• Topics this year include, native seeds, seed saving, bees, garden and orchard technical support, grant tips and more!

• Local foods lunch featured by Trenton Elementary Chef

• CEUs and certificates awarded to educators

Early Registration $35 available until April 19th



Our friends at MOFGA are helping us manage online registration this year, we are thankful for this and the many partnerships that make MSGD a wonderful success!

For mail in registration forms click here.

Scholarships available thanks to Maine Agriculture in the Classroom.

Stay posted 0n our Facebook event page.

Belfast Area Child Care Services is a non-profit organization that operates two child care centers.  The Belfast Area Children’s Center located in Waldo and the Starrett Children’s Center located in Belfast, Maine.  The two programs provide care for infants through school-age children with a combined enrollment of 73 children and 18 staff members. During the growing season between 30-50 children participate in gardening activities at both sites.  

We see the gardens as a vital aspect of our preschool curriculum. Children learn language, mathematics, science, physics, cooking, nutrition, meteorology, biology, observation, record keeping, art, how to use tools and work as a team. Young children learn about their world through sensory experiences and the gardens at both centers provide an ideal way for our kids to touch, smell, see, feel, taste and listen in the garden.

Linda Stec, who is trained as a Master Gardener, is the center director and oversees the gardens at the Starrett Center and Orianna Downs, who is the Cook/Nutritionist oversees the gardens at BACC. Teachers at both centers participate in growing, delivering garden curriculum and encouraging kids to taste new foods from the garden.  Both centers have also had help from parents, community members and neighbors. The Starrett Center gets many visitors who attend a busy community Farmer’s Market held next door to the center.

At Belfast Area Children’s Center (BACC) there are 7 raised beds ranging in size from 4’x4’ to 12’x6’. We grow potatoes, onions, carrots, broccoli, cherry and plum tomatoes, cucumbers, swiss chard, squashes, pumpkins, and a mixture of herbs and edibles flowers. The paths between our beds are wheelchair accessible and paved with bricks. We also have a 12’x12’ unheated greenhouse that contains work tables and 2 raised beds. The greenhouse is new and we are still learning how to best use it.  We have used it for seedlings and for hot weather loving veggies like tomatoes and peppers in the summer, greens in the shoulder season.

The Starrett Center has a fenced in yard where we have a peach tree and a raised bed that holds some chives, lemon balm, mint, and in which we also grow carrots. We also have a pole bean teepee. In our front gardens we grow flowers, in-ground tomatoes, squashes, sorrel, blueberries, beans, kale, peas, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, pumpkins, cucumbers, potatoes,  cauliflower, dill, sometimes brussel sprouts.  In the front raised beds we plant more lettuce, basil, parsley, radishes, thyme and rosemary.  Some years include artichoke, beets, and always whatever flowers or vegetables are donated.  We lost 2 apple trees last winter. Aside from in ground planting, we plant in tires, large flower pots, haybales, a grocery store cart, and a 4’x 3’ fiberglass bear. We also have composting beds where center waste is composted.  The front gardens cover a triangular area approximately 60’ long, 20’ at the widest with some grassy areas between raised beds with 3’ wide teak garden paths for all ability access.

The gardens began as a personal interest, as a way to get children outside more, as a way to teach care for the environment, a way to eat more fresh food, and a way to teach sustainable gardening skills.  Finding initial grants was difficult (started in the 1980s), our soil was primarily clay…that was extremely difficult, requiring lots of labor and amendments. We finally received a small grant from a local church that covered the cost of the raised beds and wooden garden paths.  With our partner center we received another grant to purchase our greenhouse which still needs all interior supplies but which will, when completed help reduce the long term cost of purchasing plants. 

Local middle and high school programs have helped with providing plants at reduced costs, a local corporation provided volunteers  one year who reset the garden, moved compost and set the paths back up. The biggest obstacles to sustaining the garden is time and money.  Every year the front garden at the Starrett Center needs to be dis-assembled to allow for snow removal from the adjacent parking and road areas. Children and parents help with some aspects but the ultimate responsibility falls to staff.  We also struggle with deteriorating raised beds, purchasing plants, seeds and starting supplies and all other garden accoutrements.  Despite these setbacks, the gardens at both centers thrive in part because new children and parents are added regularly to both sites.  Getting families involved in the gardens and cooking and trying new foods helps keep the momentum going year after year.  Next month BACC will host a work party for families to come and help out in the garden.  We are hoping to build a couple of new raised beds and prepare the ground to plant a sunflower house for the kids to be able to play inside this summer.

Did you know that MSGN loves to support educational gardens for students grades PreK - 12? Let us know how we can help your garden thrive! Email us today at info@msgn.org 

Many thanks to all the sponsors...

Norway Savings Bank
Broadway Gardens Greenhouses Inc.
Proven Winners
Coast of Maine Organic Products, Inc.
Paris Farmers Union
Cozy Acres Greenhouses 
Allen, Sterling, & Lothrop
Skillins
New England Specialty Stone
 

Huge shout out to the members and hard working volunteers of the Maine School Garden Collaborative for pulling together a fantastic Children's Garden!
 

Maine Landscape and Nursery Association 
Independent Garden Centers of Maine 
Maine Agriculture in the Classroom
ReTreeUS 
Maine School Garden Network

Garden signs created by the students of Kennebec Montessori School