Have you seen our peace flags at the garden?

International Day of Peace

September 21 is the International Day of Peace. Every year, Foothills students create an art installation to share with our community to inspire peaceful living. In past years we have fashioned Pinwheels for Peace, Whirligigs for World Peace, and this year our artists made Peace Flags. They are displayed on the Foothills Learning Garden fence since the silk flags were first dyed with plants that were grown there. It is our hope that as the threads from the flags unravel, they bring a message of love, peace, and happiness wherever they land!

A disappointing event

Late at night on August 30/September 1st, the Foothills Learning Garden was vandalized. Ten pumpkins were stolen off the vines and smashed in the amphitheater near the garden. A few garden tools were also taken from the garden and scattered on the playing field next to the school.

The pumpkins that were stolen and destroyed were slated to be used in a garden fundraiser on October 3rd and in our classrooms for activities like seed counting, weighing, and measuring. If you are the parent of a teen in our neighborhood, we would appreciate it if you could bring up this topic with your child in hopes of either finding out who did it (so that they can reimburse the garden for the pumpkins they stole) or, at least, reminding them that such behavior is rude, unkind, immature, and unacceptable in our community.

While we will be changing the combinations on the locks to the garden, we know that a 6 foot fence is not enough to keep out a determined vandal. We appreciate your help keeping an eye on the garden and reporting any suspicious activity to us at foothillsgarden(at)gmail.com.

For now, we have removed the remaining ripe pumpkins for safekeeping, but we'd like to be able to leave them in the garden in the future...there is nothing more fun for a kindergartener than discovering an orange pumpkin on the vine. That is the essence of why we created the garden. Unfortunately, the vandals have taken away that joy for this season.

Thank you for your continued support of the Foothills Learning Garden.

Lonely garden seeking pollinator plants

Our garden is looking great, but we've got lots of squash that needs to be pollinated and not enough pollinators! We'd like to surround our garden with deer-resistant, drought-resistant plants that attract bees and butterflies. Plants like Blue Mist Spirea, Russian Sage, and gold Yarrow -- plants that grow easily in our neighborhood and would attract pollinators to our garden.

Do you have some deer-resistant, drought-resistant plants in your yard that need to be split? Or would you be willing to take some cuttings from your easy-care plants and get them rooting for us? If you have plants you could share (or if you want to purchase some and donate them to the garden), email us at foothillsgarden(at)gmail.com to make arrangements! We'd love to get these plants in the ground by late August or early September or even early next spring when you're re-arranging your garden.

Garden orientations on Monday, June 2nd

We've heard from a few parents at school who want to sign up to water the garden this summer but aren't very familiar with the garden and would like some help getting to know their way around. We'd love to show you around! In fact, we'd love to show anyone around! We believe that this garden belongs to the Foothills community and our neighborhood and we welcome anyone to join us.

Mark your calendars for either 8:45am or 3:30pm Monday, June 2nd. Some of our garden committee members will be in the garden to give you a tour, show you how to water (our spigots can be testy, but we'll show you the tricks), and explain our expectations for students, parents, and community members in the garden. We'll bring you up to speed on what our students have been up to in the garden and tell you everything we've told them, so you don't have to second guess your kids when they tell you, "But the garden ladies said I could pick the carrots when they're ready!"

The tour and orientation will only last about 15 minutes but we'll stick around to answer questions afterward. We hope to see you there!

The 2014 Garden Watering signup is available!

Sign up for a week's worth of watering at our garden this summer! By signing up, you're only committing to caring for one grade's garden beds for one week. It's a great way to get your feet wet...or your thumb green! Sign up here. No Signup Genius account required.

Here's a recent garden diagram to help you figure out what you want to water. The beds on the left (A1-F3) are the school beds. Those ones and the perimeter beds are available to water. The beds on the right (1-22) are community beds that have been rented out for the summer.

Have you seen your community garden lately?

Have you seen your Foothills Learning Garden lately? Last weekend we built raised beds of varying heights around the entire perimeter of the garden! Thanks to the many volunteers who came out to help. The garden looks great and now those beds are ready to be filled with soil. Join us this Saturday, May 3rd from 9am-12 noon to fill those new beds. Bring your gloves and, if you have them, a wheelbarrow and shovel marked with your name. Even if you can't come, we'd love to borrow your wheelbarrow and shovel! Mark them with your name, drop them off at the garden, and we'll put them to work.

Also, we've still got two garden beds available for this summer! Let us know if you're interested in renting one. You can find a link to the lease in the sidebar on the right side of the blog.

We're building the perimeter!

Set aside your next two Saturdays to help us build the perimeter garden beds! We will be working this Saturday, April 26th and the following Saturday, May 3rd. For more information and to RSVP, please click here. Feel free to drop in at any point, and no construction experience is necessary!

We are still looking for additional 4x4 posts from downed fences to put in the corners of the new beds. If you or a neighbor has some available, please drop them off at the garden between now and the morning of the 26th.

In addition, we're looking for some wooden picnic tables to add to our garden – as you can imagine, dragging portable tables to the garden for every event is getting tiring! If you've got an old picnic table you're ready to retire, consider donating it to the garden.

Just a few plots left!

We've got just a few plots left in the community garden! If you'd like to lease one, now's your chance. Click here to download the lease agreement. Print it and send it in (with your check) ASAP to lease a plot! We're close to running out of plots, but we'll be sure to update the blog when the last one is gone. Thanks for supporting the Foothills Garden!

Reminder: Plots available beginning this Wednesday, March 5th.

Don't forget, anyone interested in leasing a garden plot for the 2014 season should join us at the Rockrimmon Public Library on Wednesday, March 5th between 6:30pm and 7:30pm to reserve and pay for their plot. Plots this year will cost $70 for the season. Please download your lease form here so that you can fill it out at home and have it ready when you arrive at the library. We expect to have around 8-10 plots available.

Some members of the garden committee and some of our returning community gardeners will be available at the meeting on March 5th to greet new gardeners and answer questions.

A few highlights for 2014:

• Soil enrichment. New for 2014, your lease now includes organic soil enrichment applied free of charge by Whole Yards Organic Lawn & Yard Care. Community gardeners may opt out of this service but will be expected to use some form of organic soil enrichment to ensure that the plot remains fertile for future gardeners. 
• Overseeing the school beds. Each community gardener will oversee one 4'x10' school bed. Students and families from Foothills Elementary School will still be offered opportunities to water the school beds, but community gardeners will keep an eye on the school plots to ensure that they are maintained and watered in the event that a plot is forgotten or abandoned or not taken care of. Community gardeners are also free to harvest from the beds they are assigned, up until a few days before school starts. At that point, we will reconnect with our community gardeners either by email or by the info board at the front of the garden to let everyone know what crops need to stay in the ground to be harvested by students.
• Straw. We have purchased straw bales that you will see around the perimeter of the garden. Community gardeners may use straw from the bales to cover their beds which will help the soil retain moisture until crops grow tall enough to shade the soil. The increased price of a plot (from $65 last year to $70 this year) reflects this change.
• Perimeter beds. We are planning to build more raised beds around the perimeter, probably the weekend of April 26th. We will publicize that build day and would love to see community gardeners and neighbors there!

We hope to see you on March 5th!

2014 Garden plots available beginning March 5th

Anyone interested in leasing a garden plot for the 2014 season should join us at the Rockrimmon Public Library on Wednesday, March 5th between 6:30pm and 7:30pm to reserve and pay for their plot. Plots this year will cost $70 for the season. You should download your lease form here so that you can fill it out at home and have it ready when you arrive at the library.

Gardeners in good standing from the 2013 season are in the process of reserving their plots now. Remaining plots will be offered to new gardeners on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 6:30pm on March 5th. We expect to have around 8-10 plots available.

Some members of the garden committee and some of our returning community gardeners will be available at the meeting on March 5th to greet new gardeners and answer questions.

A few changes to the garden for 2014:

• Overseeing the school beds. Because we had a difficult time keeping the school plots watered last summer, we are now assigning each community gardener the duty of overseeing one 4'x10' school bed. Students and families from Foothills Elementary School will still be offered opportunities to water the school beds, but community gardeners will ensure that the plots are maintained in the event that a plot is forgotten or abandoned or not taken care of. If the school family who has volunteered to water is not watering well (deeply) or not watering at all, community gardeners will be expected to “fill in the gap” by keeping their assigned school bed watered, weeded, and trellised as needed. Community gardeners are also free to harvest from the beds they are assigned, up until a few days before school starts. At that point, we will reconnect with our community gardeners either by email or by the info board at the front of the garden to let everyone know what crops need to stay in the ground to be harvested by students.

• Straw. We have purchased straw bales that you will see around the perimeter of the garden. Community gardeners may use straw from the bales to cover their beds which will help the soil retain moisture until crops grow tall enough to shade the soil. The increased price of a plot (from $65 last year to $70 this year) reflects this change.

• Perimeter beds. We are planning to build more raised beds around the perimeter, probably sometime toward the end of April. We will publicize that build day and would love to see community gardeners and neighbors there!

We hope to see you on March 5th!