Last summer I brought a present home for you from Vancouver Island:

It’s an “ear fungus.” I peeled it off a cedar log with some Eagles circling overhead and brought it all the way home to Parkallen to put in our Five Senses Garden. Why? To remind us to engage all of our senses — even when there’s nothing green around us. Even in the bleakest months, there are always sights to see and smells to smell and sounds to listen to. Sometimes we need to remind our bodies to take it all in. Stop! Look! Listen!

That ear fungus is under the deep snow now, but I think it will be re-appearing very soon.

You know these trees? This summer let’s build homes for native birds here and then next winter, we’ll have some chicka-dee-dee-dees to listen to even in the deepest cold of winter time.

Happy Spring!

Marlene

On the first day of fall we had a Pizza Party at Parkallen Hall. Some hardworking Sprouts harvested our reddest tomatoes, our purplest onions, and some lovely fresh herbs.

With the fresh garden ingredients, a Parkallen mom made an exquisite pizza sauce:

Thanks, Patricia!

Papa Murphy’s at Riverbend graciously donated 30 Mini Murph kits to the Parkallen Sprouts so that the kids could assemble their own pizzas on individual fresh pizza dough.

Thanks Papa Murphy’s! And thank-you to the Parkallen Community League for the use of Parkallen Hall for this event.

The hall was full of smiles and delicious aromas.

Disperse, Gnomes! Be Free!

The Parkallen Community Garden is the proud winner of the 2012 Edmonton in Bloom Community Garden Award.

We should be very proud that our vision, hard work and community spirit has caught the loving eye of Edmontonians despite that our garden is just one year old! We beat out some very well-established and marvelous community gardens to collect this top award at City Hall.

“Edmonton salutes the Parkallen Community Garden for making our city a beautiful place in which to live and grow.” — Councillor Kim Krushell, City of Edmonton

“One of the newest cg’s, (Parkallen Community Garden’s) story of engagement & education as well as the communal nature of their garden and its design, garnered over 100 votes. Runner up was last year’s winner, Sustain SU Campus Community Garden.  (W)e thank the over 635 people who took the time to cast a ballot!” — Sustainable Food Edmonton

Fingers crossed, Sprouts!

A big pile of fieldstones, a bit of road crush, and the soil structure that was put in place last fall was what we started with.

Hazel G. spotted some early glimpses of life in the Parkallen Community Garden. “The Ladybug likes the garden,” she told me. “But it likes me too.”

Thanks to all the volunteers who made these beds!

First we added a little organic compost compliments of Clean it Green it.

These kids don’t shy away from a little hard work.

Alexis’ mommy observed that her step seems “bouncier” in the Community Garden. Here is some photographic evidence of her hovering in the compost pile.

How many Sprouts does it take to move a wheelbarrow? At least three, six is just right.

We mixed 1/3 part brown matter (mostly straw) with 1/3 black compost and 1/3 part mycorrhizal soil mix to get our beds ready for plants.

Many hands made the work light. There are 3 generations of Parkallenites in this photo.

Planting our “Creatures” garden with species that bugs, butterflies, bees and birds love.

Nora cutes up the place while watering.

All watered in and waiting for butterflies. Don’t worry, Hazel F., they’ll come.

Oliver, Patricia, and Marlene building the Native Plants Spiral.

Josephine and Zane help out with some chaos and cuteness. What would we do without those ingredients?

Some signs and bedding plants for the 5 senses garden (lavendar, cabbage, brocolli, artichoke)

Planting it.

Sophia finds a fossil!

The Rhubarb Leaf Stepping Stone workshop was a hands-on experience.

Squishy. Messy.

They loved it.

Thanks, Brent, for leading this workshop and for the all the hand-made garden signs built from locally sourced obtainium.

So many great kids helped plant the pizza garden.

Thanks for starting all those gorgeous tomatoes, Emily!

Grace, I don’t see any garlic coming up yet but the basil is sprouting. We’ll plant more garlic in the fall.

It’s all filling in quite nicely. Drop by anytime to see what’s growing.

Because it’s a cold-weather loving crop, Edmonton grows rhubarb so well. It’s a hardy survivor. In some prairie places, a pioneer homestead has been built, lived in, left and vanished beneath the waving native grasses, and the only way you can tell anyone has ever lived there is the patch of rhubarb still growing in what used to be a garden.

Rhubarb makes me nostalgic for all the childhood summer days I spent eating a stalk right out of the garden, with a friend, dipping the sour-chewed end in a little dish of sugar, while using the huge leaf as a parasol and puckering up.

At our next Sprouts workshop, we’re going to make some of these:

Rhubarb leaf stepping stones: if you can’t make the workshop and want to give them a try, here’s an easy, kid-friendly tutorial.

I’d be remiss not to include my favourite rhubarb recipe which is, of course, for Classic Strawberry Rhubarb Pie.

I made it on the BBQ so the house wouldn’t get too hot. Divine.

To register, click on the REGISTER tab at the top of this page.

We’ve received funding from Fido/Evergreen as well as support from the Parkallen Community League, The City of Edmonton and Sustainable Food Edmonton to grow The Parkallen Community Garden and get little hands dirty growing food, learning about permaculture and building a fantastic green space  in the fresh air. Because of our funding and lots of volunteer hours, The Parkallen Sprouts is free to join and participate in.

We’re even working towards some projects with The Parkallen School.

We’re building four children’s gardening beds  at the heart of the Parkallen Community Garden. Ours to tend, harvest and enjoy:

Parkallen Sprouts Bed Number 1: A Pizza Garden with a Pizza Party at the Parkallen Hall in the fall.

Parkallen Sprouts Bed Number 2: A Native Plants Spiral This showcase garden will be built from local stones, planted with native plants and will be a great learning experience for the Parkallen gardeners who put it together.

Sprouts Bed Number 3: A Bug & Butterfly Garden We’ll plant some species that give our local winged wildlife some great habitat, take some field notes on what we see and right up our findings for the Parkallen Community Newsletter.

Sprouts Bed Number 4: A Your 5 Senses Garden with things to see, taste, feel, smell and hear.

Throughout  spring, summer, and fall, you’ll be invited to participate in various workshops and gardening bees. We’ll meet on a casual, drop-in basis. Parents are welcome to attend the workshops and workbees with their children, or kids 6 and older can be dropped off. Parents (or caregivers) of small children (6 and under) will be required to attend with their little sprouts.

Interested? Register now to be invited to Sprout Workshops. Subscribe to this blog (enter your e-mail address in the top-right hand corner) to keep up to date on what’s sprouting in Parkallen.

“Baby Zucchini” Photo by Marlene Wurfel