The Perfect Garden Workday

Sunday September 18, Mamie Grey, LaVerne Morris and Ellen Newcomer from the CCGA Resources committee met a group of ten high school students from different Chicago-area high schools. All of them participating in a service club started by a very promising high school student named Nate Haefelin, whom Julie Samuels met at a conference and smartly referred to the CCGA.

In the course of 5 1/2 hours, the students scraped and painted the entire retaining wall on the north side of Mr. Willie Mark’s 1900 S. Ridgeway Enabling Garden. Mr. Marks brought out an electronic device that can be connected to an I Pad, and Nate played his “list” while the students worked And did they work! Minimal breaks, maximum dedication. LaVerne supervised while Mamie and Ellen cleared out a weedy place in the back of the garden, and Mamie is serious with a garden lopper, she did renewal pruning on a very overgrown viburnum.

The group shared their snacks with a group of six little neighborhood children who came in to see the garden. Ellen walked them through the garden while the high schoolers went back to work to finish the painting. Someone found a praying mantis and it seemed to really like Ellen’s red hat as it stayed for a number of photos. They cleaned a couple of raised beds, harvested all the veggies, and seeded the beds with red clover as an overwintering cover crop. Mr. Marks told the students the history of the garden. They were able to harvest a lot of tomatoes, acorn squash and even a little pie pumpkin for Mr. Marks. What a fun day!