Workshop for Our Congolese Neighbors
It was an honor to spend time with our Congolese neighbors at Flowerland in Wyoming as we shared our love of gardening and provided insights into growing in our climate (Grow Zone 6) as opposed to their region (Grow Zone 12).
Let’s Talk About Seeds!
We love teaching students where their food comes from. Did you know that a dormant seed contains everything that it needs to grow into a plant and grow food to eat? This month students learns the parts of a seed and then each was given a seed that had been soaked in water to awaken […]
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 […]
Harvest Time!
Harvest Time in our school gardens includes picking, weighing, washing, preparing, and tasting! Watch the excitement, in this video, as the students at West Godwin Elementary discover cucamelons growing from overhanging vines and show off the radishes, peppers, cucumbers, and other vegetables they have harvested. After harvesting, students took their vegetables to a scale where […]
Feeding the World
The challenge before us…feeding the world. Quite often we are looking to the big companies to rise up to this challenge yet we are all aware of the toll that industrial agriculture is taking on our soil. With the rise in population comes a need for re-thinking the way we grow food. We see […]
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 […]
Recipe: Fruit Kabobs
Ingredients 1 cup watermelon chunks 1 cup pineapple chunks 1 cup grapes 1 cup strawberries 2 kiwi (peeled and cut in quarters) 6” bamboo skewers 1 cup light strawberry yogurt Directions Place fruit chunks on bamboo skewers. Place fruit kabobs on platter. Place yogurt in bowl. Serve kabobs with yogurt on the side. Source: USDA […]
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 […]