what we did with all the basil

Some of the things we did with the basil is put it in the lasagna. The reason why we made the lasagna was for the community lunch . Another thing we did with the basil is put it in the pizza at our pizza party we had at Laura’s house. When we had to pick the basil it smelled strong. Rodney didn’t like to harvest the basil because of all the bees that were there at the time. Right now we got the basil hanging to dry for tea we are going to make. What I felt about the basil is that it smelled too strong . Basil basil basil. What did we do with the basil that we harvested?

Our luscious Salad

The ingredients we put in the salad are cucumbers, tomatoes, herbs, and lettuce. We grew each ingredient in the garden. They were all planted in the ground and we planted all of them with our very own hands. Actually I didn’t eat the salad because I didn’t want any. First we dried out the lettuce and put it in a bowl. Then we cut up tomatoes and cucumbers and put it in the bowl. Finally we put the herbs in and we finished it. Then we got to eat it. We also cleaned everything too to make sure it wasn’t dirty. No we will not be able to grow any more salad because its about to be winter so we are not able to grow anything anymore. By Rodney Fernandez

This is a picture of a cover crop. The name of this particular kind of cover crop is Buckwheat. We plant this cover crop to help our soil to be more nutritious and organic. Once it gets to a certain length we chop it down and lay it in the bed. Once it breaks down our soil will be rich and full of matter that will allow other crops to grow healthier long lives after. Cover crops are important because they help to keep our soil together and from eroding. Buckwheat can also be used as a weed control. It takes the space of weeds that you don’t want. It is very easy to manage very effected and is good for our soil. (The flowers are there for decorations.) Jerica Sandiford

Hey- GROW Staff eat salad too! 

What are you doing? 

List these herbs in order. 

A Summer Review

It's nearly October now and we're happy to report that we all survived the transition into, gasp, Fall. The youth in the program bid a sad goodbye to the camp like days of summer and now attend program two days each week after school and some Saturdays. Our farmers market ended labor day weekend and, after much revision of soggy mud stained market logs, Shannon determined that the market raised over $2000! More than 200 local residents kindly patronized our humble farm stand. 38% of our sales were in wic farmers market coupons, senior farmers market nutrition program coupons, or Foodshare pantry coupons. Now that the program is a bit more flexible we've been experimenting with some light cooking at the farm site. The youth made and consumed (asking for seconds!) a rocking salad from our prolific cukes, tomatoes, herbs and some fine lettuce from the fenced in part of the garden still untouched by bunnies. Saturday we'll throw some fresh eggs in a pan for a country breakfast. Our end of summer pizza party was quite a success too despite Donna's failed attempts to spin the pizza dough like an Italian chef in my living room. Fortunately all of the dough and most of the toppings ended up in the pans and, eventually, in our tummies. It's true folks, pizza can be made from scratch! Last weekend we were blessed by many helping hands from GE for the United Way Day of Caring and students from Trinity College for "Do It Day." Running on a bit of coffee and sugar, these folks went to work raising all of the remaining garden beds and weed whacking the heck out of our road area and raspberry patch. Since the raspberries have been freed from their weedy summer habitations they've become the biggest attraction in our garden! Thank you to all of these volunteers who endured the blisters and backaches to prepare the garden and greenhouse for the Fall. -Laura

Community Lunch

Community Lunch On August 28 we prepared to have our community lunch, which was located at Pope Park Rec. Center in Hartford. The crew along with The Hartford Club started practicing the week before to prepare the meal for that day. Saturday was a busy day for us. Some of the crew went to The Hartford Club and others worked the farmers market. It was the last day for us and business was busy. A lot of people enjoyed the farmers market and wished we’d stay. Jerica Sandiford

Videotaping with my mom

Ever since the beginning of June my mom has been video taping Grow Hartford and the things that we do regularly. She does an individual interview of each person. She asks them things like what do you like about the program and would you do this next year? When the program is done and my mom is done filming us each of us will get a copy for ourselves!!!! In order to do that though she has to go to this editing studio to keep things that look fine and then to take out things that don’t. We can’t wait to see the video. -Jazzmine