Has Lower Columbia School Gardens had a positive impact on you or your family in 2020? As you probably know, we were unable to do our regular Spring garden programs with students so we shifted to growing food, helping our community grow food, and giving away fresh produce. We’d especially love to hear from people who received container gardens, plants, seeds for their home gardens, and/or free produce this year. Email us at info@lcschoolgardens.org or call/text 360-200-8918 if you’d be willing to speak to a School Gardens staff member about your experience, or fill out this survey to share your story with us. Thank you!
With limited opportunities to work with students this summer, we turned our focus to growing as much good food as possible for our community.
Our average harvest from school gardens is 250 pounds of food per week, most of which is distributed free at farm stands as well as through Family Community Resource Center, South Kelso Neighborhood Association, Radical Love, and others.
Harvest Day
Summer squash
“Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye” tomato
Peaches, plums, figs
Beets
Garlic!
More garlic!
Suffolk Red grape
New this year: Free Farm Stands
Free Farm Stand – Highlands
Free Farm Stand – Highlands
Free Farm Stand – Highlands
Free Farm Stand – South Kelso
Thank you for supporting this work! We are grateful for this beautiful community.
It can be hard to talk with kids about racism. But we know that by preschool age, many kids have already learned racial bias. It’s so important to start talking with kids about race and racism early and often, even if we do so imperfectly.
If you want some help figuring out where to start or how to continue to engage with your kids about race, check out these two videos. The first is from Dr. Kira Banks and a panel of parents with varying perspectives and helpful tools for engaging in conversations about race with kids. And the second is a Sesame Street town hall Q&A both kids and adults can enjoy and learn from.
LCSG cares a great deal about the health of our community; it’s a core part of our mission to promote healthy eating, and provide access to fresh produce in Longview and Kelso. We also know that fighting racism is an important way to ensure everyone can thrive.
Pervasive and systemic racism is the reason Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other communities of color suffer disproportionately from completely preventable conditions like chronic diseases, shortened life expectancy, poor birth outcomes, and increased mortality from COVID-19.
Racism is a public health crisis. While our organization can and will continue to grow nutritious and delicious food, we will also work to undo our own implicit biases, and address the racist systems that prevent communities of color from accessing education, employment, safe and affordable housing and healthy food so that they can expect the same quality of life that white communities do.
To learn more, check out this article from Pew Trusts:
Some of you may have noticed we recently ran out of materials to assemble trellises for the snap pea porch pots. We’ve still been sharing those container gardens but y’all will need to get creative with your own trellis-building!
Yum! Cascadia Snap Peas freshly-harvested from a school garden
If you have any circular metal tomato cages around, those are just right for trellising snap peas in a bigger pot (they also work well for cucumbers and other vining plants – not just tomatoes!). They often are available in some fun colors, too.
Metal tomato cage
Here’s a great photo from One Hundred Dollars A Month of a tomato cage being used as a snap pea trellis. They’ve gone the route of flipping theirs upside down, but that leaves some pretty pokey bits sticking out and in our experience it works just as well right-side up. (Don’t get confused if you visit their site and see gardening tips – they live in Maine so the climate and seasons are somewhat different than ours in the Pacific NW.)
These peas are growing in pots with tomato cages for trellising
This Pea Tripod Tutorial from Seattle Urban Farm Company is pretty simple and could be done with smaller/shorter sticks fairly easily, to make it fit into a container garden.
Finished pea tripod from Seattle Urban Farm Company tutorial
The first Volunteer Training of the new school year is coming up very soon!
School Gardens staff members are looking forward to meeting new
friends, as well as welcoming back familiar ones.
Two identical sessions are offered: – Friday, September 8th, 9:00 to noon –
OR – Saturday, September 9th, 9:00 to noon –
Register by sending an email to ian@LCschoolgardens.org and
specifying which day you plan to attend.
Weekly Spring Garden programs begin on Monday, March 6th, 2017 – this means a lot of good things, including weekly volunteer opportunities!
If you haven’t volunteered with us before, please email our Volunteer Coordinator julia@lcschoolgardens.org and
we’ll get you plugged in with the garden or activity that’s right for you and your schedule.
Every hour you’re able to contribute as a volunteer – whether it’s on a weekly, monthly, or even an
annual basis – makes a difference in the lives of kids and families in our community.
Spring Garden Programs begin the second week of March, which means weekly volunteer opportunities!
If you haven’t volunteered with us, please email info@lcschoolgardens.org to tell us particular times you’re available – weekly, monthly, or even annually – every hour makes a difference in the lives of kids and families in our community.
