FitKids 360 Harvest Fest
This week families in Fitkids celebrated their gardens’ summer harvest with a dinner in Marquette Park’s gazebo. Once just tiny seedlings, plants are now stretching ever higher, filling the boxes and climbing trellises in this very green community garden. The Fitkid families, together with HOPE garden staff, planted and now tend six garden boxes. The […]
Summer in Our School Gardens
At H.O.P.E Gardens, we have been excited to engage students in various enriching activities in our school gardens this summer. To begin, we taught the art of transplantation, guiding students as they learned how to carefully move seedlings that had sprouted from seeds. This hands-on experience provided them with valuable skills and knowledge about plant […]
Unearthing the Garden’s Secret Helpers: Worms
As spring unfolded, our students embarked on an eye-opening journey into the intricate world of garden ecology. They uncovered the invaluable role played by worms, nature’s unsung heroes, in nurturing our green spaces. These humble creatures devour organic matter and fallen leaves, converting them into nutrient-rich soil that forms the bedrock of vibrant plant life. […]
We had a Workshop
On Saturday, March 11, we hosted a Rengenerative Garden Workshop at Flowerland in Wyoming, MI. Hope Gardens’ staff taught community members how to install their own no-till, regenerative (nature-based) garden. Regenerative gardening is an approach to sustainable food and farming systems that regenerates topsoil and enhances biodiversity now and long into the future. This practice […]
March Garden Tips!
Now that the weather is starting to get warmer, this is a good time to revisit your garden and start getting your supplies and areas ready for your transplants! Make sure you have enough tools and gloves and clean up any fallen debris and garden messes you have been pushing off all winter! Eliminating hibernating […]
February Garden Tips
February’s tips come from our fabulous garden tech, Jake Torok. Get your supplies ready! Seed starting is just around the corner. Start looking at your seed packets and taking note of which ones need to be started in order to be able to be transplanted outside as soon as their tolerance allows! Peppers, thyme, and […]
Gardening in January in west Michigan? Yes!
This month we installed a regenerative, no-till school garden at Godfrey Early Childhood Center in Wyoming. We were greeted with sunshine as we engaged in the process of covering the ground with cardboard, paper, leaves, and mulch. Soon a blanket of snow will cover the layers causing them to break down and create a […]
A New School Garden Install
Super Garden XV! Our recipe for a new garden at Godwin Middle School Ingredients: A big dump truck full of wood mulch (10 yards) A truck load of composted mulch (7 yards) At least 20 yard-waste bags of fall leaves Many sheets of cardboard from collapsed boxes 20 – 7th and 8th grade students 7 […]
Bugs in Our Garden!
Summer garden students could hardly contain their excitement as they turned over rocks, looked under plants and dug in the soil in order to observe the abundance of bugs living in and around their school gardens. They compared the creatures they captured to pictures that revealed which ones were beneficial to the garden and which […]
H.O.P.E. Gardens Receives Farm-to-School Grant
In August, H.O.P.E. Gardens and the YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids were awarded a USDA Farm-to-School grant. This competitive award is granted on an annual basis to organizations that support planning, developing, and implementing farm-to-school programs. H.O.P.E. Gardens will use part of this grant to install a new fence for Wyoming Regional Center, a program […]