First Harvest!

This Wednesday, we sampled our first golden heirloom tomato and harvested a box of boc choy

Rosemary models the first pick

Tanya samples a tasty morsel

Amanda holds the crop of boc choy. It was split between all who showed up to the work party. A portion went home to the Thurston County Food Bank with the food bank volunteers who came to help us garden.

More Color!

Lately, colors of paint cans have been stacking up high in the garden shed and the garden is doubling as a mini art studio

Last week, Bridge students stopped by and helped us paint the bird houses that SMU writing specialist Cholee Gladney and music professor Brad Schrandt built for the garden fence

students Amanda and Rosemary painted demo houses before the Bridge students arrived

Turns out we have a crop of creative and helpful students this year

They got right to work and did an inspired job. Welcome to campus!

What's Growing on in the Learning Garden

The garden has finally begun producing enough goodies we were obliged to share. Last Wednesday our volunteers were able to sample the Learning Garden's first ripe tomato, and take some of our boc choy home with them.

This week we have started harvesting the radishes.

The tomatoes continue to tempt us, by looking delicious.

A curious phenomenon is taking over the strawberry patch. This is the last known picture of this one. *Yum.*

This unfortunate phenomenon seems also to have spread to the raspberry box...

The squash has begun to develop fruit.

The sunflowers and corn continue to climb skyward.

The broccoli we planted last week is doing well.

And the newest blueberry plant is flourishing, though I have no idea where all the ripe berries went...

So that's what's been growing on in the garden.

Thanks to everyone who have been following us here, on the blog, and volunteering your time to help paint, harvest, weed, water, and keep our garden looking beautiful.

Garden Update...

There has been a lot of gardening going on. As you can see from all the pictures that are posted on here we have been busy. With all the help from the volunteers we got this garden up and running. We have many different vegetables growing and fruit. One plant just grew the first berry over the weekend and I got the joy of eating it, but not before I took a picture of the raspberry. They seem to be having a hard time growing right now but after seeing that one berry I have faith that those raspberries will grow.

Another update is that we are now having deer or some other kind of animal come up to the garden and they seem to like the carrots and strawberries because that is the only bed that seems to have their foot prints. Looks like we are going to be needing to build a fence to keep them out. That is going to be the next project to come.

Garden Celebration and Blessing

See this article about the celebration in the Olympian.

Abbot Neal blesses the garden with holy water

President Heynderickx speaks

We eat a delicious cake made by Bon Appétit

Prof. Shawn Newman leads a ukulele sing along

Enjoying the garden

Watching it grow

We add our own wishes and blessings to the garden wall

Art in the Garden

Artist Bill Wilson donates his metal sculpture to our garden! You can also check out Wilson's work at the Monarch Sculpture Garden.

In one month!

We started the garden on June 2, 2010. By July 2, 2010 this is what it looks like! Thanks to the SMU and local community volunteers. Now let's celebrate! Come to the garden tomorrow at 1pm for some food, drinks, music and blessing by Abbot Neal.


grass and weeds - blank slate

tomatoes, potatoes, beans, peas, bok choi, sun flowers, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, currants, onions, carrots, new shed, worms, art and more!

from imagining the possibilities

to making it happen

and taking care of the garden

Learning Garden Blessing and Celebration

Garden Party #4

Next Garden Party is Wed. June 30th, 3-6pm. Garden Blessing and Celebration is on Wed, July 7th 1 pm.

The garden is almost ready. The shed is built, beds are built. Beans, sunflowers and heirloom tomatoes are planted.

We will have orange, yellow, green and red tomatoes and will save seeds for our seed library!

Everyone is working hard. Planting, building a raised bed and assembling the shed.

Prof. Arwin Smalley plants beans with students Sarah and Amanda.

what happens to your feet in the garden.

Stewart finished the shed!

Everything fits in it. Even the wheelbarrow and I.

Wednesday Garden Party Tomorrow

10am - 2pm in the garden. We will finish assembling the shed, build more beds, fill them with soil and plant more stuff! Join us.

A Campus Garden at USF

Prof. David Silver talks about a campus garden at USF. We hope that our garden will be able to feed as many mouths. Send us some of that California sunshine please!

Garden Party #3

First garden party when it didn't rain on us!

SMU's First Lady, Kathleen and Thurston County Food Bank volunteer Phillip, prepare the whiskey barrels for planting.

Deciding where to plant what.

Amanda and Sarah test the soil. Turns out it needs more of everything (N,P and K).

Strawberry box.

Dr. Shkurkin, Sarah, Rosemary, Amanda, Phillip and I get fed a delicious local, organic lunch by Bon Appétit.

Purple potatoes, beans, bok choi and peas are in here.

Garden Party Tomorrow

Come join us for the Garden Party tomorrow, Wednesday June 16th 10am-2pm in front of Old Main.

We Can Change the World

Hear Majora Carter, a visionary urban planner, talk about the role that sustainability plays in social justice.

Next Garden Party is Wed 16th 10am-2pm

last week we built more garden beds and almost finished building a cedar garden shed! Also, some respberries and squash were planted in the whiskey barrels. There will be more planting and building next week.

Fr. Kilian is up in Alska right now, so we are waiting for him to get back to have the garden blessing on July 7th.

Garden Party #1

The SMU Learning Garden Was Born Today!

We had a blast even though it rained on us. The next garden party is next Wednesday 3-6pm. Same place. Everyone welcome to join in. We will be building more beds and filling them up with dirt.


for more photos, go here

Garden Spot