Post #5 - Two Work PARTIES in One Week to Spiff Up the Garden, "WHEW!" 

On Thursday, June 19th, Judy Morgan headed the work party.  Our new high school helper, Jerald Castillo, attended along with Pam, Mary, Sharon, Judy, Betty, Becky and more.  Jill Ray brought another friend for the garden, Herb Robert (photo below).  Judy presented a short lesson on compost vs. mulch vs. other amendments during the break.  Remember that these lessons may be counted toward continuing education credits needed for Master Gardeners.

The work party on Saturday, June 21st was the last attack at cosmetic and safety issues in the Raab Youth Garden before the first children's program on June 23rd.  Judy Morgan lead the group again, which included Darlette, Pam, Raul, Judy, Cheryl, Grover and others. Judy brought plants from home to add color around the garden entry points. The amphitheater was cleaned up, paths were weeded, bark was spread, Grover worked on the hoses and "water security" and Raul weed wacked the perimeters and then came back and pulled out the "Black Cap" berry bushes later. 

The next work party is Thursday, July 3rd!  It will be a clean-up and re-plant after our young guests.  Becky Endzell will be the lead!

First Children's Program was a "Stepping Stone" into a Great Year!

We provided the "Create Garden Stepping Stone" craft, watering, planting bean seeds, moving chips, putting a handprint on one of the "water houses," running/crawling through the tree and bush tunnels, and listening to a story in the amphitheater.

Below is are quotes from an email by Jill Ray, who lead the first Children's Program of 2014:

"I am happy to report that we had a wonderful first day at the garden!  We had 79 kids plus their parents!  I lost track of how many volunteers, but I believe we had 9 master gardeners, 3 Poulsbo garden club members, Neil (Nancy's husband) and two teenagers with their grandpa, Bob!  Almost all of the leadership team was present!"

"What an amazingly easy job I had today with so many excellent workers!" 

"From the bottom of my grateful heart,

Jill"

Our next Children's Program is Monday, June 30th.  The activities will cover seeds, soil, and worms!  Betsi Kurzawski will lead.  Please come lend your talents as Betsi will need all the help she can get!

Leadership Team meetings will be held in the garden this summer! 

This gives us a chance enjoy the plants and actually see what we are talking about.  Please come join us for our July meeting on the third Monday, from 1 - 3pm.

P.S. If you left a basket at the Master Gardener Plant Sale, please contact Linda Wells at lindaawells@comcast.net

Post #4 - June is Blooming Out All Over!

June 8, 2014

Try out the "Pages" at the top of this blog!  By clicking on any one of the titles in brown next to the Home button, you will find a page of information.  There is a map of the garden planting beds, what plants are in each, meeting minutes, etc.

Our June 5th Work Party was wonderful!  There were 8 pairs of helping hands. Every planting bed is full now.  We have a gourd and mini-pumpkin tunnel planted and the fencing ready to hold it's mysteries for the children to gaze through.  Our Bean Arch was created out of bamboo and extra red/purple beans were planted.  Also planted were cucumbers, rainbow Swiss chard, radishes, summer and winter squashes, more rainbow carrots and pumpkins.  The potatoes were mounded and everything was watered.

We all oooooed and aaaahed at the grassy-haired garden guardian that Cheryl made and the well-built water spigot "houses" that her husband Grover created.  Cheryl painted them with paint donated by Winslow Paints.  Love those donations!  And the children who attend the first program on June 23rd will be adding their handprints as decorations on the sides of the "hose houses."

In the afternoon, several of the Leadership Team met to set up the irrigation system.  It was a mind boggling task.  We now have two sprinklers and a long drip hose watering most of the plant beds.  A little adjusting and hose repair will need to be done, but the warm weather and regular watering should produce a nice harvest for Fishline.  In fact, Cathy took 12 pounds of rhubarb to the new Fishline office at the end of the party.

Darlette Knight is our volunteer of the month!  She was the only one that appeared to help Betsi at the work party on Saturday the 7th.  Darlette learned to love the smell of Lemon Balm as she pulled up most of it, moved the fennel together so that it is easily accessible, planted pink money tree seeds, and watered anything that looked like it needed it.  Betsi weeded, raked, and put down large sheets of cardboard on the dirt path that was created when the water line was extended.  The next work party will need to cover the cardboard with chips.  We can line the narrower paths with coffee bean bags as the summer progresses.

There are only 3 more Work Parties until the Children's Programs start on Monday, June 23rd.  Two of them are on Saturdays.  The Leadership Team added the Saturdays this year to help those who could not attend on Thursdays.  Betsi will try contacting the few who have signed up for the next 2 Saturdays to confirm that they are coming.  If not, we may need to do an emergency Thursday to have a final sprucing up before the kids and parents arrive.

If you did not receive the email with the Doodle Calendar to sign up for helping during the Children's Programs, please contact Cheryl Bosley at ecbosley@gmail.com.  Volunteering at the programs requires that you smile and talk to children.  It is a lot of fun and always leaves a good feeling that children are still full of curiosity and creativity.

Our next Leadership Meeting will be Monday, June 16th.  We are counting on the good weather to continue and will be holding the meeting at the garden picnic tables.  If it rains or is too hot we will be under the shelter roof.  Come join us!!  We will start a little early, 12:30pm, and finish earlier too.

Post #3 - May 15th was National Hoop House Day!

At least it was at our Raab Park Garden. 

Most of the leadership team (Betsi, Cheryl, Jill, Judy and Kim) plus Grover Bosley, Rich Kurzawski and Russ Koons came together in the afternoon to erect the hoop house over planting bed #1, put up a new sign post, and put a new cork board for bulletins in the large shed.  Here are a few of the photos that Cheryl Bosley took during the action.  Russ also cut a path through planting box #20 for easier kid access to planting boxes 21 - 24 and room for Cheryl to put up the squash and pumpkin tunnel.

Tomatoes were planted in the hoop house and in planting bed #5.  We will have 16 tomato plants this year thanks to Valley Nursery - 4 Super Sweet, 4 Sunset Gold, 4 Early Girl, and 4 San Marzano (a plum tomato).

The weather was perfect for a summer day - sunny and temperature around 85 degrees.  All of the planted beds were watered thoroughly by Judy and ideas for setting up a timed watering system using our two new spigots were discussed.  According to the weather gossip it is going to be a warm dry summer. We will need the auto-irrigation.

The next Garden Leadership Team Meeting is Monday, May 19th.  It will be held from 1pm - 3pm in the 2nd Floor meeting room at Poulsbo City Hall.  There is a lot of free parking in basement of the building and we would love to have input from other Master Gardeners, so please join us.

The next garden work PARTY is Thursday, May 22nd from 9am - 12noon.  Judy Morgan will be the lead.  I bet she brings "Aussie Bites" for snacks.  We have much planting, weeding, and arranging to do before the Children's Programs start on June 23rd.

Your Leadership Team is here to serve the garden and our volunteers!  Please let us know your thoughts.
Judy Morgan, gjudym@gmail.com
Kim Kouns, kimkouns1@comcast.net
Cheryl Bosley, ecbosley@gmail.com
Nancy Sirman, nancyleesirman@yahoo.com
Jill Ray, jeray01@embarqmail.com
MJ Tyler, MJTyler2@gmail.com
Betsi Kurzawski, betsikurz@yahoo.com

Post #2 - Sunday, April 27,2014

Have you signed up on Doodle yet? 

Cheryl Bosley emailed a Doodle calendar to the addresses of everyone who has signed up for working in the Youth Garden at Raab Park.  Please take a look at the calendar and sign-up for the days that you can put in 3 hours in the garden.  If you are having any problem receiving emails, please let me know and I will make sure that you receive the information you are missing. Just contact me at betsikurz@yahoo.com or 206-201-3285.  We need to know how many Master Gardeners to bring treats for and it will help us to calculate how many projects we can get done in a work PARTY!

The Earth Day "Elves" Were in the Garden

These are rare photographs of the Earth Day "Elves" with their teacher from West Sound School.  They spent two hours of their Earth Day planting potatoes in planter #2 and onions in half of planter #5, as well as harvesting 14 pounds of rhubarb (and a couple of leeks) and delivering them to Fishline.  Though one young elf had a peculiar affection for snails, they did an excellent job of weeding, turning soil, and planting.  Thank you Ms. Jennifer Silvernail and her 7th grade students from West Sound.  Stop by anytime to check up on the potatoes and onions.  Be sure and take home some snails with you too!

 

The April 24th Work Party

 

A small group with great stamina met at the garden at 9am last Thursday for the first work PARTY.  We weeded and planted cool weather veggies. 

 

Planter #20 has a "rabbit sacrifice" of bush peas around it's outside edge and vining peas are protected under plastic bottle "greenhouses" in the center.  There are more vining peas to be planted and the box will be divided so that the children may run through it to see what will be squash tunnels.

 

Martha and Judy took two crumbling strawberry towers were combined to make one that is not falling apart.  Judy is planting the new tower this weekend.

 

Nancy planted 5 rows of beets between planter #24 & #25. 

 

Judy served Aussie Bites and coffee at our break.  Thank you Jennifer for volunteering your T-post tool!

 

 

Next Work PARTY is Thursday, May 7th

 

We changed it from May 1st due to Betsi trying to be in two places at once.  We hope to finish planting the cool weather veggies (peas, strawberries, beans, carrots, etc.), trim the three trellises, and put down chips around the two new water spigots.  Please come and contribute your special gardening talents!  As always, munchies will be served around 10:30am.

 

 

Our next Leadership Team meeting is set for May 19th from 1-3pm at Poulsbo City Hall Conference Room, 2^nd floor.  Join us!

Remember, your Leadership Team is here to serve the garden and our volunteers!
Betsi Kurzawski, betsikurz@yahoo.com
Judy Morgan, gjudym@gmail.com
Kim Kouns, kimkouns1@comcast.net
Cheryl Bosley, ecbosley@gmail.com
Nancy Sirman, nancyleesirman@yahoo.com
Jill Ray, jeray01@embarqmail.com
MJ Tyler, MJTyler2@gmail.com



First Post - April 13, 2014

We have a Raab Park Youth Garden Blog Page!

This is my (Betsi Kurzawski) first try at blogging.  I hope to get better at page format and options as I go.  Any ability I have to get to this point is because of Gerda Oostman, a leader at the Raab Park P-Patch.  Thank you Gerda!  Send ideas for improvement to Betsikurz@yahoo.com.

THANK YOU MASTER GARDENER ROOKIES!

It was amazing the difference between our overly wood-chipped and weed infested Youth Garden at 1:30am on April 11th and the raked out, weeded and newly wood-chipped edges of the Youth Garden at 2:30pm.  It was gorgeous!  As was the yummy lunch created by the Blueberry Park, Raab P-Patch, and Raab Youth Garden leadership teams and volunteers.  Having approximately 40 well nourished gardeners made the work easy and fun.  The sunny day helped too. Check yourselves out!

 

 

 

WEST SOUND MIDDLE-SCHOOL STUDENTS PITCH-IN ON EARTH DAY

About a dozen 7th and 8th Graders, lead by their teacher - Jennifer Silvernale -  will use their Earth Day afternoon to prepare and plant in the Youth Garden on April 22nd.  Planting bed #2 will have about 14 mounds of potatoes planted after some minor weeding and earth turning is completed.  Some of the potatoes will be harvested as fingerlings during one of the Children's Programs in the late summer.  The youngsters will enjoy the red, purple, blue, yellow and white potatoes that will be dug up.  The West Sound Students will be back again in the fall to help us clean up the garden before it goes to sleep for the winter.

NEXT RAAB PARK YOUTH GARDEN LEADERSHIP MEETING IS APRIL 21ST

It will be held at the Poulsbo City Hall 2nd Floor Meeting Room from 1 - 3.  We welcome anyone interested in contributing. 

NEXT RAAB PARK YOUTH GARDEN WORK PARTY IS APRIL 24TH

We will be concentrating on planting most of the garden boxes.  A Planting Plan will be available on this blog as soon as possible.  The PARTY will last from 9am - 12noon.  Come one, come all and earn your gardening hours while learning from some pros and having fun in the dirt!  Yes, there will be a "munchy break."

Remember, your Leadership Team is here to serve the garden and our volunteers!

Betsi Kurzawski, betsikurz@yahoo.com
Judy Morgan, gjudym@gmail.com
Kim Kouns, kimkouns1@comcast.net
Cheryl Bosley, ecbosley@gmail.com
Nancy Sirman, nancyleesirman@yahoo.com
Jill Ray, jeray01@embarqmail.com
MJ Tyler, MJTyler2@gmail.com

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