HOT Urban Gardening Coalition

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Since we started garden club at Brook Ave. Elementary School last fall, the garden has grown and is plentiful with herbs, flowers, and solanaceous crops – eager to burst forth with fruit in the next month or two!  We finally pulled up the peas last Wednesday (which the kids gobble up like candy!) – and ate the last of the radish flowers, making more room for our carrots to finish out the spring.  But our main focus this week was planting plenty of scent-fully delicious herbs – allowing the kids to explore with all their senses – conjuring up their favorite Italian dishes as they sniffed the oregano or Mama’s salsa with the cilantro.  In total, we planted rosemary, three different varieties of sage, lemon balm, lemon thyme, Genovese basil, orange mint, peppermint, Greek oregano, hot & spicy oregano, and some wildly pink geraniums.  Our peach tree is fulling flourishing in green leafy splendor with fuzzy little fruits hidden amongst the foliage.

Next week, we’ll make another trip to the Habitat Restore to purchase the next allotment of cinder blocks to finish rebuilding some of the garden beds – as well as creating a few smaller beds for experimentation by the teachers throughout the school year.  We’ve also been grateful to receive a shipment of kids’ gardening tools from the National Gardening Association as part of the Muhammed Ali Peace Garden Grant – which will open with the kids next Wednesday at Garden Club!  Brook Ave. Elementary School Garden is blessedly blooming forth this Spring!