springchickenspringing

[springchickenspringing]

Late Spring @ the MCV Community Garden #richmondva #communitygarden #buckwheat #fennelflowers #strawberries 

[springchickenspringing]

I think if this blog were a real journal it would be very, very dusty at this point. C’est la vie! Here are some pretty slices of squash in France where you don’t have to buy the whole pumpkin because they understand portion control. 

[springchickenspringing]

Chilly last bits of light on Wadmalaw. 

[springchickenspringing]

It doesn’t matter how many years I’ve seen it work. I still get a little edgy looking at our sweet little green strawberry plants and trying to believe they’ll pull through the winter just fine. The weather is getting and staying just a touch cooler every week (despite our typical spikes back into the 80′s) and we’re about to find out what they’re made of. 

[springchickenspringing]

Miss Cait... Can I please eat a piece of hibiscus? My face is missing the sourness.

B, age 8 during garden class 

[springchickenspringing]

I also think poems are one way we exercise our capacity for imagination and for metaphor. And those are the things by which we actually survive. Those are the ways by which gardens are planted.

Ross Gay

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/251308

[springchickenspringing]

I have graduated from vegetables. To babies. To toddlers. ✔️✔️✔️ Lesson learned: toddlers are faster than babies and vegetables. And much much funnier. I loved hanging out with this sweet family on Sullivan's and celebrating M's second birthday with a fun beach photo session. Link in profile for full gallery. @_cebulka_ one million thankyous #terrifictwos #familyphotography #charlestonphotography #takemoreportraits #sullivansisland (at Sullivan's Island)

[springchickenspringing]

Goooood morning! #tomatoesforever #tomatoesforbreakfast #frommaheadtomatoes #sungold #chocolatecherry #dreamy #nofarmsnofood #farmtoschool #lowcountrysc #greenheartproject #greenheartchs

[springchickenspringing]

Our @greenheartchs kids went to all. the. places. yesterday! Toured both @ambrosefamilyfarm locations, picked tomatoes and blueberries, saw compost twice our size, oohed and ahhed over the pomegranate grove and olive trees, visited the Angel Oak Tree and toured the greenhouses with @yellowd10 and Ella at @seaislandsavoryherbs ! It was all dirt roads, thunder storms, pigs, fresh food and new friends. Thanks to everyone! @aprilclough @farmerpeteambrose (at Angel Oak Tree)

[springchickenspringing]

C: What does that coriander taste like?

A: [no hesitation] Lemony and zesty with a little splash of pepper.

Our kids are rockin’ it. 

[springchickenspringing]

Let's just talk about how... A. The heat index was 108 today. And B. This photo is completely no filter no edit and it makes my heart melt about as fast as the rest of me did today. The Windwood garden is so hot right now. In Every. Single. Way. #nobeesnohoneynoworknomoney #windwoodfarm #greenheartchs #greenheartproject #greenheartsc #stringbeans #heirloomtomatoes #eggplant #sweetcayenne #sweetbellpeppers #basil #cilantroflowers #outtacontrol #nofilter #noedit (at Windwood Farm Home for Children)

[springchickenspringing]

P L T cucumbers and trellises are looking just the prettiest thanks to our community volunteers this afternoon #applecucumbers #lemoncucumbers #cukes #farmtoschool #greenheartsc #greenheartproject @greenheartchs (at Mitchell Elementary)

[springchickenspringing]

Freshly picked herbs + butter + @evopizza multigrain bread = happy @greenheartchs buddies after a long hot couple hours of mulching, watering, planting, cultivating and bug catching in the garden @windwoodfarm #farmtoschool #farmtohand #herbbutter #eatmoreherbs #windwoodfarm #greenheartchs #greenheartproject #awendawsc #evopizza #evobakery #freshbread (at Windwood Farm Home for Children)

[springchickenspringing]

Progress in the garden at Windwood Farm! We’re several days away from our first harvest of squash. Every red strawberry has been eaten by a bird. The borage finally sprouted. We painted pictures of beans and planted them. And lo and behold - the first pepper. 

[springchickenspringing]

We had a great time making strawberry spinach salad with local strawberries from Ambrose Farm and spinach from our 6th graders school garden this week! The kids had a lot of fun slicing onions, cubing avocado and enjoying the fruits of their labor! And strawberries of course are always a sign that summer break is right around the corner. 

[springchickenspringing]

the girls @ bethesda farm, garden and school for boys in savannah, ga

[springchickenspringing]

Beans

I'm sitting here planning a bean lesson for a group of our school garden kids tomorrow and all I can think about is the day I got to geek out and meet Mary Oliver​ in Atlanta four years ago. I came across my first Mary Oliver book my freshman year of college at a small bookstore/coffee shop in Decatur, GA. The book was Red Bird. Having meant to just peruse a page or two, I found myself twenty minutes later sitting on the floor and reading the whole thing front to back. Five poems in is a poem called "Self-portrait" where she exclaims, "I wish I was twenty and in love with life and still full of beans. Onward, old legs!" Flash forward four years and countless books and poems later I had the wild privilege of meeting Mary Oliver at Emory just a few weeks before I began my venture into farming. Her poem "Beans" was one of my very favorites and that cold January day I got to hear her read it out loud to a crowd full of uncomfortably-dressed people as she unselfconsciously stood and talked and recited in jeans, tennis shoes and a simple sweater, announcing before she began the poem, "I like humble titles." I am twenty seven. And hopefully I am still full with just enough beans to get me through this lesson with all of our crazy, wonderful, distracted and eager, soon-to-be-bean-loving students tomorrow. Onward, old legs! If Mary Oliver is over seventy and still in love with life and still full of beans then can't we all be too if we just pay attention?

Beans by Mary Oliver

They’re not like peaches or squash.

Plumpness isn’t for them.

They like

being lean, as if for the narrow

path. The beans themselves sit qui-

etly inside their green pods. In-

stinctively one picks with care,

never tearing down the fine vine,

never not noticing their crisp bod-

ies, or feeling their willingness for

the pot, for the fire.

I have thought sometimes that

something―I can’t name it―

watches as I walk the rows, accept-

ing the gift of their lives to assist

mine.

I know what you think: this is fool-

ishness. They’re only vegetables.

Even the blossoms with which they

begin are small and pale, hardly sig-

nificant. Our hands, or minds, our

feet hold more intelligence. With

this I have no quarrel.

But, what about virtue?