NORTH SHORE OPTIONS GARDEN PARTY

On Wednesday August 22nd North Shore Options hosted a garden party to share the fruits of our labor with the community, friends and families and participants from other programs. It was a great turnout and judging by the enthusiasm and questions asked by the group, I do believe the experience will lead to future gardeners.

We started the party off with a tour of the pizza garden. This garden is round and cut into pizza slices, producing a multitude of vegetables that lead to some amazingly creative pizzas at the end of the tour. The three sister’s garden was next and demonstrates the effectiveness of corn, beans and squash working together to support the growth of each other and to conserve water. We experienced an aroma extravaganza with the pinch and sniff part of the tour that involved our herb garden. I think the favorite was the chocolate mint. After a stroll by the berries and rhubarb we stopped to smell the flowers. We then went around front to visit our volunteer pumpkin patch, which evolved, from a jack-o-lantern last fall that fell off the front steps into the garden and came to life this spring. The tour ended with brainstorming about the crafts we could make out of the eight different varieties of gourds that currently   cover the entire driveway. 

After our tour the group went inside to make individual pizzas form many of the vegetables from our garden. I had to buy the cheese, as our back yard bonanza doesn’t include a goat or cow. Some of the group had to leave to catch the bus and didn’t have time for pizza but got to take a sample of our harvest home with them in the way of Raspberry Rhubarb crisp.  Mike from Vancouver Life Skills did a great job as our D.J. and kept the music going while everyone was busy in the kitchen.

All in all; it was a fun day. What can be better then sharing something that starts out as a seed and becomes pizza?

Rosemary Schwarz
North Shore Options SSW