As my AmeriCorps service year with Kansas City Community Gardens comes to a close, I’m feeling grateful for this experience and appreciative of the new memories and growth. I want to share my thanks with Hannah, Crystal, and Claire. I admire their creativity and commitment to the Schoolyard Gardens program, and feel so fortunate to have […]
This week, the Schoolyard Gardens team is excited to invite you on a virtual tour of the Leanna Flandermeyer Beanstalk Children’s Garden! Yup, it’s time to adjust your sun hat because the Beanstalk tour guides are nothing short of a star-studded (and, sun-kissed!) cast that will guide you and your senses through their favorite […]
As an alternative to tending alongside you in the garden this summer, we would like to share our how-to video for caging tomato plants. Join our Schoolyard Gardens K-12 Coordinator, Crystal Fritz, as she explains why we use tomato cages and how to assemble and place tomato cages into your garden. Special thanks to our […]
Lesson Summary: We share our backyards and gardens with birds who eat many different types of food including insects, berries, seeds, and nuts. Birds are excellent at foraging for their own food but feeders help to supplement their natural food sources. Today’s lesson, Do It Yourself: Pinecone Bird Feeder, is a fun and easy craft […]
Summary: Thanks to springtime rain showers, we have been observing an abundance of earthworms in our gardens and backyards. Though puddle jumping is encouraged during this rainy season, we recommend students take a quick break from splashing, and look closely to find earthworms hard at work keeping the soil healthy. This week’s lesson, “Exceptional Earthworms” […]
Vegetable: Green Onion Sets SYG Varieties: Red, Yellow, White Planting Instructions: 4×12 beds (K-12): 3 pounds per bed 3×9 beds (preschool): 1 pound per bed Plant the set with the root end down (this is the end where you visibly see roots). The sets should be planted about half an inch deep with the tip […]
Vegetable: Radish SYG Varieties: Cherry Belle: A fast-maturing radish with mild flavor and crisp texture. The Cherry Belle variety grows to a vibrant red hue with a white flesh. Easter Egg: This seed packet will produce beautiful radishes in a variety of colors (red, white, pink, purple) that are fun for children to pick and […]
Join The Giving Grove and Kansas City Community Gardens for their second annual Wassailing Celebration on Wednesday, January 22, 2020 from 4:30 PM – 6 PM. The celebration will be held at a partnering community orchard located at Cross-Lines in KCK (646 S. 7th St Trafficway, Kansas City, KS 66105). Parking is available in the […]
I’ve been catching some good sunsets from the Schoolyard Gardens office these past few weeks as the hours of daylight have been fleeting. There’s a serene stillness in the garden at this point of the season, and the arrival of the winter solstice this weekend felt like a natural and necessary pause right before we […]
There’s something bittersweet about covering Schoolyard Garden beds at the end of the fall into winter season. The Schoolyard Gardens team uses landscape fabric or burlap to cover garden beds after they’ve been cleared of garden debris to ensure that they’ll be ready for planting come springtime. The fabric suppresses any pesky weeds that inevitably […]
