Lawn Street Community Garden

Well things are looking superb in the garden. On August 18th, we had 14 students from Carnegie Mellon university come down and help weed and do some general maintenance in the garden. they did a terrific job and garden looks really great! Lizzy, who has helped us in the garden so much over the summer, has sadly moved to another city and we will miss her dearly.

Our students at CHS After-School Program will be returning on Tuesday, September 2nd, and we are so excited to get them back in the garden and see all the neat things that have been growing while they have been gone. We will bring back our garden club for a several weeks and get our students back in the garden watering and weeding and learning about what has been growing over the summer. 

On September 19th, we are going to hold a Lawn Street Garden Party with the students and community members. Our first hour will be helping to clean up the garden, followed by a second hour of celebration with drinks and watermellon and salads. We have about 10 watermellons that we are very eager to feast on for this particular celebration!

After everything is done growing, we will be teaching our students how to prepare the garden for the winter by laying down cardboard so as not to have to battle with weeds next spring and summer.

It has been a great summer and tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, red and green peppers, cayenne peppers, bananna peppers, basil, eggplant, and zuccinis are all producing magnificently! We have had more than enough produce and have been giving things away to community members and Community Human Services employees and clients. People have told us that they are loving the tomatoes and peppers! We are very excited to have the students back so that we can have them trying all the great things they've helped to produce!

Well, Summer Camp has come to a close in preparation for the ending of the warm months and to transition to the fall and the school year!

So while the garden has less little hands tending to it, it is still flourishing.  The tomatoes are ripening, the eggplants are growing, the peppers are reddening and the zucchinis are taking a bow.  We got a few tomatoes just in time to make pizza for the second to last day of camp.  The basil and peppers played an important role too.  The kids really loved the pizza and the ability to say that they grew and then picked something that contributed to the deliciousness.

A few weeks ago, a very knowledgeable and awesome Master Gardener came to talk with me about how the garden was going and what could be improved.  We were all pleased to hear that dispite some small mistakes on our part (mostly spacing issues), she thought things looked really good!  So thank you to everyone who made that rating possible.  And now we know what to improve for next year.

Next week, we are having some college student volunteers to do some hard core weeding for the final stretch. 

One of the most memorable parts of this summer for me was watching the kids learn about land and how things grow and seeing their either love (surprisingly with the eggplant) or possible disgust (mostly with the eggplant) after bravely taking a taste of a fresh picked piece of produce.

Thank you so much Orange Thumb for the support to make this possible.

Well, summer camp is in full swing and so are the plants we've been tending to!
So much has grown in the last few weeks that's it feels like a totally different space.  Like a mostly-edible jungle has sprung up.

The most fun part of the garden is being there with the kids and discovering the changes.  Like this week we have an infestation of zucchini!  The younger kids made the discovery and were very excited taking turns carrying the huge vegetable back to the center.  The kids are so excited to pick things right off the vine and try them that they are often being reminded to ask someone first to make sure it is ripe...hoping a super sour raspberry is a good lesson in being mindful of when to pick things and when to let them mature. 

Oh, so the zucchinis. 

We also got a green pepper that day.  We chopped them up and had the kids try them raw, and also sauteed some up with a little olive oil and basil from the garden for comparison.  Almost all of them demanded thirds and fourths.  It's exciting seeing kids so into vegetables. As another comparison, zucchini bread will be made this week.  When most people hear "zucchini bread" they can't really imagine how good a green vegetable can be in a sweet bread!  But when done right, it's pretty amazing.
We've also been picking lettuce and making it available at lunch to spruce up the sandwiches.   Most of the kids eat it up like bunny rabbits.
Well, it's hard to describe how exciting this all really is as being able to see the shock and wonder on the kids faces when they put something they helped grow in their mouth and enjoy it is really an amazing privilege.

 

    As April flew past at the speed of a dragonfly,  we have become busy with the Lawn Street Community Garden on many levels. Our annual Community Garden Day is coming up this weekend and we have been getting everything together to make that day a success. Our friends at the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation have agreed to provide lunch and work gloves to the volunteers. Thanks to Kelly for making it happen again this year. With the awesome tools and other materials provided by Fiskars Project Orange Thumb we will be able to whip our garden into shape in no time with the help of all the volunteers. Our plan to buy a greenhouse has hit a snag as Home Depot is unable to special order one for us from their web site. However, we can design our own, buy the separate materials, and with some help from our handyman, Gary, we should be able to build it. This puts that project on hold until after the Community Garden Day. We will still be weeding, adding compost and removing debris from the garden so there will be plenty of work that needs to get done.  

   Our students have been getting their hands dirty and loving it. The younger students, ages 5-8, have begun learning about seeds and where our food comes from. At the end of April, they started beans and radishes inside their classroom, and they have just begun to sprout. They have also been learning general concepts about working in the garden such as how to be safe and use tools properly in the garden, what is the difference between a weed and a plant, and what lives in the soil.

The older students, ages 9-12, have also been working hard to get our garden ready to grow. At first they offered a healthy amount of complaints when we told them that instead of sitting at a computer they would be going into the garden to work. But once they got outside to the fresh air they changed their tune. Students could be heard pointing out bugs and flowers to each other as we began working in the soil. They did not even notice when our garden time ran into their playground period. After the first time we went into the garden, they now look forward the time we spend there each week. The older kids are also excited by the prospect of selling our extra produce at the new Community Human Service Farmers Market table to be set up this summer. There is still much to be done for this weekend's event so I must sign off for now. Keep those thumbs green!                   

The Lawn Street Community Garden was first established by a group of determined South Oakland residents who took part in a city wide initiative by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1997 to create green spaces within the city of Pittsburgh. The garden was erected over a 30 ft. / 70 ft. plot of land located on Lawn Street, a residential community housing college students and families alike. Prior to 2006, the garden was managed by local home owners who tended their individual plots. 

As these residents moved away, leadership of the garden was taken over by the Community Human Services Corporation (CHSC), under the leadership of Paul Pagoda, Garden Coordinator and Education Coordinator for Youth Programs of CHSC. CHSC is a non-profit organization located one block over from the Lawn Street Community Garden. This organization has operated a community center on Lawn Street since 1970 and offers an array of social services, including homeless assistance, healthcare, mental health support, and youth programs.

In the spring of 2006, CHSC Youth Programs began their work in the Community Garden. At this point there was only one available plot. Paul Pagoda used this space to introduce the CHSC Youth Program participants to gardening. In April of 2006, the children started plants inside their classroom. Plants such as carrots, beets, pumpkins, watermelons, tomatoes and beans were then transplanted into the garden in May. Periodic gardening activities were offered during the summer camp in order to maintain the garden plot and further the youth’s knowledge of garden life. 

After a successful initial growing season in 2006, CHSC continued to be involved in the garden. In the spring of 2007, CHSC kicked off the gardening season by hosting a community gardening day in coordination with National Youth Service Day on April 21st. Over 30 Community members, volunteers, and CHSC Youth Program participants worked together on this day to ready the garden for the growing season ahead. At this point it was learned that people who had previously taken plots in the garden would no longer be involved, leaving 75% of the space to CHSC. 

As CHSC moves into its 3rd year of involvement with the garden, there are many exciting things on horizon. In March of 2008, CHSC received a substantial grant from Fiskars Corporation, Project Orange Thumb, in order to support the community garden. This grant provides brand new tools and other materials that will directly enhance the Lawn Street Community Garden. This year CHSC will host its second community gardening day on May 10th to gather community members in the garden and begin to ready the space for the summer growing season. With the funds they received from Fiskars, CHSC will install an outdoor classroom area, a rain barrel, a green house, and make other improvements to the Lawn Street Community Garden. With the increased growing space and production of food, CHSC will use some of the produce to serve the children during the Summer Camp and After School programs. The rest will be used to generate funds and awareness by selling it at the Friday Farmer’s Market at the CHSC Community Center on Lawn Street.