The TJMS Community Garden Spring 2022 Season is Starting.
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. Sign up here. Not quite ready to sign up 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.
Garden videos:
Pollinators frolicking in the native pollinator ga...
Ladybug scrambling over the milkweed. #ladybug #mi...
Keeping the deer out of the chokeberries this year...
What's Happening in the Garden?
Join Us in the Garden
Workdays on Saturdays 10AM-Noon
- Sign up on SignUp Genius (or change your signup dates/times)
See you in the garden tomorrow morning! We are in the process of shifting to our summer hours, so join us from 8-10 if you want the coolest time slot (it’ll be in the seventies until after 10am), or 9-11 if you’d rather sleep in. ... See MoreSee Less
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We’ve had a busy week in the garden trying to catch up after a rainy spring. We finally almost caught up to our weeding, digging more mounds, and finally, getting our soaker hoses out! Well, ok, we are about halfway done with the soaker hoses. We will really appreciate them if we have many more weeks like this week, where we watered at least 5 or 6 times and lost some of our smaller transplants. #echoolgarden #soakerhose #irrigationsystem ... See MoreSee Less
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A wander through our pollinator garden this morning found beauty berry, milkweed, button bush, cut leaf coneflower, chokeberry, elderflower, avens, penstemon digitalis, anise hyssop, and monarda. And lots of bees. (It actually had more than these, but I could only add ten photos.) #schoolgarden #pollinatorgarden #nativeplants ... See MoreSee Less
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beauty berry! would love to see indigos
Good morning from the garden! These gorgeous flowers are what happens when we let our mesclun mix bolt. If you’ve seen chicory song the side of the road, you may find these flowers familiar. They’re full of bees this morning! #schoolgarden #pollinators #chicory ... See MoreSee Less
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It's the first day of #Summer and there's no better way to celebrate than with a Mary Oliver poem! ... See MoreSee Less
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A neighbor's milkweed were accidentally weeded out recently, so our pollinator garden has turned into a monarch caterpillar rescue operation. This is the first year we've had thriving milkweed so monarchs hadn't discovered us yet, so this gives us a head start. ... See MoreSee Less
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Join us in the garden Saturday morning 9-11. We're trying to catch up after a LOT of rained-out dates last month, so we will especially appreciate a good turnout this week. ... See MoreSee Less
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Sometimes we leave the mesclun to bolt, just because it’s so pretty. Did you know that the chicory that you see on roadsides is related to radicchio? These flowers look very similar. #summergarden #mesclun #chicory #schoolgarden ... See MoreSee Less
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It’s been raining for a while this morning, with more rain to come, so we are canceling the garden workday. ... See MoreSee Less
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Thank you to TJ staff for supporting an outdoor garden dining option for the 8th grade dance! ... See MoreSee Less
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Our false blue indigo is done for the year, the button bush is going strong, and the New York Ironweed is queued up behind it.NATIVE ALTERNATIVES to Invasive Butterfly Bush
While invasive Butterfly Bush attracts butterflies for nectar, it does not support the young of these insects. There are native alternatives which attract adult butterflies to their nectar and offer nourishment to their caterpillars, supporting the insects’ entire lifecycle.
* Blue Wild Indigo (Baptisia australis) is a food source for multiple caterpillars and a nectar source for butterflies and other pollinators in May.
*New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) has nectar which attracts long-tongued bees and butterflies in the late summer to fall.
*Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), a good shrub for a moist to wet site, serves as the larval host for several moths, and attracts bees, hummers, and songbirds as well as butterflies.
Learn more about the perennials and shrub from fact sheets under Tried & True Native Plants at MGNV.ORG. ... See MoreSee Less
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It’s the very beginning of elderflower season. Native, pollinator-friendly, traditional medicinal, extremely robust, and spreads like mint, by runners. ... See MoreSee Less
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Look at this cool bike-powered irrigation system built by Alexandria middle school students. ... See MoreSee Less
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I tried really hard to get video, but please enjoy this adorable bee back end on native Beardtongue in still photo format instead. #pollinators #pollinatorgarden #nativeplants #bees ... See MoreSee Less
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At Garden club, we weeded, planted okra seed we saved from last year, marked the rows, and planted tomatoes. Feeling envious? Meet us in the garden from 9-11 this morning to do more. #schoolgarden #summergarden #communitygarden #plotagainsthunger ... See MoreSee Less
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Join us in the garden tomorrow 9-11. ... See MoreSee Less
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We got SO much soil prepared and squash and tomatoes planted at yesterday’s workday, but the only pictures I managed to get were of this rare Kankakee mallow we planted in the pollinator garden. This plant is native to one small area in Illinois… and, according to the Digital Atlas’s of Virginia Flora, part of Virginia. We can’t wait to see it grow and bloom. ... See MoreSee Less
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vaplantatlas.org/index.php?do=plant&plant=2864&search=Search
Have you ever been to RootingDC? It's a great community education and socializing opportunity. It will recharge your love for community gardens.
whova.com/portal/registration/junev_202206/ ... See MoreSee Less
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DAY CHANGE: Workday is now SUNDAY 9-11AM ... See MoreSee Less
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