This week was conference week for the North Thurston district so we spent our time beginning to prepare for the season ahead. On Tuesday I met with Michaela and another Evergreen student volunteering with the Food Bank to begin our teambuilding. Michaela offered a lot of insight to the interworkings of her job and gave a lot of perspective on the scale of impact she has had and is beginning to have with her garden programs. We talked a lot about systematic change and the steps it takes to sway policy and make allies in various bureaucratic settings, such as school districts and city council. We talked about assembling research on the benefits of outdoor education and learning gardens to help advocate for support. As pictured above, the garden shed has recently received a new roof, which has been long awaited for. We discarded the old roofing together which felt symbolic to starting this new growing season together.
Wednesday and Thursday I spent time in the garden putting in work to get it ready for the season. I transplanted flower bulbs growing stray in a bed and gave them new homes in pots around the greenhouse, as well as planted some spinach starts in a bed. Throughout this time digging in the dirt and unearthing treasures and creatures alike, I was transported back to some of my early gardening memories from childhood. It felt very sweet to connect back to these playful and imaginative memories in this learning space and I thought about the scope of impact this garden has had on the kids who have come through it over the years. I have worked in various other outdoor education settings and have always wanted to work in a farming or gardening space with kids. I grew up tucked away in the woods and most of my childhood was spent outside and in our family garden. I feel very honored to have an opportunity to teach in this new setting.
I also began to dig up a grass patch that we are trying to get rid of that will then make room for a new learning space. The plan is to remove as much grass as possible, cover the ground with cardboard, then fill with more dirt to flatten the corner seen above. A sitting circle of stumps will then take over to provide the garden with another outdoor classroom station. This proved to be a labor intensive job and digging up grass rhizomes for hours on end definitely gave me a jolt back into my body after a dormant winter. I spent both of these days mostly alone and felt it was a really important introduction into this space. I feel like I was putting in my dues and starting to develop a relationship with this garden. I think a lot about how garden spaces evolve and grow around the care and intent you put into them. It felt like a really important first step to begin my journey and I am excited to see the garden unfold this spring.