A fun and inspiring weekend was experienced by all who embarked on our premier Summer Success Garden Tour - an event that revealed the recipes for success among a variety of educational gardens in Southern Maine.  Setting off via tour bus from the farmhouse at Wolfe's Neck, our first stop was Durham Community School to visit their courtyard garden supported by JMG and orchard planted by ReTreeUS. Their success story can be read in more detail below in our "School Garden of the Month" feature article. Next we headed to Pineland Farms to tour 3 gardens all beautifully maintained for different purposes and available for school groups as a field trip opportunity. Before enjoying lunch there at the Market Place, we were allowed 5 fast minutes to glean veggies from their educational garden. OH MY!!! Watching garden educators gather up fresh vegetables was like the garden edition of the famous game show "Supermarket Sweep"... except the produce was top notch and everyone was a winner ;)
We then set our sights on Manchester School in Windham, where the flower gardens greeted us along with the lovely little garden of raised beds and a greenhouse well loved by the students and staff.  We were encouraged to explore the garden with an engaging observation activity and talked about how to engage students in plant health challenges. Even the compost bin had us smiling with its bouquet of volunteer morning glories.
Then it was off to Saccarappa School in Westbrook, where we were greeted by students and garden gifts including marigold seeds from their startup seed company. They shared stories of their work; both successes and challenges and enlightened us about their resourceful and creative connections within the community . The pride in this garden could be seen and felt.

"I love the garden so much because it is where a lot of memories are made." declared a 4th grade Saccarappa student.

Our last garden on day one was East End School in Portland, a purposeful plot adjacent to their large community garden with a priceless view! Overlooking the city and the bay and hearing the collaborative community efforts from organizations like Cultivating Community and FoodCorps that come together to grow this school garden and its students was a picture perfect way to end our first day!
We returned to the Farmhouse to cook a local dinner sourced from Wolfe's Neck Farm then gathered in the yurt to enjoy the beef and lamb meatballs with spaghetti, herb breaded eggplant and garlic bread with fresh salad and a delicious strawberry rhubarb pie. Yum!
Day 2 started with an equally delightful breakfast of kale scrambled eggs, roasted blue potato home fries and granola -just what we need for the final day of our tour. A wagon ride through Wolfe's Neck Farm and Center for Agriculture and the Environment led us to explore the educational garden and orchard as well as the production garden and greenhouse - very impressive!
Last stop was LOCAL garden in Bath, a community garden organized by Kennebec Estuary Land Trust that provides a resource for surrounding schools and community groups to experience the garden. It boasted a variety of vegetables and flowers that welcomed the bees and the community to grow and learn together.
The premier Summer Success Garden Tour was indeed a huge SUCCESS! The sites promoted an ideal variety of educational opportunities to inspire all grades of students and levels of gardening. We know participants left motivated to take back new ideas and resources for their gardens, or to initiate new gardens or field trips within their schools.    
Thank you to our garden hosts and everyone who participated, we look forward to your feedback on how to improve for years to come. A shout out to our sponsors for the support in making this event a huge success!

Visit our Facebook Page to view pictures from this event.

Kelsey is the program assistant for Maine Agriculture in the Classroom. Her work is focused on providing resources to schools and educators on how they can incorporate more agriculture into their curriculum. She has a degree in Community Health from the University of Maine at Farmington. Previously she worked at two different healthy community coalitions around the state and comes to the Maine School Garden Network with a public health lens. Kelsey is passionate about educating students and the community on where their food comes from and increasing the knowledge and awareness around the importance of locally sourced foods and good nutrition. We think she's pretty awesome!
 

To learn more about programs and resources available through Maine Agriculture in the Classroom, visit their website.  

We look forward to introducing you to a new MSGN board member each month here in the newsletter and hope to shake hands at future events and workshops!

If you are interested in becoming a board member or discovering volunteer opportunities with MSGN please send us an email.