The TJMS Community Garden 2024 Season is Under Way.
The TJMS Community Garden has been a Plot Against Hunger participant for over a decade, donating produce to AFAC and other local food pantries. The Jefferson Community Garden is the largest school garden in Arlington, and we are taking our community responsibilities seriously. But more than that, we are working to become a hub for joyful community and learning. Have you ever thought of starting your own garden, but you feel a little overwhelmed? Volunteering with our experienced gardeners is a great way to learn more about starting a garden, managing pests and diseases, and how to plan for seasonal harvests. A sunny Saturday morning in the garden is a great family activity, and it's the perfect place to meet friends to socialize while volunteering and getting a bit of fresh air and exercise.
Bring Friends or Family and Join Us in the Garden:
We would love you to join us in the garden. We have regular garden workdays every week from 10 AM to noon Saturday mornings. Not quite ready to start gardening today? Sign up for our newsletter and we'll send you weekly updates about our workday plans, and pictures of what we're doing in the garden.
Stay tuned to our Facebook page for late-breaking schedule updates and weather cancellations.
Garden videos:
Our native asters and goldenrod. A veritable 🐝 ...
At first, we thought someone had gifted us a hawk ...
A pollinator garden full of blooms, but this butte...
You know you’re a gardener when getting a tr...
If you’re looking for an idea for the last few zucchini in your garden, may I suggest this recipe? It was perfect to send in a care package to my summer-garden-volunteer college student who was sad to miss the Harvest Festival. Three regular sized (ok, a *little* big) zucchini let me triple the recipe, and we had two loaves to keep, two to send.
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Our regular volunteers also showed up to help us close down the garden. I think we will only need one or two more days of work to put it to bed for the winter. @arlingtonfoua @afacfeeds @apsvirginia #schoolgarden #compost #volunteer ... See MoreSee Less
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Fleet families came out to help us with garden cleanup today— lots of chopping basil and bean plants so they will break down in our three-bin compost system faster. We will have great soil amendments next year! #schoolgarden #volunteer #fleetelementary @apsvirginia @arlingtonfoua @afacfeeds ... See MoreSee Less
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The last of the okra as we take them down and chip the stalks for our compost. We will be here until noon, drop by and get a little cardio cleaning the garden with us! #schoolgarden #fallgarden ... See MoreSee Less
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That’s a wrap on our Harvest Festival. Join us tomorrow at 10AM for garden cleanup and closing the plot. We will be pulling down light strips, composting okra and beans, and if we have time, rolling up our landscaping fabric. #harvestfestival #schoolgarden #plotagainsthunger ... See MoreSee Less
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We've rescheduled the garden workday from today at 5:30 to next Tuesday, 10/29 at 5:30 ... See MoreSee Less
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Test bake to see if habanero sugar cookies will make it to the Harvest Festival table this Friday. #schoolgarden #habanero #harvestfestival #cookies ... See MoreSee Less
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How did they turn out??
The only thing more beautiful than an eggplant flower is a deep purple eggplant. #schoolgarden #communitygarden #eggplant #fallharvest ... See MoreSee Less
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We're starting to think about this year's Harvest Festival. We'll have zucchini bread and basil sugar cookies from the garden. (Sadly, no pumpkins this year, so no pumpkin cookies.) What's your favorite baked good from Harvest Festivals past? Do you have a favorite garden recipe for a baked treat we should try? ... See MoreSee Less
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Sweet potato biscuits are a favorite recipe we make with my students! ffm.org/recipes/sweet-potato-biscuits
We just passed 1000 pounds donated to @afacfeeds this week. You can see this year in red in the graph, compared to our top year (2023) in blue. We're coming from behind, but if we can keep the squash, okra, tomatoes, and beans going, we've actually got a shot at beating our record this year, because we've been increasing at a faster rate than previous years at this time. And our newly planted squash and zucchini bed hasn't even started bearing (much) yet. Fingers crossed! #datanerds #schoolgarden #communitygarden @arlingtonfoua ... See MoreSee Less
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Very. Impressive! That was a lot of hard work!
Garden workday Saturday 10-noon. Bring water and a long sleeve shirt. ... See MoreSee Less
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No Workday Tonight
(Sorry, but we'll see you in the garden on Saturday morning!) ... See MoreSee Less
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CANCELLED: NO WORKDAY TONIGHT ... See MoreSee Less
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Yesterday was our first day of Garden Club for the year. Lots of students harvesting beans, tomatoes, squash, okra, and peppers, plus one very satisfied looking grasshopper. Between yesterday and today’s workday, we harvested 64 pounds of produce to donate to @afacfeeds, bringing our donation total to 849 pounds for the year. #schoolgarden #plotagainsthunger #outdoorlearning ... See MoreSee Less
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Join us Saturday morning 10-12 in the garden to harvest, fertilize, and tie up our vegetables. ... See MoreSee Less
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A lovely blue lobelia that we added to the native pollinator garden last weekend. #pollinatorgarden #schoolgarden ... See MoreSee Less
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This year we are trying growing beans on a net instead of up twine. I’m not sure whether or not it’s a resounding success yet, but it’s fun to see the beans hanging through the part of the net between two rows like in this photo. #schoolgarden #beans #organicgarden ... See MoreSee Less
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That’s cool, we haven’t tried that method yet at my school for beans. I’m curious how easy it will be to roll up and store the net
Wonderful program!
Garden Workday
Saturday 10-noon
(We need extra help this week) ... See MoreSee Less
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Some of our managers are out sick and some are dealing with back-to-school busyness, so we'd love some extra community support this weekend as we catch back up with garden tasks that fell behind last week. See you in the garden Saturday at 10.
This morning, these squash were white with powdery mildew. We are spraying a few test plants with diluted apple cider vinegar (2.5T/gallon of water) to see if it can clear the powdery mildew without burning the leaves, then we will do the rest on Saturday. #schoolgarden #communitygarden #squash ... See MoreSee Less
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Interested to hear if that works. We are close to giving up on squash between the borers and the powdery mildew!
This is what 110 pounds of squash, zucchini, okra, beans, tomatoes, and peppers looked like at drop-off yesterday! It’s the combined harvest from Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (since @afacfeeds was closed for the holiday). #schoolgarden #plotagainsthunger #communitygarden @arlingtonfoua ... See MoreSee Less
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