The secret green: urban community gardens

Nothing keeps a city looking green like a nice, thriving garden.

The Civic Garden Center supports a number of gardens around the city with guidance and knowledge maintenance. They have been changing lives by using urban gardens as tools to teach valuable skills including the benefits of self reliance, the joy and pride of being involved in your community, the fruits of your labor, and the importance of having a bit of Earth in your life. This week is your chance to celebrate the good work and tour their Children’s’ Community Gardens.

Details from the event release:

25th Annual Neighborhood Gardens Tour:
Celebrating 27 years of Community Gardening in Cincinnati
Thursday, July 24, 5:30- 8:30pm

The 2008 Neighborhood Gardens Tour is a celebration of Children’s Gardens.

This year’s tour showcases three of our city’s outstanding community-based children’s gardens. These gardens were selected to highlight their commitment to and work with children. The gardens provide opportunities for children to plant, grow and harvest vegetables, dig for worms, compost, eat healthy food, and of course, the opportunity to get dirty. Participating Children’s Gardens:

Peaslee Neighborhood Center’s Children’s GardenThe Peaslee Neighborhood Center’s Edible Schoolyard is one of the core components of its literacy-based curriculum for early childhood education. Activities in the Edible Schoolyard are directly related to classroom curriculum. The outdoor space serves as a gathering place for community building that fosters an increased connection to the natural world. In creating gardens and art, children and families experience working together as well as celebrating the results of their work. The garden is a place where people might gather to barbecue or just enjoy green space in an inner-city neighborhood.

Race Street Children’s GardenThe Race Street Children’s Garden was established in 1989 and today the garden hosts weekly sessions of the Summer Sprouts Program serving the children in the immediate neighborhood. The garden provides the children a safe green place to play and garden during the summer. Community life is explored when the fruits and vegetables grown by the children are harvested, prepared and eaten at snack time, as well as shared with the neighbors.

UC Childcare Center GardenThe University of Cincinnati’s Childcare Center Garden includes an herb and vegetable garden, apple orchard and butterfly garden – even a hill for children to dig in! The children explore with all their senses by touching the plants and seeds, smelling the flowers and herbs, looking at the colorful flowers and plants as well as hearing the plants blow in the wind. The garden has become a special place for pre-school children and teachers to enjoy the natural world through multi-sensory experience, creative play and gardening.

WHEN: Thursday, July 24, 5:30 – 8:30 pm

WHERE: Civic Garden Center

2715 Reading Rd.

Cincinnati, Ohio 45206

- From CGC we will board air conditioned buses and head out to the gardens

COST: $10.00 Please make your reservations by calling 513.221-0981, Ext. 18.

The CGC acknowledges and thanks Whole Foods for providing refreshments for the Neighborhood Garden Tour reception.