The TJMS Community Garden 2022 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 8 to 10 AM 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:
Saturday morning workday, - few of my favorite thi...
A quick live before we start pulling the last of t...
One does not simply WALK into the bean vines. (J/k...
Since it was raining, we took the opportunity to finish packaging up the seeds we saved from our native pollinator garden last fall. Then we checked on all of the seedlings the science classes started on light tables and watered the ones that needed it. We’ve got zinnias, tomatoes, peppers, basil, collards, kale, and bok choi waiting for the right time to go into the ground. We can’t wait! ... See MoreSee Less
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See you in the garden tomorrow at 10! ... See MoreSee Less
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It’s the first day of Garden Club! And it’s raining, so we are starting spring inside. But no worries, we have cookies! (Basil lime sugar cookies, from the huge batch we harvested last fall and turned into basil-lime butter.) ... See MoreSee Less
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Recipe please!
Garden Club season is almost upon us. We can’t wait!“Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin-flowers. And the frisky ones–inkberry, lamb’s-quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones–rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms. Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
- Mary Oliver
Artwork by Catrin Welz-Stein ... See MoreSee Less
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It’s off-season for the garden, but you can vicariously enjoy this cream of chickweed soup (like spinach, but more delicate) and me learning how to process some of the horseradish we dug up on Saturday.
Want to try your own hand at making horseradish? We’ve got some leftover roots you could use. It was easier than I thought:
- peeled the roots with a vegetable peeler
- grated with a food processor
- added vinegar and salt
- froze half in adorable candy molds, then told my kids they’d be getting chocolate covered horseradish next Valentine’s Day. (Ok, fine, you don’t have to do that last part.) ... See MoreSee Less
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Definitely trying that with the horseradish root!
Highlights of the second garden workday of the season:
- golden ragwort is blooming in the pollinator garden. Our first native blooms of the year!
- a few bags of micro greens (aka chickweed, which can be used like spinach,) headed for pizza night and green smoothies
- broccoli planted
- pea rows weeded and ready to go
- one of our most troublesome patches temporarily covered with black plastic to solarize the weeds
- and some wonderful volunteers, including several TJ teachers, on this gorgeous but very windy day ... See MoreSee Less
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Great to see this!
Thanks again to Deloitte’s volunteer garden team— our last official workday of 2022 AND our first workday of 2023. It’s garden time again! ... See MoreSee Less
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Looking for seeds but worried about the cost? Here’s an option designed for smaller gardens that will only cost you postage.
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In the winter, you plan. 💚🍅🌱 (Friends of Urban Agriculture annual meeting)
Edit to add the zoom link as a more accessible option since I can’t live caption the pictures on my phone:
us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZApceiurz8uEtBW6HJOvgzVpG-dd5aJLpfA ... See MoreSee Less
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Getting involved. Are you interested in school gardening? Looks like there will be a workshop on 2/4. Which is good timing for those of us who will be mostly recovered from garden burnout by then!
Core areas of focus for 2023 for FOUA
Planning ahead for next year.
From the keynote: four key points to care for soil
Resources to get involved. (I’ll try to get a link to the side deck so you can read/see more easily than my on the fly reporting)
Talking about food insecurity in Arlington.
What a year!
informative!
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Consolidated the tomatoes down to two bags that were good to donate, and it tipped us over to 1,014 pounds! Woo, what a great end to the season.
And that’s not even counting dozens of packets of fresh herbs we gave out to teachers and staff today. Happy holidays, everyone! ... See MoreSee Less
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We are hovering at 980 pounds donated to local food pantries this year, but if we manage to nudge these tomatoes along, I think we will top 1000 easily. ... See MoreSee Less
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Wow. I wish you 20 pounds more x 10! Congratulations.
That is a wonderful donation for this year!
Closed the garden with two great groups of volunteers today. Thanks to Deloitte and Girl Scout troop number 60031 for all their help this morning. ... See MoreSee Less
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No Workday Saturday
It’s muddy out there. ... See MoreSee Less
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After rain all day today, we are planning to sleep in tomorrow instead of wrangling the garden close out tasks in the mud.
We are SO EXCITED to have Troop 648 in the garden this morning working on an Eagle Scout project. Phase I: assemble and fill our new wheelchair-accessible raised beds. We’ve been working to make this quadrant of our garden wheelchair accessible for several years, starting with replacing our mulch path with a gravel path and teaching area, a previous year’s Eagle Project. ... See MoreSee Less
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We will be in the garden tomorrow 9-11– join us as we keep working to put the garden to bed for the season. ... See MoreSee Less
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Saturday morning workday, - few of my favorite things ... See MoreSee Less
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Saturday morning workday, - few of my favorite things ... See MoreSee Less
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Bees on the lavender
We bought this pump sprayer for about $12 halfway through the summer and it made it SO MUCH EASIER to spray the milk and water mixture we use for powdery mildew on the squash. Best $12 all summer!
Working with HS students who’ve been involved with the garden since they were in 6th grade.
That our plants are healthy enough in October to compost them— and that we will have enough compost in a couple of weeks for our new table-height wheelchair accessible garden beds.
Beautiful zinnias!
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A quick live before we start pulling the last of the summer crops ... See MoreSee Less
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