Food and music in the garden!
If you have questions or would like to volunteer with cooking or setting up for this event, please email us at mbgna.cc@umich.edu
Monday, July 23, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Garden Fun in "the D"
Every Wednesday Cultivating Community heads to Detroit to volunteer with Focus Hope and Summer in the City. We run gardening activities for a summer day camp, and help tend a community garden. The kids love getting their hands dirty and learning about plants!
Cori getting the 'Focused Hands Garden' ready for planting
Strawberry picking!
Planting!
Weeding!
Learning about plant parts and eating cherries
The entire crew; each camper has a high school buddy from Summer in the City
The girls garden vs. ...
the boys garden.
Watermelon in the rain!
Fun in the garden with flying children!
If you are interested in volunteering, please email us at mbgna.cc@umich.edu, all are welcome!
Blueberry Picking
It is a good year for blueberries! The season is few weeks early this summer, and the picking is good at the Dexter Blueberry Farm.
The branches are heavy with sweet, sweet berries!
6.5 lbs of fresh blueberries in the bucket, 4.5 lbs of fresh blueberries in my stomach!
The happy sun-kissed crew, can you spot the blue teeth?
We will be going blueberry picking again soon, email us at mbgna.cc@umich.edu for more info!
Sweet, sweet summertime at the Ginsberg Garden
Allyson and Marissa show off their muscles while turning compost
Laurie and Serina with freshly harvested kohlrabis
Sweet sun tea with raspberries and stevia from the garden
Coriander ready for harvesting. Coriander is the dried seeds of the cilantro plant, and is used as a spice in many dishes.
Our first cucumber harvest! Yum!
Watch our veggies grow!
Marigolds and calendulas don't just look pretty, they also help repel pests from the garden!
Check out our new plant labels
This cucumber is making a run for it!
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Dancing for Rain
We are in the middle of one of the worst droughts to hit Michigan in decades. Farmers in the area have been struggling to keep their crops alive with almost no rain and record high temperatures. As the national news highlights the rising corn and soybean prices, local vegetable and fruit farmers have been struggling too, and so has the Ginsberg Garden. But, thanks to our new drip irrigation system, our plants will be much happier!
Drip irrigation is great for gardens, even when drought is not a concern. The drip hosing soaks the soil slowly and at the soil line, which helps prevent disease and helps out the root systems of our plants. When watering from above with a hose, the water evaporates more readily and does not soak into the ground as deeply. Also, watering the leaves of plants (especially when using city water) can cause fungal diseases to develop.
Right now, we have to use tap water from the Ginsberg Center for the drip hosing. But in the future, we hope to be able to use our rain barrels instead!
The water passes from a normal hose, through a pressure regulator and screen, then into the drip hosing.
Testing the drip hosing!
Thirsty cabbages are loving their new water source.
Fried Okra!
Our miraculous okra plants have survived aphid infestation, neglect, and drought. But sure enough, they produced lots of bright green and prickly okra pods! So we decided to try out a traditional Southern dish, Fried Okra.
Okra plants
Step One: harvest okra pods
Step two: cut up okra
Step three: dunk okra slices into buttermilk. Then roll in a mixture of corn meal, flour, and spices.
Step four: fry in lots of vegetable oil. The true Southern way is to fry in bacon drippings, but we weren't up to that challenge.
Step five: Yum! Enjoy some good ol' fried okra in the garden!
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