Youth Garden Flourishes, Author Meet and Greet Opportunity

I think it’s kind of neat that the first official Youth Garden summer program class was on a day of thunder, lightning and heavy rain.  I mean, really. We want to teach the kids about gardening? Working around Mother Nature’s schedule is definitely part of it! How many of you are nursing along thirsty plants right now?

Fortunately, Paula Robinson had volunteered to lead the first day’s classes, and we were all in fantastic hands. She had wisely adjusted her lesson idea to accommodate being indoors at the Recreation Center instead of in the garden.  She came well prepared with germinating seeds, seed display, magnifying glasses, soil and other items to facilitate learning about The Magical Seed.

It was great. The best aspect of it for me was watching the kids – here on their first day of camp, a rainy Monday – brighten up right in front of me. One boy confessed that he’d come in “grumpy” because he was a long way from home for the summer and didn’t know anybody. He expressed his satisfaction with the class, and asked how many more times he could come. How cool is that?

So with the enthusiastic help of Paula, the other Youth Garden leaders and Garden Stewards and Tolland Recreation Department camp counselors, our Youth Garden has sprouted like a happy little seed.

And the plants at the Youth Garden aren’t suffering – they’re thriving!  It’s not easy because of our limited access to water, but I’ll put up pictures, and you’ll see what I mean. It looks beautiful, thanks to the beautiful children and adults who are tending to the beds with such diligent, loving hands.

Bob Maynard put together a lovely slideshow of our progress thus far, and it feels so good see how far we have come. You must take a few moments and check it out. His photos speak eloquently for the team, and his putting them together so nicely is a nice kind of thank you to everyone involved, including and especially the kids. And thank YOU, Bob: www.prmemories.biz/tolland-youth-garden.html/

You'll see many great photos courtesy of official Youth Garden Student Photographer Kyle Ferguson, too. Thank you, Kyle.

There are so many people to thank for so many reasons, but I’ve got to get to another hot topic. We’re offering you and your children an opportunity to meet award-winning landscape designer and author Jeff Hutton. He’ll be presenting the ideas in his book

Rocks, Dirt, Worms and Weeds: a fun, user-friendly,illustrated guide to creating a vegetable or flower garden with your kids. Thursday July 26 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. at the Tolland Recreation Center, 104 Old Post Road. There is no charge, and tours of the Tolland Youth Garden and the First Harvest Garden will follow. 

(Event is sponsored by Tolland Recreation Department, Tolland Garden Paths Youth Garden, First Harvest Community Garden and Tolland Family Resource Center)