Garden Update
Over the past year, Rob has been tending to our outdoor veggie garden and indoor plants. This is the first of a series of regular updates about our garden programming!
By Rob Stewart, Shelter Coordinator
As you may know, the landscaping and plants at Family Village were designed to create a welcoming and peaceful environment for our guests and foster a sense of community. These include fruit trees, colorful flowers, native plants to attract wildlife, and last but not least an area for growing vegetables and herbs.
The vegetable garden serves multiple purposes. It provides healthy food for our families, offers a ton of opportunities for family engagement, and is a relaxing spot to gather. The veggie beds are adjacent to a picnic table and playground, and arranged around a fountain which attracts birds and kids both.
We had to adjust some of our planned programming and activities in 2020, but with a little improvisation, our first year went really well! Both kids and parents participated in our socially-distanced planting activities. It was great to see folks buzzing around the garden digging and planting and fertilizing as a team, even if it got very muddy a couple times (children + dirt + garden hose). Each session there were one or two kids who soaked up every bit of planting knowledge I could teach them, I'm pretty sure we started some lifelong gardeners on those days.
In addition to shelter staff using the produce for meals, families also harvested the vegetables and herbs straight from the garden themselves. The snackable veggies were especially popular - we learned that we need more than two cherry tomato plants next season as we could hardly keep them on the vines! Same with chili peppers. Chard - not quite as popular, go figure.
It's now April and spring is officially underway - the peas have sprouted and the lettuce is starting to plump - and we have some plans for expanding the garden, along with indoor plant activities. It's pretty exciting. I'll be posting entries about these as we go along, so keep an eye on this space!
