Thank you for your work, we're getting there!

Hey there, I must apologize that its been ten fourteen days, and I am only now sharing some pictures (and a fitting summary) with you. March's garden workday at Dickson was a busy little hunk of success, thanks to all who came out... and if you like chickens, you might have even taken a moment to meet a fave pet of mine, 'Knucklebird' aka 'Lazy Eye' :)

Making clay seedbombs (who is guerrilla gardening?)

Timbersong helps us paint more of Joan's cherished chalk-able signs!

Who doesn't love painting?

Beds getting new soil (the foundation of food, after all)

Now that's a manager that I'd work for... on the production floor, gruntin' n grimin' with the team!

Un-signing signs

The kids we had out knew how to PLAY and HELP OUT... awesome!

Relocating some growing baskets

Its a dirty and certainly not flamboyant -- but undoubtedly essential -- job!

I'm excited to think about these inches becoming feet of green matter!

Helping with food prep in the Community Kitchen

Moving dirt -- an underappreciated and not-very-visible job

Happy campers make the work less of a chore, that's for sure!

Sitting down for some refreshments

They're always in motion... and we (of the Garden Leadership Team), together with your help, are striving to be, too!

I know I'm going to risk not naming a few of our generous workday attendees, but here goes: Mrs. Christal, Rucki, Timbersong Academy, Steve, Rick, Guy, Amy, Ruby, Mairead, Dorothea, Mike, Brad, Cynthia and Stephanie. That's not mentioning kids, which were many and which contributed to very meaningful work too. Things like moving hay, making bird nests, putting words up on signs... thanks, ya'll!

For me, after each of our monthly gatherings... I can see and feel that we got a lot done, and additionally I'm blessed to have had a good time -- among good people -- doing so. But I often lament, to myself (until now) that progress couldn't happen more quickly. We're getting there, I promise you! One day, we'll have a big, beautiful outdoor gardening and activity space at the welcoming end of our school, and wonder how it ever was once just sod and dreams :)

And on the note of dreams: Joan recently showed me a wonderful illustration of the current plan for the overall look. I snapped a pic for you:

Click on the image to view a bigger version / zoom in!

Special thanks to Steven Wyda, for all of the landscape architecture work that goes into planning out and realizing such a vision. Dickson parents, staff and community know how to work hard AND, how make things look GOOOOOOD... right? =)

This past week... and, another chance to get dirty (and fed =)

Well, I must apologize for getting very busy outside of my commitment to keep you all informed about the awesome things Joan, the garden leadership team, and our amazingly generous volunteers are engaging in with the young people at Dickson! I'm trying to sort out a balance of work, play, and more work these days, and something seems to suffer, every week :)

A short scrapbook from the past 7 days (Joan, sorry for not getting to your photos from late Feb.):

Ms. Duffy's students made tea for Dickson's monthly staff meeting

Ms. Moore's first graders, making seed balls with awesome volunteer Eleanor Underhill

Courtney Bloomfield works on gardening-related activities with Ms. Leslie's kindergarten every Wed.

Dickson kids and the wonderful coordinator-extraordinaire Raymond Smith, unloading goodies donated by Haywood Street Congregation (the hard-working church across the highway from us)

Students fearlessly taking home fresh produce!

Everybody loves peppers (everyone except my daughter Josie)

Tea, anyone?

Sifting soil (to help with potting plants)

Mr Withrow's third graders harvesting SALAD. That's right, all caps... just the way Joan likes it

Finally, if you haven't already signed up / planned to come out, please join us for our next group garden workday, this Saturday, from 10 - 1 PM. RSVP with Joan (whose email should be on the right sidebar of our blog):

I love how the version of this that got printed out -- and disbursed to you (or others) via your child's backpack -- had the words "FUN" and "WORKDAY" joined together in bold and underline. Hey, we know that work and fun can be paired together! ;)

Let me close by saying that I continue to look forward to every step along the way in this foundational work that we're doing this year and into next. We're slowly but most assuredly building a school that makes cultivation an act that takes center stage (or at least is not relegated to a diminutive or otherwise trivial role)

Stirring up in spring

Is it OK to declare the present time as spring? It certainly feels that way... all kinds of things are pushing forth with a vigor unheard of in winter...

We work to help the greenhouse, counting seeds!

Start with an empty container, and then do volume calculations

Of course, final volume doesn't get there without a fight :) 

With a set amount of water and a starting height, we can best understand gravitational potential energy, forces, and motion

But certainly we should give it the most interesting path possible :)

There's a reward to all our experimentation, that is continually springing forth (and being tasted)!

Eleanor Underhill, a local musician with an interest in community involvement, helps us make fun guerrilla gardener 'grenades' -- made from clay, seeds and soil

Ms. Sizemore's class has been playing around with trying to be as crafty as birds (in caring for their young!)

A special seedling-starting party, to help give the demonstration food plot / CEA a strong footing!

I've never been more excited about the growing season as I am this year. Let us achieve something that doesn't simply enrich the academic experience of the young people at Dickson... let us realize something that touches both the local community AND a select group of parents and teachers focused on local, sustainable enterprise and social justice!!! =)

It comes once every thirty days...

...or so. And you guys and gals certainly are helping bring the required elbow grease:

Thank you for everything that you did to 'cultivate' loveliness at our second annual garden workday!

We crafted vertical trellises for four garden beds (unofficial word is, the snap pea seeds gawked on, and ultimately approved). We finished filling all 26 teacher's patio containers, so that they can easily introduce their students to plant life cycles and the economic value of these lovely organisms. We mulched the path in the big garden and mulched landscaping throughout the school's courtyards. We planted pollinator seeds in portable crate gardens. We refreshed our greenhouse lettuces.

We painted lots of signs (together with Timbersong Academy). We planted seeds for our Plant Starts Fundraiser. IDES parents, teachers and partners kicked it (butt, that is)... =)

We enjoyed a fabulous potluck... absolutely fabulous. I unfortunately do not have a list of names - but,  there were between 60-80 people who attended. Apologies if you are typically recognized by name and are not here; apologies similarly if this was your first big volunteering and we similarly missed out on giving you props. Special thanks to Bountiful Cities Project and Asheville Greenworks, for offering very thoughtful and kid-friendly programming on-site!

There were easily more than half a dozen Dickson teachers out here getting down n' dirty with us... its hard to enumerate the downstream value in having our kids' schoolteachers so readily throwing their skin in this game, but its also easy to see that IDES staff are all about getting this landscape more and more prepared for learning (and playing) experiences. :)

Excited to post more about what Joan is doing in (and out of) classrooms next week... until then, please carry on with loving this early spring wave we've been sent.

A big bump, to Sow True Seed!

Hey there, I will try to be brief, for the first time ever -- since I've got no fun pictures to include this time around...

FIRST:

Buy seeds this spring. Try to grow stuff. Use Asheville favorite Sow True Seeds to help you do this. If you use the coupon code 'idesgarden2017' then 25% of what they get from you will go on a check that they will write out to Dickson Elementary. Pretty generous, huh? If the code doesn't seem to apply correctly -- which seems to happen if you have just one 'sale' item in your cart -- then simply make a note of the error, and of the code you had hoped to use, in the 'notes' field of your order. Remember: Sow True Seeds... code idesgarden2017... paste it in the 'notes' field for good measure. Its that simple!

SECOND:

Consider becoming an 'official sponsor' for the pilot year of what we hope will be a variation of the 'CSA' model that I'd like to call a CEA. Stands for Community Enriching Agriculture... contact me, Mr. Mikulski, at roaringgarden@gmail.com, if you are anywhere from curious to already convinced :) Please leave a phone number so I can follow up with you by phone. Just to get your saliva flowing, here is what we're hoping to cultivate for the CEA: Our 'Sow True Seeds' Shopping Cart . I said 'hoping' because surely we'll win some growing battles and lose others =)

Until next time!

Upcoming February garden work day... AND, do you want to be an 'official sponsor' of our upcoming community garden?

Helping to prepare one of many delicious quiches, for the winter show!

In our first post of 2017, I wanted to let you know that we are having another garden workday in a couple of weeks. What degree of action is employed in a typical garden workday? Look at my last blog post for a hopefully compelling visual record :) Plus, there's real good food at the end! Please click on the flyer image to enlarge / see details (thanks, Steve Agan, for putting this together):

Also, a quick shout-out to Asheville Mulch Yard and Southern States Cooperative... one supplied the new wood mulch (that replaced the re-purposed rubber) on the Dickson front-and-center playground AND promised us some donated goodies in return, while the other offered us a series of 100-gallon galvanized planters at a very generous discount. The plan, as Joan explains it, is that IDES teachers will use the planters (plus donated potting soil) to realize their very own little 'mini-gardens' this coming spring. Imagine such delight, right outside every classroom... what an awesome vision, Joan and Brad!

In summary: Plan to come on out, IDES garden fans, on Saturday the 18th -- as we build on the substantial improvements (and revelry) that we enjoyed in December!

Everybody must meet a worm!

Finally, as the operations manager for the 'Demonstration Food Garden' -- a working vegetable plot that we plan to do on the west end of the garden space -- I wanted to let you all know that we have begun seeking 'official sponsors.' Our hope is to get one dozen individuals to commit to ensure that we have all the supplies we need to BOTH 1) grow a substantial amount of seasonal, organic produce for our students/teachers to learn/teach from, and... 2) have a substantial weekly surplus, to be used to help educate and enrich the communities that neighbor IDES about the healthy, financially sustainable, and uniquely satisfying nature of enjoying food grown right in one's 'backyard.' =)

Lovely goodies donated by Roots and Annie's, for the winter show

If you are interested in being a part of this alternative, inclusive form of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), then please contact me (Mr. Mikulski) directly at roaringgarden@gmail.com for more details. Please include a phone number in your email, so I can respond to you by phone!

Coming soon... courtesy of a long, unbroken chain of goodwill and kindness (see 37gyouthveggies.blogspot.com and wpveggiefarm.blogspot.com for glimpses of that original, fertile soil :)

As usual, I'm 100% looking forward to showing you more of what we're 'sprouting,' and very soon :)