End of summer update!

We have had a busy summer in the MLC Rainbow Growers garden!  Each Monday through the summer we worked with Eagle Eye staff in the garden planting vegetables, weeding, and watering.  On Saturdays we joined the Mystic Mobile Market to harvest our vegetables and give out what we have grown to the community.  

Weeding around the carrots 

The best part about this is that I know I’m helping my community!

Checking out a caterpillar during Monday Gardening

New this year we have been giving out live plants cloned from our herbs in the garden. First we took a cutting from plants like, lavender, thyme, rosemary, and cilantro.  We then used rooting powder on the cuttings and put them in their own containers.  These clones were then given out during the farmer's market each week! 

We are building additional space to grow radishes and spinach using milk crates and landscaping fabric!

This fall in EAGLE Club we will be planting garlic for the first time.  Garlic is frost tolerant so the best time to plant is in October in New England to give the bulbs enough time to start to grow roots but not long enough for the shoots to start to grow before the winter.  We are excited to grow garlic for the first time!  Stay tuned for more pictures of what we are up to in the garden this fall!

We had a lot of watering to do this summer!

Katie's Krops Camp!

Hi everyone! I'm at Katie's Krops Camp in South Carolina! It's been fun so far. Here are some pictures I took.

Chillin' with Katie(on the right with the yellow shirt)

Cooking zucchini for lunch

All the veggies we harvested for lunch

Digging out the last potatoes

Now it's time for dinner and another screening of Starfish Throwers, check back later on to see more of what I've been up to out here!

-Sabiha

Recap and First Farmer's Market!

Hey Everyone, 

Sorry we haven't posted anything lately, we've been so busy in the garden we haven't had time to blog! Here's a little recap of what's been going on the past few weeks...

Last month all of the kids planted radish seeds and starts that we bought--lettuce, swiss chard, rosemary, thai basil, sweet basil, spicy globe basil, tomatoes, eggplants, and more. They've been growing so huge we've already harvested the lettuce, chard, kale, and radishes. We also have strawberries! They're small but reaaallly sweet and delicious.

Our first harvest!

We've been working hard every Monday and Saturday tending to the plants and making sure they're healthy and well watered. Our garden looks better than it ever has!

Check out those radishes!

Finally, yesterday was the first day of the Mobile Farmer's Market, and the first chance Rainbow Growers had to give out our fresh fruits and veggies for free to our neighbors. 17 people came and took free food for their families. We gave out lettuce, swiss chard, basil (all the types!), kale, radishes, rosemary cuttings, lavender, parsley, and other herbs too. People loved our food and one person from a local food pantry even took everything we had leftover!

Jim, Theresa, Bryan, Darien, and Sabiha at the Rainbow Growers
 booth at the farmer's market! Don't you love the sign?

Sabiha and Bryan cleaning the produce

We had so much fun meeting people at the market and lots of people came. We're already looking forward to next week!

With love,

Rainbow Growers

watching starfish throwers

Last weekend we went to watch the movie starfish throwers. This is a documentary about people who help feed people who are less fortunate. It was featuring Katie from Katie's Krops. It was super duper inspiring to Sabiha and Darien!!!!

we are writing the recycling play for wild tales.

we are waiting in line to watch starfish throwers.

in the movie theater with Mystic learning center.

News from the garden!!

Last week I(Sabiha) applied to go to a camp in Katie's Krops in South Carolina. Yesterday I found out that I was one of the 14 people out of the whole country to go!!! I'm really excited to go this June. My hard work really showed.

Today we spent some time cleaning out the raised beds and added on to our compost. Our plants that we started inside are starting to grow! Were going to be gone for a few weeks so we'll give you an update in two weeks. Stay tuned!!

Jim  composting

Seedling update 4/11/14

seedling update 4/11/14

working on the garden

Cleaning Up the Garden

Today we cleaned up our garden. We fixed the gates with a staple gun. We turned the soil with a soil turner. We made repairs to the greenhouse and dumped the water out from the plastic on the greenhouse. The younger kids raked the leaves from the raised beds.When we headed back, the younger kids started to feed the worms with newspaper. Next week we will be cleaning the garden even more!!!!

Fixing the fence with the staple gun

Seeds we planted last week

Feeding the worms

Planting Seeds Indoors

Today we started some seeds indoors. Right now we're planting jalapenos, lettuce, red and white onions, sweet peppers, and broccoli. We have to start these seeds inside because it's still too cold outside to plant.

Heather and Christy starting broccoli seeds

Sabiha and Karina planting peppers.  

Yesterday we were able to go to a seed swap for the 20th anniversary of the Growing Center. We swapped for some radish and pumpkin seeds. Next week is going to be awesome!

The whole crew at the seed swap!

new year post

We're at it Again!

This year we have some new people helping us out at Rainbow Growers. For our first meeting we had Makaylah, AJ, Darien, Kaylie, Sabiha, Kailaa, Jacob, David, Gricelda, Kathleen, Bryan, Kevin. We also had Susan and Jose from Eagle Eye Institute, Betsy from Real Kids Real Food, Lisa from the Growing Center, and Heather and Jim from the Mystic Learning Center. We were able to tour the gardens for our second meeting and talk about all the plants that were there last season. There was a lot of trash around the garden areas so we took turns cleaning it up. For the next couple of weeks we will be cleaning out the garden, and take an inventory to determine what seeds we are going to plant. It is important to take inventory because it shows us what we have and what we need to buy. We will also be starting seeds in cups by next week. We are excited for this new year!

Our first meeting. 03/07/14

This is what one of our gardens looks like now. Soon it will be cleared out and ready for planting. 03/14/14

Here are Kaylie, Jacob and Christie cleaning up litter around the gardens. 03/14/14

We were able to pick up an entire bag of litter! 03/14/14