children paired up, one as the mama bird and one as the blindfolded baby bird. The mama bird would announce her specific bird call to the baby and the little birdie would have to use her listening skills to find her mama bird!

To learn more about birds in Calgary, check out the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. The walking trails are unfortunately closed due to the flood damage from last year but they continue to offer information through their nature and free tours to those interested.

Library in the Garden!

Last Saturday we had Larissa from the Calgary Public Library join us for story time. She brought books that could be signed out by the kids, and shared information about the public library's 2015 Summer Reading Challenge. This is a great opportunity to enjoy reading while you discover amazing new books and you can even win prizes! She did a great job engaging kids in reading and inspired many of them to practice often so one day they too can read tons of books on their own. It was so fun to have you Larissa! Thank you!

Our other activities were more hands-on. The kids got their hands dirty with weeding and watering the garden. They are doing an amazing job at identifying weeds and plants and understanding what is helpful and harmful to our garden. Even adults were interested to learn that some plants which look beautiful with flowers are actually weeds and could be harmful to our vegetables or herbs that we want to grow. It takes a lot of water to harvest a healthy crop and we don't need anything else sucking it all up!

Our time was now coming to an end but we always are ready for some fun games! This weekend we played Four Corners which is always a lot of fun and you can try at home too! You can use a marker item to name a corner or just remember what you call each of the four corners. Say we have ours named Lettuce corner, Caterpillar corner, Water Can corner, and Sunshine corner then the person in the middle closes their eyes and counts to ten while everyone very quietly races to a corner. Without peaking the person in the centre calls out "Caterpillar corner!" and everyone in that corner has to come join them in the middle. The kids had a lot of fun and plenty to talk about in sharing circle when we shared our favourite moments!

A big thank you to everyone!

Worms Love Leftovers!

This past Saturday morning welcomed in some beautiful summer weather. We started the day off with some weeding and watering of the Kids Grow plot as well as neighbouring plots with "Please Water Me" signs. After a week of almost non-stop sunshine and scorching weather, the plants definitely needed a long drink! 

After finishing up with our gardening maintenance, the kids and their parents were thrilled to welcome Amy Sparks of Green Calgary, as she came to teach us all about worms in the garden, and what they like and don't like to eat! We were very interested to learn about worm anatomy (do you know which end of the worm their head is?!) with the help of her big (fake) worm friend, Squirmy Wormy! She also taught us how to tell apart baby, teenager and adult worms from each other. 

We then sorted food and other items into "yummy", "yucky" or "maybe" piles trying to decide what we thought the worms would like to eat. Amy helped all the kids through this activity and explained that worms like a lot of the same things we like to eat, except for any meat, citrus-y or acidic foods, dairy and milk, salty foods, and garbage. Interesting!

After that, Amy brought out her (real, live!) worm friends for everyone to observe under magnifying glasses or hold (gently!). It was really incredible to see the kids were at first quite nervous and hesitant to actually touch and hold the worms but became quite comfortable and confident handling them. Most of the parents were too "grossed out" to hold them, but the kids held nothing back. They were able to pick out body parts of the worms that they had just learned about, and to see if a worm was a baby, teenager or adult (and even to see if they were pregnant based on how swollen their "clitellum" was!). The kids also loved seeing how worms would clump up into a big wriggly ball together as a "squirm of worms". 

With Amy's time at the Kids Grow! garden up, everyone was eager for story time in the orchard. After story time, we enjoyed a snack of mandarin oranges (which the kids were quick to point out that, being a citrus fruit, the worms wouldn't like the peels!) and green grapes. Although it was scorching outside and very sunny, everyone was itching to play a game. First up was 'The Longest Worm', where we hid sparkly worm "pieces" (bits of pipecleaner or ribbon) all around the orchard. The kids were split into two teams: Team Worm and Team Squirmy Wormy. The teams had to try to find pieces of the worm and string them together to make "the longest worm". Amazingly, both team's worms ended up being the EXACT same length!! A tie!

After that, some of the older kids wanted to play "Farmer", where there are 2-3 "farmers" on one side of a rope/line with their "crops" (seed packages or plastic fruit) spread out on their "plot" that they have to protect. All of the other kids are "garden pests/animals" who stand on the other side of the rope. They have to capture as much of the farmer's crop as they can without being tagged. If they are tagged in the farmers plot, they have to freeze wait for an animal friend to unfreeze them by running under their arm. The kids played several rounds of this and finally it was time for sharing circle, where we all reflected on what learned and loved from the days activities and what Amy Spark had taught us about worms in the garden. 

Thank you Amy and Green Calgary!

Neighbour Day!

This past Saturday, June 20th, we celebrated Neighbour Day! This is a very special day in Calgary because it celebrates the anniversary of the Calgary Floods two years ago as we remember and reflect on the support of the community and kind acts of our neighbours to get the city back in working order.

In the community garden, plot owners will put a 'Please Water Me' sign in their garden if they will be away and are relying on a friendly neighbour to help water the garden. With the scorching heat, these friendly acts of kindness are necessary as many vegetable, flower and other edible plants are sensitive to the heat and cannot survive drought-like conditions. The kids took the time to weed and water our garden and then headed over to other plots to water their garden's as well.

We tried to distract some of the father's that had shown up for the day's events to make a special Father's Day Craft. Each child had the chance to make their very own garden. They planted a variety of different crops including beans, corn and flowers. We also saw an abundance of wildlife in their gardens. Butterflies, dragonflies and ladybugs galore!

Next up was snack time! We had a delightful rainbow of colours on the table with red, green and yellow bell peppers from Community Natural Foods. We also harvested some thyme, sage and chives from our garden to make some herbed cream cheese on crackers. Yum! Check out the recipe:

Ingredients

Softened Cream Cheese

Fresh Sage

Fresh Chives

Fresh Thyme

Harlic 

Directions

1. Place cream cheese in a bowl and let it sit a room temperature for a few minutes to soften

2. Collect herbs from garden, the above herbs are suggestions, add to taste, you can also used dried herbs

3. wash and cut herbs into small pieces and add to cream cheese 

4. finely grate garlic to taste and add to mixture

5. mix well and enjoy on crackers, toast, as a dip for vegetables! (for an intensified flavour, put the mixture in the fridge and let it sit overnight before consuming)

The day ended with a very fun game of hide and seek and we shared our favourites moments of the day together :)

Next week, we'll be learning all about worms!

Helpers and Pests of the Garden

Since it had rained heavily the day before, there was no need to water the garden so we decided to weed the community orchard for our opening activity of the day! We learned about why we engage in the task of weeding and how to do it properly in order to ensure the health of our fruit trees, strawberry patch and other plants in the beautiful orchard.

We collected half a garbage bag full of weeds!

One of the volunteers sneakily hid an assortment of felt and pipe cleaner animals and critters around the community garden and orchard for the kids to find. After the scavenging around to find all of them, we came together to talk about which ones are pests, which ones are helpers and why we want to naturally attract and deter animals and critters from our garden.

We then went on a walk around the garden and orchard to find evidence of pest damage on the plants. The red bumps on the currant plants indicate a aphid infestation and the holes on the potato plants and presence of many potato beetles told us that they were enjoying their feast a little too much.

Planting a variety of crops in our garden already makes it resistant to pest infestation. We also made a natural pesticide to ward off those pesky critters.

Natural Pesticide Recipe

Ingredients

5 cups water

Pinch of cayenne (chili powder)

Skins from one onion

Skins from one garlic bulb

Directions

1. Peel garlic and onion and place the skins in a glass pitcher

2. Boil water and pour over garlic and onion skins, add pinch of cayenne and stir

3. Let the concoction sit overnight, strain and pour into spray bottle

4. Spray on the leaves of plants every few days

5. Pesticide will last for several areas in a cool area

6. Leftover skins can buried into the soil of the garden nearby plants 

Aphids eating the currant plant!

Can you spot the potato beetle?

                             
After our educational journey in pests vs helpers, we read a story about a bumblebee named 'Buzz' and played a classic game of 'Capture the Crops'. Our day ended with a sharing circle about our favourite and most cherished parts of the day.