Pumpkin Education and Painting Party

So, our pumpkins forgot to bloom this year! Oops! It must have been the late planting ;). While we initially wanted the Sterling Garden Club kids to come to the garden and pick their own pumpkin - it just wasn't happening with the crops finishing up for the season and no pumpkins. So, thanks to the help of Erik Melcher and Paul Manuel in the Food and Nutrition Services department - the pumpkins came to the kids at the Sterling Rec Center.

They learned about the nutritional value of pumpkins and their many uses - and get this: the biggest pumpkin ever grown weighed over 1,000 lbs! They snacked on cider, cookies and pumpkin soup. Finally, they had a blast painting their very own pumpkin. We had some interesting doozies in there...those girls and their pink! Despite the chilly weather and the unfortunate paint on the clothes - the Sterling Garden Club had a great time! Special thanks to members of Fourth Presbyterian of Greenville for helping with the event.

Tiny Gardners

This morning we had the opportunity to visit the Judson YMCA's pre-school program and teach them about nutrition, gardening and worm composting. They were full of energy, eager to learn and incredibly cute. Below shows what fun they had learning about how certain fruits and vegetables help the body part they resemble (with hospital dietitians, Susan Hubbard and Meagan Kennedy) . They had a yummy snack of grapes, celery and cherry tomatoes (aka "ketchup berries"). They also got to plant their own vegetables, visit the worm compost site at St. Francis, and peruse through our community garden. It was a fun morning!

Our Claim to Fame!

We had the privilege of being spotlighted on the popular South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV) gardening show "Making it Grow" on September 2nd. Rowland Alston and the SCETV production crew were perfect gentlemen as they found the proper lighting, backdrop and footage for the "b-roll." I was interviewed by Rowland Alston, who inquired about what we are growing in our community garden, the purpose/mission of it, who was involved in developing it, and how we maintain it year round. For information on when it will be aired, please visit http://www.scetv.org/.



In the words of our wise Mr. Rowland Alston, "Happy gardening everyone!"

L-R: Janice Peele (St. Francis PR coordinator), Rowland Alston, myself