If you haven’t had a chance to check out the garden, we encourage you to stop by! Over the last four years, local youth have helped us plan and build the garden; plant, maintain and water raised beds; and learned how to grow food and compost. The garden is important because it connects children to the basis of all life – food. The garden provides a place where kids can get their hands dirty while practicing math and science skills, teamwork, and patience.

Now kicking off our fifth growing season, the garden is ready for a new phase of development. Last summer we launched a successful crowd-sourced fundraising campaign, thanks to generous donors and the Jack Johnson Ohana Foundation, to build out the rest of the garden. Together we raised over $6,400 to build more raised garden beds, create additional seating areas, buy metal planters to build a garden centerpiece, expand our perennial fruit beds, plus a whole lot more. Last fall we began this work, as Amity students and local volunteers helped us build nine new beds, and we purchased nine new metal containers.

Picking up where we left off, over 60 volunteer hours this past spring break helped get the garden cleaned up and ready for spring. Volunteers moved almost 13 cubic yards of soil to fill all those new beds!

So what’s next?

We have eight additional metal planters that we will use as our sun-shaped, raised garden centerpiece. After the new soil settles, we’ll be adding the next level. In the meanwhile, we’ll be painting the containers for a colorful element in the garden. Additional round metal planters still need to be filled with the remaining soil, as they will be used for small fruit trees throughout the garden.The community is invited to help us in the garden at our next community work day, Saturday May 9^th.

This spring we’ll continue to build out Phase 3 of the garden. Through a developing partnership with local business workplace volunteers, we’ll be working to install a vertical growing shady seating area near the back of the garden. This will be a great use of currently underutilized space, and will allow for additional growing opportunities. We will be growing hops generously donated by Lady Hops, in addition to more veggies we can trellis up the back fence.

We’ll also be working with Heart of Oregon Corps to expand our perennial fruiting shrub area, by building new raised beds with bench nooks. Last year, the kids really loved picking berries. We’re excited to have more berry picking nooks for the kids to enjoy!

Our last big hope for this spring is to get every new bed connected to our existing irrigation system in the garden. We will be working closely with our COCC Garden Intern and our team of AmeriCorpsstudents, who are spending the spring helping The Environmental Center with the Bend Energy Challenge and other important projects.

The Kansas Avenue Learning Garden has become an inspiring and important learning space for our community, and a beautiful gathering place for everyone to enjoy. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, but there’s still more work to be done! If you want to get involved in this unique project, sign up for our newsletter to receive updates and information on volunteer opportunities, emaildenise@envirocenter.org, and learn more about the Kansas Avenue Learning Garden.

Thank you for supporting our efforts – and see you in the garden!