Stopping to Smell the Lilacs: A Day in the Life of CitySprouts Green Team at Orchard Gardens
Leila Skinner, Youth Education Coordinator
As we walk into the Food Project’s Dudley Greenhouse, students call out “Wow, it’s so warm in here!”; “Look how much our plants have grown!”; “Why are the tomatoes green, can we eat them?”
Green Team explore where the the tomato seedlings are growing in the Dudley Greenhouse
Trying mini red bell peppers during snack time
Though green tomatoes are not ripe, the students' excitement is palpable as they explore our community partner’s greenhouse. Here, students have grown their very own seedlings starting in the late Boston winter. Now, in May, the garden bed is bursting with swiss chard, peas, spinach, beets, and arugula.
CitySprouts’ Green Team after-school program runs every Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon at Orchard Gardens K-8 Pilot School in Roxbury. There, CitySprouts Garden Educators guide 5th-8th graders as they learn to make a more sustainable place to live by growing plants and exploring the natural environment in the city.
Green Team gather around a CitySprouts garden bed to admire the growth in a week and hear Garden Educator Jordan’s instructions
Snack Time
Each day starts with youth gathering in the garden and enjoying a healthy snack, often right from the garden. Today, youth sampled sweet mini peppers and tried sorrel, a leafy green that has been affectionately dubbed the “Sour Patch Kids Plant” because of its sweet and sour taste!
Garden Projects
For one of the two days of programming, students stay at Orchard Gardens school garden completing garden work projects. Youth get their hands dirty with compost sifting, weed identification, seed planting, and trellis construction to care for their school’s garden. These projects empower students as garden caretakers for their school community, and open the door for engaging hands-on STEM instruction.
Walk to the Dudley Greenhouse
Stopping to smell the lilacs
On this sunny spring day, after-schoolers are heading to The Food Project’s site, The Dudley Greenhouse, where seedlings for CitySprouts’ 24 partners schools are grown. Along the walk there, afterschool educators Jordan and Leila encourage youth to look for signs of the changing season, including robins flying by and lovely lilacs in bloom. “Mmm, it smells like laundry detergent!” one student exclaims.
Journal Sit Spots
Observational drawings of the Greenhouse
Once the after-school gardeners arrive at the Dudley Greenhouse, students rush to see how much the plants have grown from seeds they planted weeks (or months) ago. CitySprouts Garden Educator Jordan guides the youth as they observe the changes.
Students then bring their garden journals out to find a quiet spot in the greenhouse and spend a few minutes journaling and sketching the changes they’re observing. Students head towards the area where hundreds of tomato seedlings grow which are then available to the community during The Food Project’s spring seedling sale in Roxbury. By visiting the greenhouse every week, youth are able to document the changes in tomato plants from seedling to flowering to fruiting through observational drawings in their Green Team journals. Soon, they’ll be able to harvest!
Tomato Transplanting and Harvesting!
Transplanting tomato seedlings
Youth outfitted in their bee-themed garden gloves help to transplant tomato seedlings into the CitySprouts Green Team garden bed. After-schoolers make sure to dig a deep hole to bury the roots and then take turns watering the freshly transplanted tomato plant.
With all the sunshine, warmth, and careful care in the greenhouse, the CitySprouts Green Team’s garden bed grows in abundance. Youth are able to enjoy fresh spinach, lettuce, and swiss chard as the early spring crops are ready to harvest!
Join us this summer: applications are open!
The CitySprouts Green Team is now welcoming applicants for Summer 2024. To learn more about the CitySprouts Green Team or to apply for this summer, please visit the Green Team page on our website. For any questions, feel free to reach out to Youth Program Manager, Alex Frank at afrank@citysprouts.org.
Green Team proudly holding up their harvests of greenhouse-grown swiss chard and spinach!