Welcome to the IDES Learning Garden blog!

Welcome, friend of Isaac Dickson's Learning Garden, to our first blog post! Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Matthew Mikulski. I am a fervent gardener and wannabe homesteader, parent of two IDES kids, and a middle school math, science and technology teacher. Beginning this Fall, I've committed to regular volunteering with the garden at Dickson, with a planned focus on organizing our upcoming Community Garden next spring. I will also lead Dickson's blogging and Facebook efforts. Speaking of the TEAM... please examine the sidebar to the right, to further acquaint yourself with those individuals who are working hard to make this happen! Thanks to these people, and the many, many others over the years, we have a school with one of the most student-engaged, socially conscious and community-uplifting gardening programs in Asheville!

The goal of the IDES Learning Garden Blog will be to host a weekly digest of "what is growin' on?" -- meaning, what are we engaging in, not only in classrooms but also throughout the school campus and in our broader community (as we hope to grow our impact even beyond the bells, hallways, and sidewalks of Dickson). We also hope to use the email subscription list to keep you all aware of special one-off volunteer opportunities (NB: a sneak peak at one is revealed in the pics below)! At the risk of running too long in the tooth with my first post, I wanted to let some pictures of our recent goings-on speak for themselves. Much as a homegrown tomato will, when simply glancing upon it, concede nothing of the curious journey a single human caretaker might have started many months ago... we hope a few brief captions will allow you to sink your teeth into things :)

Spencer Lyerly, making our first eleven raised beds happen

Ricky, Spencer's fearless sidekick

Ms. Joan, getting ready to plant lettuce

Vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes donated from Juanita's Produce in Candler. We gave tons of these away to the school community!

An amazing, three-lobed heirloom tomato Mr. Mikulski named "Helium"

Christine from Asheville GreenWorks, helping students separate their food in the cafeteria for composting

Mr. M checking out the viability of strawberry plants offered for donation this fall (related volunteer event TBA!)

Joele of Asheville Greenworks, helping at our ribbon cutting ceremony on Sept. 10th

Can you guess how this is related to gardening? =)

Yumiko serving tasty coffee at our 'IDES of September' monthly social

Fruit ingredients for kid-built smoothies!

Mr. Royer's first graders, getting hands-on with smoothie making

"Cheers!"