What's been happening at Kids Grow?

With the gardening season in full fledge, Kids Grow has put on an array of events that have showcased various experts around the city of Calgary. Last week, we started up programming again in the Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Garden after a long break due to the floods. We were honoured to have author Rona Altrows join us in reading her brand new children's story 'The River Throws a Tantrum'. The book was inspired and heavily influenced by her grandson's first-hand experience with the floods. The end of the story led to a discussion with the children about how the floods had affected their homes, communities and their lives. 

We then had a lovely snack of fresh blueberries and headed out to the garden. Even though our garden was bursting with luscious lettuce, peas, parsley, radishes and beets, we have been advised to only consume our crop when thoroughly cooked. We plan to care for our garden plot lovingly until the end of the season when we can make a delicious garden stew! The day ended with some fun games in the shining sun including 'Find the Magic Rock' and 'Caterpillar Tag'. 

Click here to check out Nenshi's reading of 'The River Throws A Tantrum' at Pages in Kensington:

At Silver Springs, master gardener Sonia Peters hosted a Good Bugs vs Bad Bugs workshop. The kids learned how to differentiate wasps from bumble bees. We also gained knowledge about our garden helpers (spiders, ladybugs and butterflies) as well as our garden pests (aphids, slugs and caterpillars). After harvesting some tasty radishes and carrots from our garden, we gathered on a bench under the pergola to read a story about bumble bees. Since bees are a necessary component to the well-being of our garden, we made cozy bee houses to attract them to our garden plots. 

This week at Kids Grow we were excited to have clinical herbalist, Kalyn Kodiak, lead us on a wild-medicine herb scavenger hunt. We found out that many of the weeds that grow naturally in the parks and on the side of the road have amazing healing properties! We tasted some edible herbs including dandelions, clovers and pineapple weed. Make sure to check back in the next few weeks for details on what we learned on our herb adventure. At Silver Springs, we were able to harvest some tasty snap peas, beans and carrots from our garden. We ended the day with a game full of both strategy and lots of giggles called 'Magic Garden'.