SJD Garden Club

Children’s Garden in Fernwood

sjdgardenclub — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:03:46 +0000

How lovely. Word comes from Fernwood of a new children’s garden. Here’s a message from Leah:

My name is Leah and I am writing with the hope that I can recruit some of you to come and join us this week in the very exciting creation of the Little Acorn Children’s Garden. Over the past six months, I have been collaborating with a number of community groups to build a garden at the daycare where I work. The available site for the garden is an old driveway which has meant a lot of creative thinking about how to transform that space into a vibrant oasis. This has been an amazing process which is finally coming to fruition as we now have gorgeous beds in place that are ready to be filled with soil and planted!! Over the next week, we will definitely need some people power to move gravel and soil into the beds, and to get them planted!! I would love some of your help to make this all come together. If you can make it out, we will be in the garden on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 3:45-6pm.

Come and join us for a bed building and planting extravaganza!

Here is a loose schedule of what will be happening:

Tuesday - Lining beds with poly and filling beds with gravel and soil

Wednesday - Possibly more hauling of soil, Transplanting, Sowing

Thursday - Planting and Transplanting

Friday - Site Clean-up and Celebration!

What a wonderful idea. The address is 2629 Victor St. I’ll definitely be going to help out.

-Fiona Gilsenan

SJD @ The Market

sjdgardenclub — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:41:13 +0000

We realize that part of building our club and our eventual school gardens means building our ties with the community. That’s why we were so excited to join with the Fairfield Community Garden group at the Moss St. Market last weekend to take over the kids’ craft tent. We figured we’ve had a bit of practice with kid’s crafts by now.

What a great day. It was sunny but not too hot, and we had a steady stream of kids ready to come and make plant labels and garden flower sticks. Big thanks to Erin, Paula, Jessica, Maeve, and Rita, and to all the mums and dads that stopped by to talk about gardening and commmunity with us. We’ll be doing it again in August.

-Fiona Gilsenan

Flower Sticks

sjdgardenclub — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:31:17 +0000

Is the year over already? We had a wonderful last garden club meeting, with lots of kids from both the Wildberries and the Dragonflies. The project was to make plant labels or flower sticks; as usual, the kids were full of creativity. Paula even brought some delicious treats, including kale chips and a yummy, creamy, yogurty drink. Maybe I can persuade her to part with the recipe?

-Fiona Gilsenan

Last Club Meeting of the School Year

sjdgardenclub — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:06:49 +0000

Here is the agenda for our final meeting of the school year. How has it gone so quickly? We feel that we’ve learned so much about what works and what doesn’t work for the Club. Next year we’ll have so much to do!

We’re putting together our awesome proposal for a permanent school garden over the next few weeks. Keep checking here for updates.

-Fiona Gilsenan

Our Very Own Snail

sjdgardenclub — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:41:08 +0000

Through all the times that the children were pulling weeds and looking for bugs in the Garry Oak Bed, we didn’t see a single slug. Perhaps the birds had been doing a good job for us. But yesterday when we had our work party to prepare the bed for planting, I found this little snail.

I can’t say what kind of snail it is exactly. According to the Royal BC Museum, there are 94 different kinds of snails and slugs in BC. It could be a Darkface Arion, an Oregon Lancetooth, a Grovesnail, a Rocky Mountainsnail, or even a Pacific Sideband. I don’t think it’s a Warty Jumping Slug, though.

-Fiona Gilsenan

Strawberry Day

sjdgardenclub — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 02:03:09 +0000

Yum. Today we are going to learn a little bit about berries, and make some new plants for our garden bed. See you all there!

-Fiona Gilsenan

Vote for School Gardens

sjdgardenclub — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 17:12:28 +0000

LifeCycles Victoria is up for a $25,000 grant from The Keg and it’s for school gardens! You can vote every day at this link. Do it for school gardens and our community organizations.

By the way, they are also looking for a food security coordinator. Must be a full-time student. See their website for details.

Don’t forget to vote!

-Fiona Gilsenan

Club Meeting, May 26th

sjdgardenclub — Wed, 25 May 2011 18:06:30 +0000

Tomorrow we are going to be talking and learning about bulbs. We have so many bulbs in the Garry Oak bed and we need to find some homes for them. Maybe we’ll have a plant sale at the Moss St. Market?

-Fiona Gilsenan

What’s Related to Lobsters?

sjdgardenclub — Wed, 25 May 2011 04:10:17 +0000

We learned a lot about bugs last week. The kids dug around in the garden and found lots and lots of worms. We also learned about

ladybugs (they have stinky knees)

centipedes (they are speedy hunters)

slugs (they have green blood)

pillbugs (they are crustaceans, like lobsters)

I would say that both the Wildberries and the Dragonflies are excellent bug hunters.

-Fiona Gilsenan

Dirt Collecting

sjdgardenclub — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:58:19 +0000

Last week we learned a bit about dirt and how different it can be from one part of a garden to another. Here are our intrepid dirt collectors, out to find some soil that might be sandy, might be clay, or might be lovely loam.

Results this week!

-Fiona Gilsenan

Photo by Julian Winchester