Home | Friendship Gardens Charlotte

Home Depot donates seeds

Jan. 27, 2012

Many thanks to Sylvester Johnson and Home Depot Store #3639 at 9501 Albemarle Rd. for leading Team Home Depot in donating over 800 packets of vegetable seeds and seed starting trays to Friendship Gardens. These supplies will be used in the Friendship Gardens network to teach gardening and grow food that is donated to Friendship Trays.

Announcing the

Volunteer Coffee

Monthly on the 4th Tuesday

8:30-9:30 a.m.

at Friendship Trays

Join us for the next coffee on Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Find out how to plug your skills into this mission. Click above for more.

Fresh veggies

are a hit with

recipients

Dec. 30, 2011

Happy New Year to everyone!

The collard greens and black-eyed peas (some from the prison garden) went out in trays to Friendship Trays recipients today.

I was lucky to be able to deliver two routes and WOW: People expressed such gratitude for having a traditional New Year's meal, especially one that had fresh produce.

Pamela, one of the recipients, told me that collards are her favorite and she had noticed that the vegetables tasted much fresher than the canned veggies she eats when she is able to prepare a quick meal for herself.

What an amazing validation of our mission with Friendship Gardens.

THANK YOU and BLESS YOU for all you do!

Kathy Metzo, Garden Coordinator

Our Holiday Special: Screening worm castings

Dec. 22, 2011

For further information, e-mail Henry.

Getting ready

Posted Dec. 11, 2011

"The folks at Trinity Presbyterian are planting their first Friendship Garden this spring and they are already started on the bed prep," writes Garden Coordinator Henry Owen.

Trinity's garden plots are now covered in mulch thanks to John Arant, Jim Hambacher and Gary Sugg. Trinity had some rich mulch on the property and with Jim's trailer, they were able to get it all out in 2 hours.

One plot was left incomplete to allow for soccer play until their season ends in late January.

Thanks John, Jim and Gary!!

Volunteers capture the greens in Matthews

Nov. 19, 2011

Six people spent a total of nine hours Saturday harvesting the greens at Renfrow Hardware's donation garden in Matthews. Writes Garden Coordinator Henry Owen, "Yes sir, yes sir three bags full. Three lawn-size trash bags full. Not sure of weight."

What we are sure of is that three bags full of fresh, nutrient-rich greens are headed into Friendship Trays recipients' meals. Thanks to the volunteers, and thanks to Renfrow Hardware.

A great first season of learning for the children

Nov. 18, 2011

By LAURA DOBSON

Garden Leader

The raised beds at Thompson Child Development Center on Clanton Road are showing signs of fall.

Only cold-weather crops look fresh and crisp – the peas are just coming on; the arugula, lettuce, kale, collards and cabbage are growing like crazy.

Just a couple weeks ago, flowers were still blooming on the okra and a red tomato could still be seen peeking out from under green leaves. Now the leaves are mostly yellow, and only hard, green tomatoes remain.

The Thompson garden not only grew produce for Friendship Trays, and for some school snacks, but it served as a teaching tool.

Danyelle Berguron-Rumfelt, vice president of Early Childhood Services at the Center, said the garden taught the children, as well as the teachers, many lessons.

“We learned patience ... waiting for things to sprout and grow ... waiting for things to produce real veggies!” Danyelle said. “We loved planting so many different plants and learning about how they grew and why.”

The kids learned basic things such as how the vegetables grew better if they had enough water, and sun, and learned how their food grows, and where it comes from.

One of the favorite crops earlier in the season was the carrots. Led by their teachers, a group of 3- and 4-year-old children gathered around the raised bed, gazing at the green fronds of the carrots waving in the summer breeze.

The kids knew they had come outside to pick carrots, but weren’t quite sure where they were going to find those carrots. The surprise on their faces when they pulled on the greens and out popped a fully grown carrot 6 to 8 inches long was priceless.

As soon as one child pulled his carrot, even the shy children wanted to give the fronds a tug and pull out their own carrot.

Thompson plans to remain a Friendship Garden next year; Danyelle wants the children to have more experiences such as these.

“After having so much success with carrots, we are excited to really do more with our spring gardens,” Danyelle said. “We also had great success with sunflowers, bell peppers and okra. We look forward to having even larger crops and trying to grow different things next year.”

At the Center’s annual harvest feast, the parents were able to share in the excitement of the garden as well. Perhaps the most successful crop this year was the lettuce. It grew like a weed, forming beautiful, perfect heads and growing so large the soil and the wood encasing the raised beds was barely visible.

The parents were sent home with a head of lettuce, and a sense of what their children are learning by being a part of Friendship Gardens.

A Southminster Harvest

Service Juris Day

Click the picture for the News 14 report on the Saturday, Oct. 22 event.

Let's have a spruce-up day!

Sept. 7 in the Demonstration Garden

"It's time to compost summer plants, plant fall crops, and get the garden looking spiffy in preparation for our third annual Garden Party," writes Garden Coordinator Henry Owen. "The Oct. 1 Garden Party is the best party in town. More information on that is here.

"To get the garden ready, please join us in the garden this Thursday, Sept 15, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. for some good garden work in cooler weather. Location: Friendship Trays Demonstration Garden, behind 2401 Distribution St. Charlotte.

"Bring a pitchfork if you have it, gloves, water bottle, your winning personality. No RSVP needed, just show up and work."

Radish Harvest at Sterling

Posted Oct. 17, 2010

Students celebrate their radish harvest at Sterling Elementary School.

Grateful Duckies

Aug. 25, 2011

A group of home-schooled children calling themselves the "Flaming Robo Duckies" were in the Demonstration Garden recently, and wrote this thank-you note to Garden Coordinator Henry Owen.

Your group, by whatever name, is welcome in the garden, to learn by doing with your hands and hoes and rakes. There's lots for everyone to do.

A volunteer leaving the garden this morning said she had been well-bitten by mosquites on a visit Wednesday, so lather up with your favorite mosquito repellent before settling in for some sheer pleasure.

Hard work is pleasure? Absolutely! Come and find out. Let Lani Lawrence know by e-mail. Thank-you cards are strictly optional.

July 24, 2011

Put up for the winter

July 16, 2011

No report yet on how many seals were good, but those who tried their hand at old-fashioned canning on Saturday suddenly have extended the life of their garden harvest.

Canning is a proven 19th century technology that will preserve the veggies in the photo at right for a cold day in February – just the way the Ball jars did for your great-grandmother with her relish and cucumber chips and tomatoes.

Cooks Community Garden hosted Saturday's canning class at the Cooks Memorial Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall. Participants brought their own produce, plus a $5 donation to cover the cost of materials.

Not a bad fee for a trip back to the era of Napoleon.

Interested in similar classes? On different subjects? E-mail Henry Owen, coordinator of the Friendship Gardens initiative.

Veggie harvest from old ballfield

July 15, 2011

Learn to can your abundance

Not sure what to do with all that produce coming out of your garden?

Try your hand at canning. Learn the skill at a class hosted by one of the gardens in our network: Cooks Community Garden.

The class is Saturday, July 16 at 4 p.m. at the Cooks Memorial Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall at 3413 Mt. Holly-Huntersville Rd.

Bring some produce to can, and a $5 donation to cover the coast of materials.

Learn more about the class here. Register here.

Look who just moved into the neighborhood!

June 10, 2011

(A small slice of) The Charlotte Correctional Center Garden

Click picture for the center's June diary

June 6, 2011 from the new Southminster Garden; Salem Suber

Harvest report

May 2011 562.7 lbs.

Jan-May 2011 888.05 lbs.

All of 2010 1,348 lbs.

Click for May details

Fruit of the harvest

May 26, 2011

Click above for reflections on the making of strawberry jam for the first time, as posted on the Friendship Gardens partner Cooks Community Garden's website.

Gardening workshops this Thursday, Saturday

May 6, 2011

Ryan Mitchell and Katherine Metzo will be holding two-hour workshops on the basics of summer gardening – planting, tending, staking tomatoes, watering, composting, etc. The workshops will be held Thursday, May 26 at 5:30 p.m. at the Demonstration Garden, 2401 Distribution St., and on Saturday, May 28 at 10 a.m. at Cook's Community Garden, 3201 Mt. Holly Huntersville Rd. Register for these events by clicking on the picture above.

Donated scrap metal will get a green reuse

May 19, 2011

Our thanks to Johnson Concrete in Salisbury for a donation of scrap concrete reinforcing wire. Soon, the material will be supporting tomatoes and cucumbers at the Charlotte Correctional Center garden.

The garden build at Billingsville Elementary School

Click picture for more photos from the May 7 build.

Click picture for more from the Sterling Garden

More spring harvest

from Matthews Presbyterian

Click picture for more

Planting day at Southminster

Apirl 23, 2011

Residents at the Southminster retirement facility on Park Road planted vegetables in their new garden Saturday. Click here for more pictures from Saturday, and here for a video of the March 26 garden build.

First shiitake mushrooms of the season

March 30, 2011

Volunteer Coordinator Lani Lawrence brought the first shiitake mushrooms in from the log garden at Friendship Trays this week. If the volunteers from Slow Food Charlotte had any luck planting spores in the logs last year, there will be many more. Stay tuned, and THANKS to all the Slow Food volunteers.

Jan. 20, 2011

Garden coordinators meet

They dig holes for bedding plants and they weed and they connect with volunteers and they weed and they harvest and they weed and ...

And they met one another, some for the first time, on Thursday evening as Slow Food Charlotte brought together the volunteer leaders of the Friendship Gardens effort for a "snackluck" gathering at the FABO coffee shop and art gallery at 2820 Selwyn Ave.

And there was news: Coordinator Kathy Metzo, pictured above right, introduced the effort's new caps that will be given to the coordinators of each garden in thanks for their work and as part of a larger branding effort.

Slow Food leader Thom Duncan tipped his hat to the Women's Impact Fund, whose $70,000 grant last year has helped expand the effort begun in April 2009 on a weedy lot behind an industrial building in Charlotte's South End. Duncan said the group has grown more rapidly than the minimums projected in the grant application. Grant funds are paying for two part-time coordinators, but the vision remains focused on creating a "volunteer-driven mechanism when it's up and running."

Coordinator Henry Owen, who spent the summer of 2010 connecting with volunteers and weeding and so forth at the Demonstration Garden in South End, will focus now on a collaboration between Friendship Gardens and the N.C. correctional facility at Camp Greene off Tyvola Road. There were a number of jokes about Owen "going to prison."

Owen said that during a recent meeting with prison officials, the enthusiastic warden exclaimed, "I've got 12 acres and 200 men who can plow tonight!"

Owen said they would start more slowly, with 15 men and one acre of ground planted mostly in cover crops to rebuild the soil. But the prospects are for a far larger installation that could substantially increase the Friendship Gardens harvests.

Please see other parts of this site for information on Friendship Gardens, its partners, and how you can help. Tour the gardens and enjoy our photo diary.

For more information, e-mail Kathy Metzo.