2018 Garden Report

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2018 has been another fruitful year for us at Everybody Grows! We have continued to focus on our most successful inspiration gardens, while also developing and refining how we perform community outreach and organizing. In this report we will look back on our progress in 2018 with each of our active projects.

To stay abreast of our ongoing work please follow us on instagram and facebook. Please consider donating at everybodygrows.org/donate-today/ to support our mission to inspire and equip people to grow fresh, healthy food by bringing the home garden to everybody, wherever home may be.

ST. GABRIEL’S CATHOLIC CHURCH

Everybody Grows started a new collaboration during the Spring of 2018 with the Green Team at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in the Petworth neighborhood of Northwest DC. The Green Team, many of whom live in the neighborhood, sought assistance from Everybody Grows in turning a vacant area behind the church into a thriving community garden for church members. With our help, more than a dozen parishioners built seven large raised bed gardens in the spring and thereafter, with a little coaching, successfully grew a variety of vegetables and herbs. With our assistance, the Green Team hopes to expand the garden in 2019 and to inspire members of their ethnically and age diverse community to grow something at their homes.

FORT STANTON RECREATION CENTER

For the second year, Everybody Grows has supported a vegetable garden at the Fort Stanton Recreation Center on Erie Street in Southeast, DC. The garden is enthusiastically led by Louis Jones, an employee of the District of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation. He is assisted by seniors who live in the neighborhood and regularly attend programs at the recreation center. The garden successfully produced a variety of vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, potatoes, kale, chard, greens) and herbs that are primarily used by the seniors attending a lunch program at the recreation center.

Late this past summer, Everybody Grows expanded our relationship with the Fort Stanton community by holding garden-related activities for groups of younger children attending summer camp at the recreation center. These learning experiences took place both in the garden and in the classroom, where the children were exposed, some for the first time, to the joy of growing their own food. Everybody Grows hopes to establish a weekly garden learning activity with the summer camp participants in 2019, thereby expanding its commitment to this neighborhood.

SCOTLAND RECREATION CENTER

2018 marked the third year we have been working with the children and staff at Scotland Recreation Center.  The recreation center is located in a low income apartment complex in Potomac, Maryland. We have continued to work with this community every other Friday afternoon through the growing season, to tend their garden together and to foster a stronger connection to nature and to healthy, fresh food. 

We made significant improvements in the garden’s infrastructure this year. We build a third raised bed with the children. We created a durable, tall fence to protect the garden from deer. We led an art project where children painted CD’s and hung them on the fence to deter birds and beautify the space. We also mulched the paths, to suppress the grass growing around the beds and created more of a garden classroom environment.

Harvesting food for cooking projects continued to be a regular feature of our programs. We harvested basil that we turned into pesto, rainbow chard that we stir fried, greens for a salad, and steamed string beans. The garlic we harvested from this garden in the early summer was a key ingredient to many of these recipes.

This fall we have refocused on our nature program. Our naturalist Andrew Shofer led a half-day nature program for Scotland children in neighboring Cabin John Park on November 6th.  During the program we explored the stream and and shared about wild plants, primitive skills, and practices for observing and interacting with more wild environments.  We ended by making a fire together  in one of the park’s fire pits and roasting apples.  

DC FIRE STATION ENGINE 26

Our partnership with DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services continued in 2018 and was centered around our garden at fire station Engine 26 at 1340 Rhode Island Ave, NE. We continued to expand our garden at this fire station in 2018, as well as growing our outreach to firefighters and the wider community. We made notable infrastructure improvements by replacing three aging beds and constructing two additional new beds, bringing the total number of garden beds to ten. This work was undertaken with us by volunteers from Sidwell Friends Middle School. The new beds and our drip irrigation system contributed to make this the most productive year of this garden. This fall we are planning to mulch all the pathways with volunteers to improve aesthetics and prevent weeds.

In order to make use of the large yield of produce, we harvested with firefighters, shared recipes, and checked in regularly on how they were using the food. We led projects indoors with them including pickling cucumbers and peppers as well as braiding garlic from the large garlic harvest this site produced.  

While the main intention of this garden in past years has been to make a meaningful contribution to improving firefighter health, we learned that the yield is often larger than the firefighters can use in any given day. We will be seeking a community partner such as a food bank in 2019 to make use of the extra food.   

The compost system has seen light usage in processing food waste from the fire station and the neighbors, and we are currently using it to process garden waste and produce compost for next year. We recently added upgraded signage that we hope will become an invitation for more firefighters to successfully use it.

In early October we worked with Edmund Burke Middle School to clear the summer crops and are in the process of planting winter vegetables in beds and winterizing others with cover crops.

Backyard Garden Initiative

In 2018, Everybody Grows expanded its small initiative to help individuals grow veggies in their yards or on their apartment balconies. As the result of an introduction made by Thorne Rankin of DC Natives, we were able  to assist 12 women, all of whom live in Ward 7 and most of whom attend a program at the Therapeutic Recreation Center on G Street S.E. We helped some participants by constructing raised bed gardens in their yards, others by providing and helping them plant organic seeds and seedlings, and we provided all participants with feedback on how to best reach their individual gardening goals. We were aided in this effort by Jamila Stone, a student at UDC with gardening experience, who we hired to provide support for those participants who are elderly or infirm. By also adding a raised bed for vegetables to the existing pollinator gardens previously constructed by DC Natives at the Therapeutic Recreation Center, we hope to continue our collaboration with the gardening community in that neighborhood next summer.

 

7/1/18 Garlic Harvest Volunteer Event at Engine 26

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Everybody Grows is pleased to host an open volunteer event this Sunday, July 1st at 5:00 PM to help us harvest our over 200 garlic plants and replant beds with summer vegetables.   All volunteers will get to take fresh garlic home to enjoy.

Event details

Location:  1340 Rhode Island Avenue Northeast DC 20018

Timing:  5:00 PM to 7:30 PM

Wear comfortable work clothes.  Bring sun protection and a water bottle.

See you Sunday!

Everybody Grows 2017 End of Year Report

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Everybody Grows 2017 End of Year Report

2017 was a year of significant progress for Everybody Grows. We expanded our reach by helping a group of neighbors living on 31st Street NE to start and maintain their own personal vegetable gardens. We significantly increased the learning opportunities for the children in the Scotland community through our Scotland Recreation Center garden program. We established new gardens at both the Fort Stanton Recreation Center and Dorothy Day Place.  Through our successful partnership with DC Fire and EMS, we taught gardening skills to numerous volunteers, and demonstrated how to grow and eat a variety of fresh produce throughout the spring, summer and fall.

With your assistance, we hope to continue our success in 2018.  If you feel inspired to donate to support our work, please click here.

We invite you to read this brief report on each of our activities in 2017 below.

1. Individual Gardens

It has long been our goal to connect our knowledge of gardening with individuals interested in growing something to eat for themselves. Through our friendship with Janie Boyd, a long term food advocate in DC, we were able to help individuals living on 31st Street NE, to plant and maintain their own personal gardens. These individuals grew tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and herbs for their own personal consumption, and ornamental flowers that beautified their yards. There is a high demand for gardens. We are raising funds and hope to expand our presence in this neighborhood in 2018.

Community organizers Janie Boyd and Brad Ogilvie have been instrumental in developing the backyard garden program with us

2. Scotland Recreation Center

2017 marked our second year of programming at the Scotland Recreation Center, located in the Scotland subsidized housing community in Montgomery County, Maryland. Our first year was supported by a grant from the Whole Foods’ Whole Kids Foundation. Our activities complement a dynamic after school program at the center that takes place mostly indoors.

Cooking the produce we grew was an important part of the Scotland Program

Steve shares his 30 years of gardening experience with children at Scotland

This fall, we continued gardening with the children and also added the new elements of nature awareness and woods exploration, with great success. We had a long growing season due to a warm early fall, and were able to continue harvesting peppers, tomatoes, marigolds, and squash into November. The children especially loved finding the giant squash hidden among its leaves, tasting the hot peppers, watering the garden, and picking flowers to decorate the community center. We also taught some awareness games to play by the garden, and brought the “nature museum” – a box with bones, antlers, feathers, and other cool nature objects – which was a huge hit. Once the plants began to die back for the winter, we pulled everything out together and planted garlic in one bed and cover crops in the other. The children were able to see and experience a full cycle of the garden.

Everybody Grows works with naturalists Andrew Shofer and Tori Heller on the nature program for Scotland. They are constantly finding new wonders and projects that amaze and inspire the children.

We also created a space in the woods behind the community center for nature programs. Over the course of several weeks, Everybody Grows staff cleared a circle in the forest. We cut down trees, built a rock fire pit, and raked a path with the kids. Every time we showed up at Scotland, they were so excited to go into the woods. Once gardening was done for the season, we journeyed back to our circle and began building a shelter, climbed trees, and wove a grass mat together to go inside of a shelter. We also demonstrated fire-by-friction, and let the children have a try on a bow drill kit. It was amazing to see them so excited to get their hands dirty and engage with the natural world.

Our first group trip down to Cabin John stream at Scotland. Many of the children had never made the short walk down to this beautiful area, which made this even more special.

With the help of a generous donation from Christopher and Lauren Mead, who introduced Everybody Grows to Scotland, we will continue growing edibles and exploring nature with our Scotland gardeners in 2018.

3. Fort Stanton Recreation Center

We began our work in the Fort Stanton community by gardening with the Ladies Auxiliary at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church. Unable to sustain that garden in 2017, we ventured down the street to the Fort Stanton Recreation Center, where Mr. Louis Jones, who runs a variety of programs for the DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), was interested in reviving a defunct garden. Everybody Grows, with the help of volunteers, cleared the site that was overgrown with weeds, and enriched the soil with Bloom, a soil amendment produced, and offered free-of-charge, by the Blue Plains wastewater treatment plant. The garden was a tremendous success. It provided hundreds of pounds of produce for use by community members attending learning and health-related programs at the recreation center. We hope not only to repeat our success in 2018, but to involve many more people who use the services provided by the center.

The garden at Fort Stanton was highly productive this year thanks to the efforts of the recreation center director and the local senior community.

4. Dorothy Day Place

Dorothy Day Place is a single adult transitional shelter that functions as a crucial bridge between homelessness and permanent housing for both men and women. In 2017, Everybody Grows planted a vegetable garden in eight large garden pouches located just outside the front door of the Dorothy Day Place building on Marinelli Road in Rockville, Md. We were not sure who would actually benefit from the lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and variety of herbs that we planted – the geese nesting nearby, the pedestrians walking up the street, or the residents (or all of the above). As it turns out, with the help of several residents including one experienced gardener, the garden thrived and the residents were able to supplement their diet with food they grew for themselves. Everybody Grows plans to double the size of the garden and to expand the variety of produce grown in 2018.

Staff and residents helped tend the new garden with us at Dorothy Day Place

5. The DC Fire and EMS partnership

We had our biggest harvest ever this year at E26

We continued our fruitful partnership with DC Fire and Emergency Services (DCFEMS) by focusing on our largest fire station inspiration garden at Engine House 26 (E26). In 2017 at E26, we expanded food production, worked with a diverse set of volunteer groups, and started an onsite compost cooperative in partnership with DC Parks and Recreation. We began the year by constructing, filling, and planting three new raised beds with volunteer groups from Howard University and Sidwell Friends Middle School. Everybody Grows staff installed a new irrigation system that watered all eight beds automatically. The garden was highly productive, yielding an abundance of sweet potatoes, okra, tomatoes, greens, cucumbers, strawberries, culinary herbs, and other crops that we harvested with the firefighters, children from the neighborhood, and volunteer groups including the DCJCC. The produce was consumed primarily by the firefighters at E26 as part of our efforts to improve firefighter health, with portions of the yield also returned to volunteers and community groups. Our new compost system and cooperative began operation, with firefighters and a handful of engaged community members adding food and garden waste to the bin in order to grow soil for next year’s garden.

 

Earth Day 2017: EG Soil Event

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Update 4/22:  This event has been postponed to Sunday, April 23rd at 3-5 PM due to the weather.  All other details of the event remain the same.

There aren’t many better ways to spend Earth Day than getting your hands in the soil and learning about gardening at a community farming project. Join Everybody Grows and DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services on Saturday April 22nd from 3:00-5:00 PM for an open volunteer session at the fire station farm at Engine 26 at 1340 Rhode Island Avenue Northeast DC (don’t forget the northeast part!).   This is an all ages event and everybody is welcome!

The main tasks of the day will all be soil related.  We will be adding garden soil to our new raised beds we constructed with Sidwell Friends Middle School students.  We will also be amending the older beds with compost and worm castings.  All soil is locally sourced from Veteran Compost.

While we will be providing a limited number of tools, we encourage you to bring your favorite bucket and shovel, especially if you are bringing young children.   Wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty!  For any questions email jake@everybodygrows.org and jonny@everybodygrows.org

See you in the garden!

 

 

Fire Station First Aid Garden Workshop

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Using Herbs for First Aid
Cuts? Scrapes? Colds? Fevers? Upset stomach? Discover the ways that medicinal herbs can be your garden first-aid kit. What better place to learn these skills than at the Everybody Grows fire station farm surrounded by EMTs and firefighters? Participants will become familiar with several easy-to-grow herbs and how to use them as teas, compresses, poultices, and salves. You’ll bring home recipes for medicine-making, and a healing salve.
What to bring?
– a notebook and pen or pencil if you’d like to take notes
– a sturdy cup or mug for sipping herbal tea
– comfortable shoes, and clothes that you don’t mind getting a bit dirty or oily
– bug spray, sunscreen, and water

Cost for the workshop is 30 dollars, and includes a jar of a healing salve that we will prepare together. No one will be turned away based on a lack of funds, but space is limited, so reserve a spot by donating at  https://everybodygrows.org/donate-today/.

Email Jake@everybodygrows.org with any questions about the workshop.


1:30 “pre-game” – outside in the garden
Come early to join Everybody Grows and Leafyhead staff as we plant the Firehouse medicinal herb garden.

2:00-3:10 – outside in the garden; shade structure provided
Meet the medicinal herbs, discover how and why herbs work to support the body, and learn techniques to harvest and dry your herbs for future use.

3:30-5:00 – come inside the Firehouse kitchen for hands-on demos of herbal infusions, compresses, poultices, infused oils, and salves.

BIO:

Tricia McCauley is an herbalist, nutritionist, and yoga teacher. She holds a master’s degree in herbal medicine from the Tai Sophia Institute (now the Maryland University of Integrative Health), where she taught herbal preparations for two years and is currently a supervisor in the integrative nutrition masters’ program student clinic. She also attended the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and is a certified health coach, Certified Nutrition Specialist, a Licensed Nutritionist, and a yoga teacher at the E-RYT-200 level. Based in Washington, DC, she’s been the resident herbalist at Common Good City Farm for 7 seasons, and is the owner of two herbal product lines: Leafyhead Lotions & Potions and District Devil.

She specializes in food sensitivities, stress management, to connecting people to the cycles of the earth and the cycles of their bodies, and to empowering her students to find creative solutions to improving health and happiness. Tricia is also passionate about growing things, making things, dancing, biking around the city, being near water, curry, sunshine, bare feet, red wine, laughing too loudly, and smiling at strangers.

Everybody Grows May 2016 Planting Days

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Come out and get your hands dirty at four Everybody Grows planting events in May!  Our fire station planting events will both begin at Engine 26 at 1340 Rhode Island Avenue Northeast DC.  Stoddard Baptist Nursing Home is located at 1818 Newton Street Northwest DC.

Volunteers will be helping with the hands-on work of planting a garden.  We will share information about soil health, companion planting and rotational strategies as we work.

Please email Jake@everybodygrows.org and Jonny@everybodygrows.org to let us know if you will make it  or if you have any questions.  See you in the garden!

Schedule:

All events start at 2 PM.

Tuesday May 10th: Stoddard Nursing Home First Planting Day

Saturday  May 14th: Planting day at Engine 26 and one other station

Sunday May 22nd: Planting day at Engine 26 and two other stations

 Monday May 23rd: Stoddard Nursing Home Second Planting Day

Everybody Grows Short Film

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Enjoy the new Everybody Grows short film on our Youtube Channel!  Many thanks to Double R Productions for generously producing this film as a pro bono project, and for the amazing work they did.

Sheet Mulching at Engine 26

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A common question that arises in raised bed gardening is what to do when you have a bed completely overgrown with weeds and grasses.  Josh Singer, the urban garden specialist with DC Parks and Recreation, recommends sheet mulching the bed.   Sheet mulching is great because it kills the weeds and grasses and improves the soil, while using just recycled and natural materials.   We put this permaculture technique into practice on Saturday at Engine 26.  I was aided by a new firefighter at the station named Henry, and Everybody Grows volunteers Joel and Liat.

Henry and I started by cutting down the tops weeds and grasses.20150829_120510

We cut back most of the weeds, particularly where they had gone to seed.  Next we added layers of cardboard.  Most shipping cardboard biodegrades safely.  It also forms a sturdy weed block.20150829_121409
We stacked the multiple layers cardboard so the overlapped to cover gaps, and we cut back the weeds that protruded from the sides.  After the cardboard, it was time for a layer of compost.  We used Leafgro compost.  Joel and Henry poured the compost directly on top of the cardboard.20150829_123106


The last layer we applied was mulch.  I got a good deal on some Earthgro Red Mulch, which is what we used here.  Even though it has coloring to make it red, it is a wood mulch and safe to use in a vegetable garden.  I expect it to work well. 20150829_133522 

By getting an early start on this process for next year, I am intentionally leaving plenty of time to adjust it or supplement it.  I will report back on our sheet mulching experiment in future blogs, so stay tuned!

 

Coming Together in the Gardens Week of 8-7-2015

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Volunteering is an opportunity to learn new skills and to interact with people and communities that otherwise you may never encounter.  At Everybody Grows, we regularly work at our nursing home and fire station inspiration gardens with groups of volunteers.  For some of our volunteers, working in our gardens is their first experience growing food.  Other volunteers bring many gardening ideas and experiences to share, and we love to get their input and feedback.

At Stoddard Baptist Nursing Home this past week, we harvested from the garden and served a tasting session to the residents so everyone there could enjoy the food they planted and helped to grow.IMG_0597

At the fire stations, firefighters joined us to plant spinach, lettuce, beets, and other cold-resistant crops for the fall.

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Thank you to all the wonderful volunteers that have come out to support our inspiration gardens across the city. We truly enjoy growing food and sharing our work with each of you. If you are interested in volunteering, go to everybodygrows.org/volunteer. We always welcome any new volunteers.IMG_0667IMG_0528IMG_0331IMG_0337

Volunteer Training Event

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All gardens benefit from watchful, caring gardeners.  Our inspiration gardens are no exception.  When I visited all of them recently, I was reminded that the more caretakers each of our gardens has, the more it will flourish and provide a great experience for everyone.   It is in this spirit that we have created a program to help volunteers grow their urban agriculture skills in order to support our gardens and the people that live with them everyday.

Everybody Grows  is happy to announce we will be holding a volunteer training event to brief both experienced and new volunteers on the skills and routines we use to maintain our inspiration gardens.  We will go over harvesting, transplanting, and pruning techniques in order to prepare volunteers to work in our gardens.   The event will be Sunday July 12th at 2 PM at Engine 26, 1340 Rhode Island Ave, NE.

Please email jake@everybodygrows.org to RSVP if you will be attending.  We will keep you updated on future volunteer training events through our website and social media.