TJMS Community Garden and the Friends of Urban Agriculture Team Up for COVID-19 Food Scarcity Response. Join Us!
The TJMS Community Garden has been a Plot Against Hunger participant for over a decade, donating produce to AFAC and other local food pantries. In 2020 expanded our reach to help meet rising food scarcity needs in our region during the COVID 19 pandemic. We asked the Friends of Urban Agriculture to help us meet our goals, and they did us one better! They started the FOUA Victory Garden effort to support not just TJMS, but also Hoffman Boston Elementary and Wakefield HS. The Jefferson Community Garden is the largest school garden in Arlington, and we are taking our community responsibilities seriously.
Join Us in the Garden:
We would love you to join us in the garden. We have regular garden workdays every week. You can volunteer from 10 AM to noon Saturday mornings. We are asking everyone to sign up using Signup Genius to help us manage social distancing in the garden. Sign up here.
Garden videos:
Look at that monarch butterfly dry his wings&helli...
Boneset swarming with tiny bees in the pollinator ...
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)
No Garden Workday this weekend.
(Take the day off; you’ve earned it!) ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
We are coming to the end of the growing season and we’ve had some really productive workdays in the last few weeks, so we are taking this weekend to rest and recharge. See you in the garden next week as we prepare for the Harvest Festival on 10/29.
Apple picking?
Thirty pounds of okra, zucchini, peppers, and tomatoes takes our annual donation up to 538 pounds as we taper off for the year. We think we will get to just about 550 before pulling out the last of our summer vegetables for winter greens and cover crops. #schoolgarden #communitygarden #afacfeeds #plotagainsthunger ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
What a lot of delicious vegetables!
Some days in the garden just revive your faith in humanity— today was one of those days. You’ve heard of “teach a man to fish,” right? Have you ever heard “teach a kid to compost”? This summer we learned how to manage our new compost system. And our teacher compost master taught a HS student how to manage the compost. And a few weeks ago, that HS student taught a couple of 6th graders how to manage the compost. This picture right here? That’s two sixth graders teaching their classmates how to manage a compost system. They walked into Garden Club this afternoon, asked if they could work on compost, got all of the tools out themselves, and started teaching classmates. Seeing students eager to learn new skills and so quickly turn around to teach others is one of my very favorite things about the TJ garden. My heart? It is very full tonight. ❤️🌱 #schoolgarden #compost #gardenclub #outdoorlearning ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
You are doing a good job with both the children and the school garden!
LOVE this. It’s amazing how you’ve literally and figuratively grown this garden ❤️👏
Heather Blannin Schimmel. Not sure if you follow the Jefferson Garden updates.
Last Saturday we cleared summer squash from this row. Last Wednesday we began the process of double digging to enrich the soil and make this raised bed. Today we planted it with broccoli, kale, and Swiss chard for a cool season crop. Goodbye summer, hello fall! #schoolgarden #communitygarden #fallgarden #broccoli #kale #swisschard ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
Looks good! You all accomplished a lot.
Thanks to the volunteer crew from Deloitte, who helped us prep another trench+hill to improve the soil. We'll be planting winter vegetables and cover crops here soon!
They dug out a deep trench, mixed the dirt and clay with compost from our new compost bins, and piled it in the adjacent row. Then they filled the trench with wood chips. We'll plant in the hill this fall, and next year we will turn the soil again, so the hill will be on top of the wood chips, and put another layer of wood chips into *that* trench. This will improve our soil much more quickly than our previous method of adding 4-6" of leaf mulch every year. ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
Look at that monarch butterfly dry his wings… ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
Lovely! We saw several monarchs at the museum garden today.
Busy day at Garden Club today. We harvested pumpkins and glass gem corn to save for the Harvest Festival, and okra and tomatoes for @afacfeeds Then we watched newly hatched monarch butterflies dry their wings, and packaged marigold seeds we grew ourselves to give away at the harvest festival. #schoolgarden #outdoorlearning #harvestfestival #plotagainsthunger ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
Busy garden day!
One of our student gardeners drew our attention to the yellow disc florets inside this zinnia. Have you ever looked closely at the form of a zinnia? So striking. #outdoorlearning #schoolgarden #zinnia ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
blog.growingwithscience.com/2015/04/zinnias-flower-cycles-and-parts/
The garden was really muddy this afternoon at Garden Club, so we are canceling Saturday's workday. We'll reschedule for next Saturday at 9-11. ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
We didn’t get any rain.
We are watching the weekend weather— stay tuned for workday news. ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
We are keeping an eye on the weather report, and we will be checking how wet the garden is tomorrow afternoon— if it’s too wet, we will either reschedule or cancel Saturday’s workday.
This 32 pound produce donation takes the garden to exactly 400 pounds donated this summer. Thanks to our dedicated volunteers who helped us get this far! Our first garden club in a year and a half is tomorrow, and we are excited to show students what we’ve been growing. #plotagainsthunger #schoolgarden #eattherainbow #communitygardening ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
Beautiful vegetables!
We are thrilled to have this new learning center in our pollinator garden, thanks to an aspiring Eagle Scout. #outdoorlearning #studentscientists #pollinatorgarden #schoolgarden ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
Boneset swarming with tiny bees in the pollinator garden. #pollinatorgarden #schoolgarden ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
Good morning, the weather is glorious! We will be in the garden from 8-11 today. ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
What happens to the garden produce during the week? It gets an eco-conscious bike ride home, and then after a few days of collection, off to AFAC. 340 pounds so far this year. #plotagainsthunger #schoolgarden #communitygarden ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
Garden Workday
Saturday 9/4 8-11AM
Join us to Harvest for AFAC ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
Students eating in the “Garden Cafe” for lunch today. TJ is lucky to have access to a lot of large shade trees and to have a lot of experience getting kids outside for lunch. I heard kids yelling “Freeeeedooommm!!!” as they left the building today. A little sun and fresh air (and some soccer) is just what everybody needed on the first day back at school. ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
I remember doing this in sixth grade, also in eighth grade! Beautiful memories at TJ 🙂
Today’s workday netted about 38 pounds of zucchini, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, beans, and okra. We think we’ll top 300 pounds total by Labor Day weekend. ... See MoreSee Less
Comment on Facebook
Turns out this was 42 pounds, and we are at 290 total so far this year. Depending on Ida weather patterns, we are on track to top 300 by the weekend.
The Custom Facebook Feed plugin