Seasoned gardeners know that if they plan a garden party, the weather will have the last laugh. But in the case of the teen gardeners from the Boys and Girls Club of Southeastern Wyoming, headquartered in Cheyenne, it was only a short, gentle rain, and program director Nicole Perez broke out the plastic ponchos.
Laramie County Master Gardeners has sponsored a youth garden education program with the club since 2016. Master gardener Maggie McKenzie is the youth education committee chair. This year, the program reached two groups: elementary-aged kids and teens. The elementary volunteers included Kathy Juniker (coordinator), Krista Rader, Karen Pannell, Rick Sherard and Fred Pannell.
The teen program volunteers, besides Maggie, included Lorraine Brown-Bassett, Terri Wolff, Zeb Wolff, Bill Pannell and Nan Gile. Most of the adult volunteers are master gardeners.
The gardening activity is voluntary for the kids during the spring after school and summer programs, so it has to be fun. The kids I met at the garden party were in high spirits, quick to talk about their gardening experiences and show off the huge onions, hot peppers and funny tomato names (“Mr. Fumerole,” anyone?).
Among the refreshments made by the teens with herbs from the garden were Green Goddess veggie dip, a lemon thyme cookie and an onion cookie — the last being more of a savory treat.
Sometimes the weekly gardening episodes had to be other than hands on in the garden — especially when the weather wouldn’t cooperate. And sometimes, the weekly activity was a field trip, like looking for wildflowers at Vedauwoo.
Maggie willingly shared with me what made the teens’ gardening successful, starting with the raised beds full of well-finished compost watered by drip irrigation on a timer.
Here is Maggie’s gardening schedule, tweaked whenever weather made it necessary.
October through November (when cool enough) – Plant hard-neck garlic.April – Plant onions and potatoes, start seeds for tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, broccoli, herbs and flowers.May – Sow seeds directly in the garden for peas, carrots, lettuce, beets and radishes.June – Direct sow squash, corn, beans and transplant the seedlings started indoors.
Unfortunately, a lot of the vegetables in the teen and elementary gardens were not quite ready to pick by the end of the summer program Aug. 14. Volunteers will have to pick them and decide where to donate them.
Many of Maggie’s vegetable variety choices come from the Seed Library at the Laramie County Library, which has already selected for Cheyenne’s short season and growing conditions:
Carrot – Little FingersCucumber – MuncherKohlrabi – Early White ViennaLeek – LancelotLettuce – Red Deer Tongue and Australian Yellow LeafOnion – Walla Walla SweetPeas – Oregon GiantPepper (hot) – Sugar Rush Peach, Early Jalapeno, Serano, Ahi ChinchiPepper (sweet) – CarmenPotato – Caribou RussetPumpkin – Sugar PieTomatillo – Toma VerdeTomato (see list further down)Watermelon – Bush BabyWinter squash – Bush DelicataZucchini – Black Beauty
Among the vegetable starts donated by master gardener Kim Parker were tomatoes of four types:
Slicers (for tomato sandwiches and salads) Big Beef, Big Beef Plus, Black Krim, Council Bluffs, Early Girl, Sunset Red, Thorburn and Tie Dye (I liked this one the year my husband let me grow our vegetables).Cherry (juicy and thin-skinned, bite-sized) 2 Tasty, Matt’s Wild, Sungold and Sweet Million.Paste (meant for cooking, little juice and few seeds) Mr. Fumerole, Pink Fang and San Marzano.Cocktail (golf ball sized) Bonnie Best and Red Racer.
The elementary garden, which has been around longer, features a perennial herb garden that buzzes with bees. It also has three hoop houses that act like greenhouses to give plants protection from cold and a longer growing season.
Kathy Juniker pointed out how this year, the elementary kids tried the Native American Three Sisters planting method for corn, squash and beans: the corn becomes a trellis for the beans and the squash shades the soil and keeps it cool, but not all three vegetables were successful in the same raised bed.
Drip irrigation was adjusted based on the weather. The elementary garden, in a very windy site, was mostly on a 30-minute, two-times-a-day schedule (but I can’t tell you how many gallons per minute per square foot). The teens’ garden was watered 15 minutes, two times a day, until it got cooler and the schedule reverted to once a day.
I was delighted to be invited to the teens’ garden party. It was a giggly, good time. And I chuckled to myself as I overheard kids encouraging their parents to try their vegetable goodies.
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