After School in the Garden is open for 1st through 5th graders who enjoy the outdoors and like to get dirty. Summit Community Gardens Executive Director Sloane Johnson says they offer the program up to three days a week.
“After school on Mondays and Wednesdays, it's 3:30 to 5:30 and the kids just learn to be outside. They learn all parts of gardening; so, they get to harvest the potatoes which is so fun. They get to help us with harvest , they get to learn about soil and mixed compost and soil, and they get to learn about all the bugs in the garden and the ecosystem of the garden. They'll help with some fall planting. And then we have art and science projects as well. So, it's a lot of fun. The kids love it.
The program is also held on Fridays from 1 to 3 p.m. The cost depends on how many sessions a student attends. The program runs through Oct. 31.
For now, she says parents are responsible for transporting their kids to the garden.
Erica Snyder was just hired as the new year-round education director and will be running the after-school program. In addition, Johnson says Snyder will be responsible for expanding the gardens education efforts as well.
“She's going to be doing a lot of garden tours with schools,” Johnson said. “She's also planning on working with a second grade class at McPolin. And she'll be working to get into the schools and doing some more work in the schools and teaching kids about gardening.”
Also, this week, the gardens will be hosting their La Milpa Garden celebration – a Mayan tradition. In May, the seeds were planted and blessed. Another celebration was held in July to bless the plants to grow and on Thursday, Johnson says they’re going to harvest the crops.
“It's the biggest corn I've ever seen in Park City, Johnson said. “ On September 15 from six to seven, we're going to have our harvest celebration. It's the La Milpa Harvest celebration. After a season of growing and watching the la milpa thrive, we'll come together as a community and harvest the la milpa and eat it and cook it up and just kind of have a party in the garden. This is free to the community. So come and enjoy it. We do appreciate it if you get on the website, summitcommunitygardens.org and register so we can kind of account for how many people are coming.”
You can use this registration link.
