2024 so far...
Your farmers have been busy organizing garden programs all over Montgomery while activities on the farm are on hold (more about that in the next post).
Watering okra seedlings at Regency Park Community Center with ECHO.
In the spring, we partnered with ECHO (Empowering Communities, Helping Ourselves) and Chef Kisha joined our team to support ECHO’s after school program at Regency Park Community Center.
April was all about planning and planting the spring garden with Thursday night classes at Goodwyn Community Center. The best part of this experience was gardeners helping gardeners. We taught a garden lesson every week, but the participants shared plants, buckets, encouragement, and inspiration with each other.
Worms led the way into May with our first worm bin building workshop at the Tuskegee Urban Agriculture Innovation Center. This was the first of three Urban Agriculture in Alabama workshops sponsored by MidSouth RC&D Council.
Our June Urban Agriculture in Alabama workshop focused on pollinators was a blast (or a buzz), and we are so grateful to Help a Brother Out Foundation/Zizi’s Bee Company, MidSouth RC&D Council, Tuskegee Urban Agriculture Innovation Center, and Beeutiful Natives for making the event possible.
Alabama Cooperative Extension Service invited us to teach during their STEM in the Classroom workshop in June, and we’re partnering with Tuskegee University’s Urban Agriculture Innovation Center to offer a worm farm workshop for educators before school resumes.
Farm Caylor shares information about sustainable agriculture a Alabama Cooperative Extension Service’s STEM in the Garden Workshop at Park Crossing High School. Photo courtesy of Alabama Cooperative Extension Service.
This summer, our worms (and Farmer Amanda) are educating children about recycling food scraps every Tuesday at ZooCamp, and the red wigglers have made appearances during the library summer reading program. We’ve had a blast at the library this summer sharing about Very Hungry Caterpillars (and bringing a few with us), and making native plant seed bombs.
Since January, we’ve reached more than 2200 people of all ages with garden education programs - without a farm to teach from - because garden education is what we do. Don’t get us wrong. We need a place to grow. Growing food, working in the garden, this is where we learn and test new skills and lessons. It is the foundation of our teaching program.
Summer Reading! Making seed balls at the library.
We’re trying to determine what our next steps are for building/rebuilding our garden classroom. Right now, we’re planning classes for fall and even looking forward to Seedy Saturday on January 25, 2025. Mark your calendars!