Days of Summer

As school let out for the summer, spring crops came out of the ground, summer crops were finally in, plans started for a garden shed, and summertime programming began. Take a peak at some of our early summer harvest!

Soft and hardneck garlic for Buford’s cooking classes, sweet carrots, and beautiful beets

We are so fortunate to have the Cherry Avenue Boys & Girls Club and Parks & Recreation’s Pre-teen Summer Camps at Buford and Walker join us in the garden all summer long. Students spend time eating, planting, digging, and wandering around observing the tall, short, living, and decomposing organisms in the garden. They are pure joy to explore the garden with!

Boys & Girls Club students play a garden questioning game.	Kyle poses as Lady Liberty, welcoming everyone to the garden.
Carrots with the dirt still on - That's the way B&G Club kids like 'em.	Examining the contents of the compost bins.

Each Thursday, rising Buford 8th grade students volunteer in the garden and help Emily keep pest populations down, harvest the summer bounty (and take lots of it home), dig new garden beds for the fall, dry flowers and herbs, save seeds, weed, and water. It isn’t all just work work work, we also took time to make homemade Buford strawberry ice cream. Sooo good.

With mid-summer here already, the corn cob silks are peaking out, the okra and peanuts are flowering, and the garden is dripping in tomatoes and peppers. After hounding Emily all week long, Kyle and Charnya from the Boys & Girls Club were given the responsibility of taste testing and rating all the hot peppers. Days later they are still breathing fire from the Royal Black.