WILD Garden Crew Fall 2018

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Versatile, reliable, and energetic (with a splash of sass). 

On the Wednesdays between October 10th and December 12th, this fun, young group met in an after-school Wilderness Inner-City Leadership Development (WILD) program. They weaved their way through team-based competitions, juggled both cooking and carving, and soaked in all the horticultural knowledge they could harvest. (Pun intended.)

More specifically, in October we planted Thai basil for the elders in the C-ID, learned about the different nutrients plants need, toured Mrs. Huang's garden, preformed collaboratively-created poems, and held a pumpkin carving competition that involved roasting the seeds with a mystery ingredient.
In November we put the Danny Woo Children's Garden to bed, learned about plant families and organic fertilizing methods, planted garlic, made Ssam, crafted vertical pallet gardens out of recycled materials, painted prayer flags with our eldest gardener Mr. Pan, and experienced a traditional tea ceremony presented by local business owner Caroline Lee. 
The final December weeks involved making Kimchi from scratch with Mrs. Baskerville, decorating the terracotta pots that will hold the Thai basil, and hanging our flags up in the garden.

At InterIm CDA's Holiday Party, the youth will be presenting their gifts of basil to the elder residents. We look forward to that and to the winter quarter program which will begin in January.

As you might have guessed, it has been a full and fulfilling quarter! I would like to thank the youth, my co-facilitator Lizzy Baskerville, Mrs. Huang, Mr. Pan, Caroline Lee, Mrs. Baskerville, Andrea Say, Henry Liu, Eliza Guan, and all others who made these experiences possible. We hope that WILD continues to liven the community garden space and connect the generations present in this diverse and historic district for many years to come.


Angela Patel