Volunteer at the Detroit Garden Center:
Outreach Programs
Volunteers Are Welcome To Help With These Programs
Alternative For Girls (AFG)
The Detroit Garden Center participates in the yearly Rise and Shine summer program at Alternatives for Girls (AFG) by holding two gardening classes, for first through third, and fourth through fifth grades. This year pickle making has been added to the skills the girls learned. We’ve included a refrigerator dill pickle recipe at the bottom on the page.
Since cucumbers in the garden were still tiny, pickling cucumbers came from the market. Fresh refrigerator dills went home with each girl. After working with the fragrance of savory dill, the girls put together potpourri from sweet smelling herbs they scented with essential oils. The finished product was wrapped in tulle to take home. Fragrances have a way of etching themselves into our memories. Perhaps years from now, a rose or lavender branch will bring back pleasant memories of the potpourris they made in a class long ago.
A Monarch egg, caterpillar, and chrysalis from my garden brought about a discussion of butterflies, what they eat as caterpillars, how they change into different forms, and their role in pollinating plants. The worm bin with its red wigglers turning food scraps into compost made them less squeamish about these decomposers.
The pot decorating and planting project, always a favorite, gave the girls outdoor plants to take home in pots of their own design. The girls learned where vegetables actually come from, beside the local market. Green beans, tomatoes, cantalope, cucumbers, peas, tomatillos, mustard greens, beets, Swiss chard, scallions, hot and sweet peppers were this year’s mini crop. Thanks to volunteer Bill Guisinger’s chicken wire fencing around the garden, rabbits nibbled at the herbs in the herb pots instead of tender vegetable starts this year. Stevia, the herbal sweetener from Paraguay, survived and its intense sweetness is always intriguing to the girls.
One of the girls in the summer program who has “aged out” of the gardening class told me it was her favorite, and wished the program was offered to the older girls. She remembered the scents and tastes of the herbs we sampled and used. The house plant she started in the after school program has grown big and healthy with her care. Her mother, who has asthma, hasn’t had an attack since she brought the plant home. While house plants do clean the air, we can’t claim they stop asthma attacks. However, these hands-on projects help the girls form a positive connection with the natural world and gardening.
Friends School
Friends school is a private Quaker school located 3 blocks from the DGC on St. Aubin off of Lafayette.
At Friends School, the prairie is taking shape and the vegetable garden looking lush. In the prairie, last year’s planting of fragrant sumac, ironwood, swamp white oak, prickly ash, American bladdernut, witch hazel, prairie cord grass, wild geranium, and lead plant are getting nicely established. In June volunteers Debbie Frailey, Royanne Johnson, Liz Hardwick, and Donna McCosh helped the first and second graders plant a border of Canadian anemone to edge the path. Since then, Elissa Firestone, dean of faculty, and volunteers filled in with Joe Pye weed, butterfly milkweed, big and little bluestem grass and continue to do battle with bindweed. This Fall, students will make stepping stones in art class to mark the path, with the help of Marcia Geibel, DGC volunteer, and a Friends school art instructor.
Alongside the school in deep raised beds the vegetable garden improves each year. The tomato vines are loaded with fruit and herbs mingle with vegetables. Collard greens will be on the menu in the Fall when the Empty Bowls Fundraiser is held to feed the hungry.
Recipe from Gardening with Children
Cut three pickling cucumbers in half; quarter each half.
Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon pickling salt and 1 tablespoon dried dill.
Place cucumbers (with salt solution) in 1 quart-sized or 2 pint-sized jars.
To total amount of cucumbers, add 1 teaspoon of mustard seed, 6 peppercorns, and diluted vinegar (1 cup vinegar plus 2 cups water).
Add crushed clove of garlic to jar(s). Shake well. Store in refrigerator.
Wait 24 hours before eating. Lasts two weeks in the refrigerator, but you probably won’t have any left by then.
For Additional Information About Volunteering For Either of the Above Programs:
Call the Detroit Garden Center at (313) 259-6363 Fax: (313) 259-0107