On February 17, forty-five individuals working actively in our region gathered to hear Triskeles present the results of the Food Organization and Opportunity Development project recently completed with funding from The Philadelphia Foundation. PASA, The Food Bank of Chester County, Southeastern PA Ag-Industry Partnership, funders, farmers, non-profit leaders–a really great group–gathered to listen, discuss, share insights and questions.

Both the final report word document will be shared on our website soon, as well as the power point presentation summarizing the findings. Then it’s onward to work with some of our partners to plan the next steps in this exciting–and evolving–project. Many thanks to Connie Carter, Corrine Sylvia, Laura Yayac–and the dozens of others who made this project successful.

Click below for pictures:

FOOD Project Presentation

Spring is coming!  While we’re waiting with anticipation and in preparation for this year’s growing season, Park Springs is building a hoop house in the garden to help with growing this season’s plants and veggies.

Why a hoop house?  Well quite simply, a hoop house will jump-start our growing season, making the garden able to produce at least a week earlier than the normal Pennsylvania growing season allows.  And in the fall, the garden will be able to produce some of our hardy greens well into November.

And hoop houses are not just for the early spring and late fall, during the summer the hoop house will create warmer soil for plants like tomatoes to grow and produce heavier crops. This hoop house frame, still under the snow in these pictures, was a donation arranged by Triskeles from the Kimberton Waldorf School. With Ed Rodriguez, Social Services Coordinator at Park Spring, we’re cooking up a lot of neat plans for the summer!

A Gardening Educators Forum held at the beautiful Longwood Gardens on January 25th (Robert Burns birthday, for you Scots) turned into a great opportunity to share the interesting Food for Thought happenings with a group of 120 regional educators.

After a keynote address by educational strategist Caroline Lewis, who did a great job of highlighting key elements of program design, the crowd broke into smaller groups to discuss particular areas of interest: Youth and School, Community Education, and Adult Ed.

In the smaller groups all shared their work; eventually one group from each interest area was ‘elected’ to share with the whole crowd in the plenum session. The variety of interesting activities Food for Thought presents was the choice of the Youth and School group, and Mark found himself on stage for the final panel discussion and able to share the Triskeles work with all present.

Thanks to the very organized and efficient staff of the Longwood Continuing Education department for a wonderful event, and to Ms. Lewis for great insights.

To see pictures, click here:

Longwood Event

On Saturday, December 11th, 68 youth took part in the Side by Side and Next Steps programs, held at two locations at the Kimberton Waldorf School site. This was a busy day, with lots of different activities for the (younger) Side by Side youth and their teen mentors.

The Next Steps youth and teens focused on bird identification of four common feeder birds from this region; drawing cardinals and blue jays, and discussing their habits and appearance. The black-capped chickadee and the nuthatch also made an appearance!

Then we built feeders for the young ones to take home with them and start their own feeding stations. Pine cones with a suet/seed mixture came first, then log feeders with a peanut butter/seed mix. All went home in paper bags for the Next Steppers to put out in their back yards to attract Mr. Cardinal and friends!  Cranberry/raisin/popcorn strings rounded out the feeder supplies.

Hot chocolate, healthy snacks, and some outside activities filled out this busy day for Next Steps.

Pictures can be seen by clicking on the photo below :

Next Steps-Making bird feeders and learning bird identification

Without a greenhouse, the long gardening season in PA also must come to an end; usually in late October thru mid-November. At the Park Spring Garden, we brought the season to a close on October 23rd–with some great help from a volunteer crew from Christ’s Church of the Valley in Royersford.

Greg Yayac, our two-summer veteran staff stalwart,  supervised the crew as they harvest the final few peppers, tomatoes, and a few other things and composted all the waste in the garden compost. Then they planted winter rye on most beds. This will sprout (already has, actually) this fall, hold the soil firm over the winter, and then grow a bit in the spring before we dig it in to provide lots of great organic material for the new growing season. ‘Green Manure’ is another term for this.

They also planted garlic for harvest early next summer. We’re planting about 3 times as much as last year–this was a great hit!

The final touch was to spread some of the finished compost which has been quietly breaking down over the last year in the PSA compost pile. Immediately after this workday, Nature blessed us with several days of warm rains; so everything should do well.

What’s the next step for youth who are too old for the Side By Side program?  Why–Side By Side Next Steps, of course. And so, on Saturday, October 23rd, 13 Side By Side ‘graduates’ joined Triskeles staff and six teen mentors for a day of baking and environmental activities.

Ginger snaps were the order of the day, and Ms. Rachel, from our summer program, led the group through the process of measuring, mixing, adding the liquid ingredients to the dry, and baking these tasty treats. After everyone had a chance to bake, we ate lunch, heard a story about a man who planted a forest of trees, and then headed out onto the beautiful trail behind Kimberton Waldorf School to identify and name a variety of trees by their leaves and bark.  Sweet gum? Check  Tulip tree? Check.  Magnolia? Yep.  Sycamore (Mr. Mark’s favorite)? Yes.

We collected a sample of leaves to take home, played a bit, and then joined the other group for cider, applesauce –and ginger snaps.

23 young adventurers from Phoenixville paired up with teen mentors for the Side By Side Activity Day on Saturday, October 23rd. It was a beautiful, sunny and warm day. After making cider and applesauce from organic apples from Vollmecke Farms in Coatesville, the youth dug potatoes and carrots with Celia Martin, the gardening teacher at Kimberton Waldorf School, walked over and visited the Seven Stars Yogurt farm, and played outside in the beautiful fall sunlight. A wonderful, activity-packed day.