BEET Rangers Garden Maintenance class

Naz, Candy, and Rashida are hard at work, taking care of their garden beds!

Today the BEET Rangers learned all the necessary skills for General Garden Maintenance, including: Pruning, Watering, Weeding, Mulching, Cultivating, and Integrated Pest Management!

Katie Walsh led our lesson on Integrated Pest Management, and Arif Husain filled us in on the dangers of corporate control of our food supply. We talked about Monsanto, Cargill, and other companies who are making a profit off chemical seed technology that makes farmers dependent on products like Round Up in order to grow food to feed themselves.

We made the connections between organic pest control and the importance of knowing how to grow our own food without chemicals, without the influence of corporations whose interests are in making money rather than supporting a healthy community food system.

The highlight of the day was when Krystal pointed out that she was weeding without gloves on- this was a huge deal! Earlier in the program she was not into getting dirty in the garden at all, and now she does it with a smile on her face! It's the little things that count so much.

Join us for Spring Festival!

Spring Garden Festival—Saturday, May 17th Location: Koshland Park at the corner of Page and Buchanan It’s Spring Festival this month! Come join in the fun!

10AM to 1PM Workparty! Come help us weed, plant, and clean up Koshland Park and Garden!

1PM to 4PM Celebrate our hard work in the afternoon with music, kids activities, and a veggie BBQ.

*Bring a dish to share at our potluck BBQ!

We will have some veggie starts for you to take home, the BEET Rangers will be leading a compost demonstration, seedball making workshop, and decorating pots for you to take your plants home!

There will be lots of fun to be had- we hope to see you there!
If you want to help with the planning or have anything you’d like to contribute please let us know! For more info, contact Community Garden Coordinator: Nora Brereton (415) 424-5770, noraborealis@juno.com

BEET Rangers in the Marin Headlands

The Steepest Trail of the Day!

Today was awesome! We went for a hike in the Marin Headlands with Mike Yoshioka, of Hostel Adventures. Mike talked to us about what it takes to become a naturalist and outdoor educator, leading people on interactive hikes.

The day started out with a discussion on environmental ethics, and how to care for our national parks- most importantly, to get out and use them! Our duty was to explore, learn, and share what we discovered with our friends and family when we returned. Then we got to choose our trail names and headed out to the beach.

We learned about different native plants and their uses on the way, including mugwort, sticky monkey flower, yarrow, and horesetail, to name a few.

The times that stood out most were undoing a human knot we formed as a group excersize in teamwork, and eating lunch on top of an old bunker way high up on a hill, overlooking the ocean.

Some parts of the trails were steep and challenging, especially the one at the end, but everyone stepped up and together we made it a good time!

We are Chrissy Field Heroes!

Our own Barbara Wenger of Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group has won!
2008 Crissy Field Center Community Heroes Award

The Crissy Field Center, an urban environmental center, announces The Community Heroes Award. This award honors the accomplishments, challenges and successes of community members who work tirelessly to preserve, protect, and raise awareness about our environment.

The Center's Community Advisors select Community Heroes from your nominations. Heroes who are selected are honored with a ceremony at Crissy Field Center on Saturday, May 10, 2008, where we unveil a year-long exhibit depicting each of the honorees in life-size photographic portraits and companion digital stories that share their unique experience making positive environmental change in their communities.

This is an opportunity for unsung heroes and community leaders to share the limelight and receive well-deserved recognition for their valuable contributions and positive impact regarding the environment.

What is a Community Hero?

Community Heroes are people from all over the Bay Area and from all walks of life. They come from all races, ethnic backgrounds and age groups, working in common to protect, restore, and raise awareness for the environmental issues that are relevant to their communities. Many are engaged in grass-roots activism, others work on legislation, and several are educators. Many call themselves volunteers, while others have built careers working in the environmental movement.

Whatever their approach, methodology, or position, they all fit one very important criterion: their work has made a positive impact on the community and has inspired others to get involved and make a difference.

May Newsletter!

KOSHLAND GARDEN NEWSLETTER
A Project of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group

May 2008 Newsletter Content:
1. Koshland Garden in Bloom!
2. BEET Rangers Hard at Work
3. Spring Festival - May 17th!
4. New Native Plant Garden!
5. Upcoming Summer Programs
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1. Koshland Garden in Bloom

The Garden got a bit of a makeover this past weekend, thanks to Rebuilding Together, a group of dedicated volunteers who came to help out on April 26th. We planted Columbines and Coral Bells in the shade section of the garden, and they look lovely- come enjoy their blooms this month! Although the tulips are starting to retreat, our local native Douglas Irises are blooming all around the park and garden, but not for long, come see them quick! The plums are starting to grow on the tree, it looks like we be eating lots of them later on this summer! All the berries have bounced back from winter slumber, and are looking lush and soon-to-be delicious.

It is time to bid farewell to the epic amounts of chard and broccoli that filled the garden this winter. We are now preparing beds for tomatoes, lemon cucumber, and new crops of lettuce. Our new peas are looking good, thriving in the partial shade, which provides some cool relief for them on these hot, dry days. Spring Festival is just around the corner, so come see all the new plants, and take home some of your own!

To get on the waiting list for a garden plot, contact Community Garden Coordinator:
Nora Brereton (415) 424-5770, noraborealis@juno.com

2. BEET Rangers Hard at Work!

The BEET Rangers have been hard at work in Koshland Garden, learning how to prepare a bed of healthy soil, and how to plan a vegetable garden using seasonal planting charts and crop rotations. We also enjoyed the opportunity to visit Chrissy Field Center on their Earth Day celebration on April 19th. At the celebration we handled different snakes, lizards, and tortises through Tree Frog Treks, and met with the Inspiring Young Emerging Leaders (IYEL) youth program at Chrissy Field, learning about the projects they are working on, and possibilities for the BEET Rangers to be involved with IYEL in the future. We are looking forward to a naturalist-led hike in the Marin Headlands on May 3rd, where we will learn about local ecology and conservation priciples.

For more info, contact BEET Ranger Program Coordinator: Elokin gardenkids@gmail.com (415) 643-3638

3. Spring Garden Festival—Saturday, May 17th
Location: Koshland Park at the corner of Page and Buchanan

It’s Spring Festival this month! Come join in the fun!
10AM to 1PM Workparty! Come help us weed, plant, and clean up Koshland Park and Garden!
1PM to 4PM Celebrate our hard work in the afternoon with music, kids activities, and a veggie BBQ.
Bring a dish to share at our potluck BBQ!
We will have some veggie starts for you to take home, and there will be lots of fun to be had- we hope to see you there!

If you want to help with the planning or have anything you’d like to contribute please let us know!

For more info, contact Community Garden Coordinator: Nora Brereton (415) 424-5770, noraborealis@juno.com

4. New Native Plant Garden!

Rebuilding Together San Francisco has left their mark on John Muir Elementary School!
We now have a beautiful native plant garden on Webster between Page and Oak. There are still some non-native plants in the mix from the original planting, but we have filled in a lot of bare patches in the garden with gorgeous plants form Bay Natives Nursery. They include White Sage, Ceanothus, Seaside Daisy, White Currant, Red Currant, Sword Fern and more! It looks beautiful, and we look forward to the garden filling out to provide habitat to a lot of native bees and other garden pollinators including butterflies and hummingbirds. We are so grateful to the dedicated volunteers of SF Rebuilding Together for their hard work cleaning the garden and helping us create this beautiful garden! To learn more about Rebuilding Together SF, visit their website at www.rebuildingtogethersf.org. For more info about Bay Natives Nursery, find them online at www.baynatives.com

As well as a new native plant garden, SF Rebuilding together helped us repair and plant in the container gardens on the yard of John Muir Elementary School. They are filled with blossoming lavender, salvia, yarrow, and lambs ear. It’s beautiful, and the students are very excited to take care of their own flower garden boxes as an addition to their experience growing vegetables at Koshland Garden. The tree wells on Page and Webster street around the school have been repainted and seeded with California Poppy and other native wildflowers, all of it looks so great! We love Rebuilding Together SF!

5. Upcoming Summer Programs: Seed to Mouth and Lettuce Grow!

We’re gearing up for our exciting programs this Summer!

Our Seed to Mouth Cooking Classes are open for anyone to drop by-no registration necessary. Adults and kids are welcome to join us Wednesdays, June 11-July 9, from 4:00-6:00 pm. We’ll be cooking and eating delicious meals based on what’s growing in the garden. So grab your measuring cup and stop by!

Our Lettuce Grow! Summer Camp is for ten 8-13 yr. olds and two teen counselors-registration necessary. This gardening summer camp is June 23-July 4, Monday-Friday, 9:00am-1:00pm Our camp is based in Koshland Garden but we take lots of fieldtrips to farms, gardens and farmer’s markets in the area. We also cook and eat our own healthy lunch each day. Let us know if know a kids you’d like to sign up for camp or can support a kid coming to camp with a donation.

For more info about summer programs contact: Nora, 424-5770, noraborealis@juno.com
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Donate to the Garden!!
Would you like to make a donation to Koshland Garden to support all of our great programs?
You can send a check (tax-detuctible) to:
300 Page St.
San Francisco, CA 94117
Checks can be made out to the Tides Center/HVNPG

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
Hvnpg@gmail.com (415) 431-8112
General Email: gardenkids@gmail.com
Blog: www.koshlandgarden.blopspot.com

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/

Visit the Garden: Koshland Park and Garden
Corner of Page and Buchanan, San Francisco, CA 94117 ( Google Map )

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

About This Newsletter: This is the Koshland Garden Newsletter, a project of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group.