Making Holiday Wreaths

We had a lovely time last weekend making wreaths and cards for the holidays. We gathered in the community room at Hayes Valley South with the support of the Community Partners United. Students from John Muir Elementary and youth in the neighborhood came together to decorate holiday cards and make their own wreaths out of all natural and recycled materials. Along with making cards to take home, we made cards to put into the food boxes which will be distributed throughout the neighborhood in a couple weeks. The wreaths looked great this year with sprigs of rosemary, sage, wheat, holly berries and more!

Thank you to everyone who came out and got crafty with us for the holidays! Y

Harvest Festival

Today was a blast! Despite the cold and gray weather, tons of volunteers came out to help us plant over 500 flower bulbs that will bloom and bring color to the park this spring! Thank you to Helping Hands, the French International School, community gardeners, neighbors, and John Muir Elementary School students for all their hard work!

The weeding, planting and beautifying of the park went from 10-1pm, and afterwards everyone went inside the community center at Hayes Valley South to get warm and celebrate with yummy veggie burgers, tofu dogs, and potluck salad. Ami, Amar, and a bunch of John Muir kids bravely kept the BBQ going in the rain, and brought us lots of warm food. Even in they were having loads of fun helping out, and ended up with their pictures in the local newspaper!

Indoors we listened to the sweet tunes of Michael Musika and Ledbetter, and the kids played their own CD's and had a huge sing-along with choreographed dances. It was awesome. Then we broke into some really messy and fun pumpkin painting, and made all sorts of crafts from collages, bookbinding, finger knitting- anything we could make from the paper and glitter that Ruby generously brought to share.

In the end, the kids didn't want to leave- they asked us to have this everyday! So we will get busy, and be sure to have lots of events to keep us all warm and laughing through winter. We look forward to Wreath Making, coming up soon! Z

A Few More Harvest Fest Moments

They are so great we had to do two posts!

The musicians are from Ledbetter, one of the bands that performed at Harvest Fest.

The students danced to their own music after the bands, they LOVE to dance.


The DiFrancesco family came out to help, representing the French International School.




After all the hard work, everyone went inside the Hayes Valley South Community Center to eat BBQ veggie dogs and veggie burgers, decorate pumpkins, listen to music and make crafts.

Concert in Koshland Park

On October 7^th folks gathered in the park for a Sunday evening of fabulous music!

The event started off with Anna, Nora and Tobi, a trio of drums, harp and guitar.
Shake Your Peace! rocked next, followed by Lily Idalia of the band Light Leaks, and ending the evening was Treasure Nest playing experimental jazz music.

The entire event was powered by a bicycle sound system. It was great fun and even the kids took a turn pedaling on the bike! We plan to have many more garden concerts in the future so if you're interested in playing please drop us a line!

gardenkids@gmail.com

Staff Update!

Koshland Garden is kept lively by the work of 3 staff,
hundreds of enthusiastic John Muir Elementary students,
over 50 dedicated community gardeners,
the oh so very many generous and appreciated volunteers who share their time with us,
and all our visitors and community members who come by to say hello and give the garden some love.

Join us! Our garden workdays are 2-5pm each Wednesday, and our weekend events are always posted on this blog.


New to the staff this year is Elokin, Garden Educator with John Muir Elementary, and BEET Ranger Program Coordinator.
Look for the BEET Rangers starting in April- this is Koshland Garden and the Hayes Valley Neighborhood PARKS Group's exciting new green-job internship program for Western Addition teens.
Contact: gardenkids@gmail.com (415) 643-3638

Nora Brereton continues with Koshland Garden for her second year, as Garden Educator with John Muir Elementary, and Community Garden Coordinator. Please get in touch with her to sign up for a plot.
Contact: noraborealis@juno.com (415) 424-5770

Barbara Wenger is the Executive Director of the larger organization that Koshland Garden is a program of- the Hayes Valley Neighborhood PARKS Group. She continues her work as the Founder of Koshland Garden, and Executive Director of the entire project, and tireless leader who keeps everything moving from behind the scenes. She's amazing!
Contact: hvnparks@hotmail.com (415) 431-8112

Some Background Info

SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Koshland Garden is a Project of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood PARKS Group-
Creating Programs that enhance the resiliance, safety, and
sustainability of the community
http://www.hvnparks.com, (re-launching in April)

CONTACT us at the GARDEN:
Nora Brereton, Garden Educator and Community Garden Coordinator
noraborealis@juno.com (415) 424-5770
Elokin Orton, Garden Educator and BEET Ranger Coordinator
gardenkids@gmail.com, (415) 643-3638
Barbara Wenger, Executive Director, Hayes Valley Neighborhood PARKS Group
hvnparks@hotmail.com, (415) 431-8112
General Email: gardenkids@gmail.com
Blog: www.koshlandgarden.blopspot.com

VISIT the GARDEN:
Koshland Park and Garden
Corner of Page and Buchanan, San Francisco, CA 94102

Our Office:
John Muir Elementary School, Rm 6
380 Webster St.
San Francisco, California 94117

DONATE to the GARDEN!!
Would you like to make a donations to Koshland Garden to support all
of our great programs? You can send a check (tax-detuctible) (TAX ID #:
94-3213100) to:
HVNPG/TIDES
c/o Barbara Wenger, Director
300 Page St.
San Francisco, CA 94102-5649
Checks can be made out to the HVNPG/TIDES

Let Us Grow! Summer Camp

In the first two weeks of July we had our gardening summer camp. Ten kids and two junior counselors from the neighborhood came out to the garden every day from 9-1 pm. We started off each morning with breakfast at Kate's Kitchen, which they so generously donated to us. Thanks so much!

Each day we came together in the garden to water, cultivate and harvest vegetables and fruits and learn about gardening.
We also cooked and shared a daily healthy lunch together, yum!

We went on some great fieldtrips to the Embarcadero Farmer's Market, Modern Tea, Alemany Farm, the Zen Center, and the Civic Center Farmer's Market.

Our camp ended with a lovely graduation ceremony in the garden and a trip to the carnival at Hamilton Rec Connect.
We look forward to garden camp next year!

Seed to Mouth Cooking Classes

Along with cooking at Modern Tea Restaurant at 602 Hayes Street, every Thursday evening for five weeks over the summer, we taught cooking classes in the Community Room at Hayes Valley South. Anyone was welcome to join us for these culinary adventures, and we had anywhere from ten to thirty kids and adults in the class.

We created and then ate biscuits and collard greens, fruit pie, banana bread, zucchini bread, salad, pizza, and marinara sauce.We liked to keep our recipes fruit and vegetable based so that we could harvest ingredients from Koshland Garden directly across the street.

Come join us next summer for some fresh cookin'!

Cooking at Modern Tea

Modern Tea is a beautiful restaurant on the corner of Hayes and Laguna. On top of the restaurant's amazing food and peaceful atmosphere, the folks at Modern Tea are extremely committed to being a positive part of our community.

This summer we partnered with Modern Tea and the Western Addition Beacon Center to offer ten kids cooking classes. Every Monday afternoon we would walk with the kids from John Muir Elementary down to the restaurant to cook. The kids loved it!

We made sushi, strawberry jam, salad, pizza and more! It was an incredible experience to make food in a professional setting with the expertise of the owner, Alice Cravens, and head chef, Alicia Paullin. We are continuing these cooking classes throughout the school year much to the delight of the kids!

Green Gulch Farm

This spring, a few classes from John Muir Elementary got to visit Green Gulch Farm in Marin. It was a lovely field trip starting with the bus ride across the Golden Gate Bridge (the first time for some of the students!).

The staff and volunteers at the farm gave a great tour and taught us a lot about farming. Some of the highlights were getting up close to the honeybee hives to listen to them buzz and then eating some fresh honey on a sour sorrel leaf, exploring the handmade cob house, admiring row upon row of gorgeous lettuce and greens, and eating lunch in the beautiful orchard.
We can't wait to go back next year!

Kids in the Garden

We had a great spring this year with kids in the garden just about everyday. These pictures are of the kids in the Beacon After School Program.. With school ending last week we have lots of summer programs to look forward to! Beacon gardening classes, Seed to Mouth cooking classes, Let Us Grow! Summer Camp and more.

Look for updates on these programs and if you want to get involved just let me know!

Hope to see you in the garden!

-Nora
Garden Educator
Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group
Koshland Garden at Page and Buchanan
noraborealis@juno.com

Western Addition Peace Wall

On June 9^th, we gathered around the Western Addition Peace Wall on Page Street (at Buchanan) to celebrate the installation of the Western Addition Peace Wall.

This project has been 8 years in the making and anyone who's seen the wall can tell that it was worth it!



This beautiful Peace Wall is made up of over 8,000 tiles. The tiles were made by kids, neighbors, churches, schools and artists as a part of the Peace Empowerment Project. The artist Justine Tartarsky, created some larger tiles to complement and unite all the tiles. The wall wraps around Koshland Park like a long, beautiful ribbon.

At the Peace Wall Celebration many groups came together from the community for food, entertainment and to honor everyone who has died because of violence. If you haven't yet, be sure to stop by and visit this beautiful memorial and art installation.

Workday this Saturday, March 10

Hello Friends and Gardeners!

Please join us at Koshland Park for our workday this Saturday, March 10 from 11:00-2:00 at the corner of Page and Buchanan.

Tasks will include: repairing the compost bins, planting bulbs, and trimming back grasses.

Last workday was a huge success and included mulching of paths, weeding, and sowing wildflower seed. The ground is warming up and it's time to plant basil, broccoli, beets, potatoes, radishes, turnips, lettuce and more! Thank you for tending to our park and garden!
--workdays are the 2nd Saturday of each month.
***in the case of rain, workday will be cancelled***
-Nora