Mission Garden will show off its new and improved Youth Garden on Saturday with — what else? — a garden party.
The upgraded attraction for kids features a wheelchair-accessible garden bed, a sensory plot with plants to touch and smell, an outdoor play kitchen, a worm bin, a demonstration plot of pollinator plants, and areas for potting and seed-planting.
The improvements to the 8-year-old Youth Garden were made possible by the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area and community donations.
Saturday’s event at Mission Garden, 946 W. Mission Lane at the base of “A” Mountain, will run from 9 a.m. to noon and feature hands-in-the-dirt activities, take-home plants and a 10 a.m. performance by Mariachi Las Aguilitas, the elementary-age band from Davis-Romero Bilingual Magnet School.
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Pastries and hot cafe de olla will be available for purchase from Chapoppin Cafe.
Developed by the nonprofit Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace, Mission Garden stands on the site of S-cuk Son, the city’s namesake Tohono O’odham village, and the orchards and gardens once cultivated for Father Kino’s early-18th-century Spanish colonial mission there.
The 4-acre, adobe-walled demonstration garden and living agricultural museum tells the story of continuous farming and irrigation along the Santa Cruz River watershed dating back thousands of years.
The Youth Garden was originally developed to provide children with a place to dig, plant and experiment. The improvements will allow expanded opportunities for families, school groups and other visitors, garden officials said.
Mission Garden is free and open to visitors Wednesdays through Sundays. The hours of operation are 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. from October through March and 8 a.m. to noon April through September. More information is available on the web at missiongarden.org.
Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@tucson.com. On Twitter: @RefriedBrean
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