Removing sod

After almost two years of thoughtful planning, phase I of the Shaver School/Community Garden in  Parkrose was installed last Saturday.  Students, parents, teachers, the custodian, the principal, the Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) staff, neighbors and Growing Gardens staff and volunteers built 8 raised beds and one disabled accessible bed.

Building the garden boxes

Filling the new beds

The garden was designed in 2010 with input from Shaver students who submitted ‘dream garden’ designs to the Shaver Garden Committee. The committee worked with Pete Cromwell a local landscape designer who turned the ideas into a working blueprint. The Garden Committee’s vision for the garden is to 1) be a ‘teaching place’ to meld hands-on activities with science and English Language Learning (ELL) instruction strategies; and 2) to be a food producing garden, integrating cooking & eating within the school to  increase food literacy and improve nutrition.

Students helping assemble the disabled accessible bed with the Growing Gardens Dawn of the Bed team

In preparation for the garden install, students and teachers have been growing edible plants in their classrooms to plant into the new beds and the after-school SUN/Youth Grow Garden club has been eagerly awaiting the new garden space -  growing garlic, collards, peas, broccoli, chard, radishes and lettuce in three existing beds.

Phase II of the garden includes installing an irrigation system to the beds, building a tool shed, compost and worm bins, an outdoor classroom space with picnic benches and adding pollinator and native plants.  In the meantime the school will cultivate student’s enthusiasm to tend and harvest the new beds.

The finished beds

Funding for supplies came  from: a grant from the Hardy Plant society,  donations from nearby Burgerville fundraising nights, and through donations raised by the Growing Gardens’ Dawn of the Bed team.  Parkrose Hardware, Portland Nursery, Mt Scott Fuel,  and Mr Plywood provided generous discounts on materials, and  Noah’s provided bagels for volunteers. Thank you Peter Cromwell who created the Shaver Garden landscape design.

Congratulations to the Shaver community on this exciting new garden program and to everyone who has helped make it grow!

For more information or to get involved contact the Shaver SUN program at (503) 408-2850.

photos by Caitlin Blethen

• A reminder of the resilience a garden and a gardener can have, despite facing serious challenges. Originally posted on Ecocentric (a great blog) and linked from Civil Eats: Joan Gussow’s Garden Recovery.

• It’s almost time to plant potatoes.  Check out this great video on growing and caring for potatoes from Cooking Up a Story.

• In the GG Youth Grow program, we talk with our students about the importance of eating colorful fruits and veggies.  We thought this “nature mapping system”, including a coloring books, murals, and placemats was a pretty cool idea to remind kids and grown-ups alike to eat colorful foods (Thanks to a post by @WK_Kellogg_Fdn!).

• If you missed it, last week Mark Bittman wrote a great New York Times piece about some good news about food (We especially like number “4″ and “6″).

• And in case you are still planning on planting some spring peas and are looking for a building project, here’s some instructions for building a cool pea trellis! (and check out this kid-friendly version!).

Raised Beds in Earl Boyles Community Garden

The Youth Grow program is excited to announce our latest school partnership with Earl Boyles Elementary School! Earl Boyles is in the David Douglas School District, located on the same site as Ron Russell Middle School. The two schools share two plots in an on-site Portland community garden, where students and families will garden together. The school has recently established a garden committee, made up of teachers, parents, staff, community members, and the school’s  SUN coordinator. The garden committee has established two main goals for the garden program this year: to 1) involve families in connecting with their food at its source, and 2) supplement cafeteria salad bar for spring, summer, and fall at both schools. The committee has also developed a timeline and action steps to carry out the vision.   Becky Wandell, a teacher at Earl Boyles, is a graduate of Growing Gardens’ School Garden Coordinator Certificate training, and has been a leading force in bringing together the garden committee. Becky is leading an adult gardening class for families and is working on in-class garden education.

Eli Tinkelman and Nancy Gomez

This spring, Youth Grow after-school Garden Club will share  one of the large garden plots with the school’s new Green Team (4th & 5th graders), taught by Americorps member Nancy Gomez, as well as an after-school garden class at Ron Russell Middle School, taught by Eli Tinkelman. The three after-school classes will collaborate and share resources, creating some exciting opportunities for the spring term. Youth Grow will also  participate in the school’s Health and Wellness Fair this spring, teach a family workshop this summer, as well as provide a summer Garden Camp for students through the SUN program.  We are excited about the new partnership, and look forward to growing with the  Earl Boyles community!

Our board adopted a new strategic plan in January for the next 18 months. We’d like to share our main priorities from this plan.

More people are growing their own food because of GROWINGGARDENS.

• Expand geographic service area
• Increase student enrollment
• Establish citywide garden registry

GROWINGGARDENS is a go-to expert on home and school gardening.

• Increase resources for Spanish-speaking community
• Expand web-presence and activity.

GROWINGGARDENS is a healthy people organization.

• Strengthen board capacity and increase opportunities for development
• Improve staff workload with establishment of Volunteer Coordinator position
• Ensure constituents reflect community diversity

GROWINGGARDENS is financially strong and growing

• Maintain a financial reserve
• Enhance fee-for-service revenue through trainings, installations, and more.

Your support makes it possible for us to plant the seeds for good food, healthy people and strong communities…to help people GROW! If you are not already on our monthly email list, please go to our sign up link so you don’t miss anything.

Finally, thanks to very generous support from Oregon Community Foundation and Meyer Memorial Trust, and a lot of help from Ben McKinnis, of Benco Commercial Real Estate, GROWINGGARDENS is moving to our new office in May.

Stay tuned for details, requests for moving help and a new office wish-list!

Thank you for your support.