[ad_1]
Members of the Master Gardeners group in St. Tammany Parish work year-round with children from the Slidell Boys & Girls Club, teaching them in the way that always works best: by showing and sharing, by working with and alongside the youngsters interested in learning. Everyone gets their hands dirty.
Most recently, Master Gardener volunteers worked with the kids to plant a fall vegetable garden, and that means the young gardeners now likely know more about the value of fall planting in southeast Louisiana than many adults who live here. Not only is it preferred over spring gardening by many green-thumbers, there are a lot of great veggies that can only grow in the cooler season.
Lettuce and turnips, for example, can’t tolerate the region’s subtropical heat and humidity, yet greens routinely do well here in cooler months. In fact, the first good frost actually sweetens greens in the ground, and there are fewer insects to eat crops in late fall and winter. Those are the kinds of things these young gardeners are learning as they go, and it’s the kind of information they can use for a lifetime.
St. Tammany Master Gardener Association members met with the children at the Boys & Girls Club back in May and developed a gardening program around their interests. They’ve since met together twice a month; the children planted and harvested a summer garden, then learned how to use the vegetables they grew to make pineapple salsa, herb butter and pickles. And now the kids have their first winter crops in the ground.
Let the harvest continue.
[ad_2]
Source link
