​Ripley junior horticulturalists work on large and small gardens

It was another cool, spring day when the Ripley and District Horticultural Society’s “For Our Youth” club met at the Bruce Botanical Food Gardens in Ripley, Saturday, May 31. Despite the slight chill in the air, everyone seemed excited and eager to begin our planned activities!

Leader Natasha took attendance, our group club song was sung, and after a quick welcome, the members and junior leaders were divided into two groups.

The first group joined leader Bonnie and leader Melody and headed off to investigate our garden plot. At our April meeting, club members picked the plants they wanted to grow this year, so those seeds and seedlings were purchased and ready for the children to plant.

The list included peas, radishes, zucchini, basil, lettuce, peppers, eggplant, strawberries, pie pumpkins, sunflowers, peanuts, marigolds, beans, and corn. Then we had a wide variety of tomatoes, such as cherry, Amish paste, white, giant German, salad, Melody and heritage red/green. We are sure looking forward to having lots of tomatoes to enjoy! We plan to make some delicious recipes in the later months with all of our amazing produce.

As usual for our group, the kids were busy learning while getting their hands dirty. Leaders explained the benefits of companion planting, theorizing which plants grow best beside each other. For example, planting marigolds with tomatoes helps to keep the pests away.

We also learned how to plant seeds and seedlings, as well as the different depths and spacing required when planting a garden. Lastly, we looked at how long it would take for the seeds and seedlings to produce fruit, vegetables and flowers.

While Group 1 gardened, Group 2 got to exercise its creativity with leaders Natasha and Rhonda by designing their own individual Fairy Gardens to take home. Everyone was so innovative! There were paths made with stones or wood pieces, ponds built out of blue gems, fairy houses with dried bell-shaped flowers, and a variety of mini-figurines, animals, ladybugs, mushrooms, vehicles and dinosaurs decorated the gardens.

Popsicle signs were added to entice the fairies to be welcome and take up residence. Of course, plants were also a big feature of the Fairy Gardens. The children had different options to choose from, such as mini-English daisies, spider plants, aloe, succulents, hens-and-chickens, black cherry tree seedlings, marigolds and nasturtium flower seeds.

Halfway through the meeting, we switched groups so that everyone got an opportunity to work on the big and little gardens. As the junior leaders began to help tidy up in preparation for snack time, junior leader Kaylee hid five turtle figurines throughout the botanical gardens for the children to run around and find. Lots of fun was had!

Everyone gathered for our end-of-meeting snack, served by leader Bonnie. The vegetables, chips and dip, and drinks were enjoyed after all that hard work in the gardens.

The kids lined up to pick a treat from the treasure box after snack. Youth leader Chris held the box and made sure everyone got to pick out the perfect treasure. Everyone went home with a Fairy Garden to look after for the rest of the year. We will be interested to see who can maintain theirs through the entire season!

We thank everyone who came out to support us at the annual Ripley Horticultural Society Plant Sale in May. Our club table was full-to-bursting with donated plants, and we raised an amazing $304 toward our club, thanks to your generosity! Special thanks to leader Melody for organizing everything and looking after the table on that chilly, rainy day.

Our next meeting will be later this month at the Pine River Watershed Initiative Network (PRWIN) McLarty Education Centre for some frog-hunting, and teaching about soil erosion and conservation.

Do you have a youth, aged six to 14, who would like to join in the horticulture fun? E-mail kimberlee1072@yahoo.ca for more information!