Garden Hour

With Spring in full swing, yesterday marked the first Garden Hour at the Blacksburg Nature Center! Thanks to the hard work of Alex Hessler and I, the MarketKids Hunger Relief Garden was tilled and ready to go. We started the hour off brainstorming things we hoped to plant as the season progressed...carrots, cucumbers, beets, berries, flowers, sugar snap peas, and more!

We then discussed the layout of our garden...two long beds with a walkway in the middle!

We then split into groups--one group measured the width of the garden in order to determine the midpoint that would serve as the walkway between our two garden beds, and the other group began to hill the garden beds.

Once a garden bed had been formed, the planting began! We planted potatoes and cucumbers!

The kids learned about plant spacing and depth...

And how to water a garden bed!

All in all, it was a beautiful day and fun adventure with 15 young gardeners growing their garden knowledge!

MarketKids Hunger Relief Garden at the Blacksburg Nature Center getting tilled and ready to start up the weekly service Garden Hour! Garden measures ~7'x40'

A HUGE thanks to Alex Hessler--Kentland Farm Manager for his help tilling up the garden! I couldn't have done it without him!

Second MarketKids Workshop!

MarketKids had its second workshop weekend last weekend, May 3rd. A huge thank you to Tess Pangle and the other girls from Sigma Alpha Agricultural Sorority for all of your hard work organizing and executing a great MarketKids lesson about bugs in the garden.

Tess and her fellow sorority sisters helped the kids create their very own bug books with pictures and inquiring questions that spurred small group discussion about harmful and beneficial bugs in the garden. The kids learned about aphids, ladybugs, honeybees, praying mantis', grasshoppers, butterflies, snails, and caterpillars. At the end of the lesson they were given handmade bug boxes complete with instructions for the kids to make bug 'hotels' (habitats) for beneficial bugs in the garden: http://gardentherapy.ca/build-a-bug-hotel/

In other news, MarketKids has received additional funding from a grant from The Community Foundation of the New River Valley for $680.00!

Stay tuned for an upcoming post on developments in the MarketKids Hunger Relief Garden at the Blacksburg Nature Center!!!

MarketKids wins a Mantis Tiller!!!

MarketKids wins a Mantis Tiller just in time to break ground at the MarketKids Hunger Relief Garden at the Blacksburg Nature Center!!! Picked as one of 25 winners, out of over 500 applicants, MarketKids now has the resource it needs to cultivate creativity!!!

http://www.kidsgardening.org/article/congratulations-2014-mantis-tiller-award-winners