The F2S Perennial Edible & Exploration Garden is a community educational space used to host collaborative projects focusing on reuse and sustainable materials as well as harvest a passion for plants, healthy foods, and community.
Severson Learning Center F2S Garden
Volunteer at the Gardens with us!
We are looking for volunteers for our Saturday Community Work Days this summer!
Bring your garden gloves, your favorite gardening tool, and a water bottle.
Work days run from 8:00am until noon. Please come for what you can! Children welcome but must be supervised by an Adult. No experience necessary. Come Garden with Us!
Saturday Community Work Days for Summer 2022:
MAY 7, MAY 21, JUNE 11, JULY 9, AUGUST 13, SEPTEMBER 10
Perennial Edible and Exploration Gardens
Cambridge Farm to School has a perennial edible garden! Rows and rows of raspberry canes have been planted and soon, students will be able to pick and eat to their hearts’ content. A structure to grow gourds was also built in the spring of 2020. After the gourds are dried out they will be used to make bird houses by different groups in the community. A little pumpkin patch will be installed to grow pumpkins for the Fall Festival Fundraiser F2S is hosting. This is going to be a beautiful, inviting space for children and visitors of the SLC to explore, as well as harvest and eat berries. F2S in the future hopes to have enough fruit to support many food service programs in our community. The new mulched half is the Exploration Garden. Below are the plans we are slowly chipping away at.
This is the plan for phase 1 using the new plot extension land.
Sustainability and maintainability prioritized.
Timeline depending on how long it takes to gather reuse supplies. -F2S has the funding.
Some areas may alter or change a little bit during the process.
F2S Plot Phase 1
Extension Plans
Community Shelter
This community space will hopefully host KT students/staff, summer school students/staff as well as visitors to the SLC.
Phase 1 includes a community structure to provide people a place to gather in the shade.
Uses for shelter:
-alternate outdoor classroom
-a safe place to eat a snack
-community gathering spot.
-build using mostly reuse materials.
-also add benches for seating (collaborative opportunity)
The Gravel Tree Pit will be a great place to begin learning about propagation. F2S will use this pit to grow and experiment with bare root trees for future plantings, experimentation, possible fundraisers, and growing trees for the community.
This pit would also be available for any KT student that might want to experiment as well. For the border of the gravel pit we will use “recycled” plastic bottles to follow our mission of reuse materials. We will use a type of mortar to hold them together. This will help us perfect this technique for future larger projects
Gravel Tree Nursery
Making it More Pretty
F2S has a new Perennial Edible Garden sign! It’s big and made from upcycled plastic lids.
-It will be about 3 feet off the ground surrounded by flowers.
Lavender Lavender can be used by students and F2S to make and experiment with. It helps with pests and low maintenance.
Sunflowers Sunflowers are lovely! They produce large nutritious seeds for birds and other wildlife, and have abundant and accessible supplies of nectar and pollen that attract numerous pollinator species. They also will provide a natural fence line around the outside of the garden.
Potato Boxes-to-Cafeteria The Local-Food-To-Cafeteria program is working on Project Potato. Last year we experimented with growing potatoes in IKEA bags. It was semi-successful and working out some kinks. One alternative is a potato box made from scrap wood. We will be seeking collaboration for clubs, scouts, teams, and students to build and plant a potato box. We are hoping to be able to put a few of these boxes on the plot.
Bamboo
Possibilities Growing bamboo in containers could provide a sustainable material for KT students, F2S, or summer school classes to experiment with, build with, and create with. There are varieties that can grow in zone 5. It’s a renewable source with endless possibilities
Possible Student/Community Collaboration
Pumpkin Patch
We have had issues in past summers of wildlife eating our veg. Putting up a pallet fence would protect our crop from animals.
Pallet Fence: Using pallets keeps within our mission of using reuse materials. It is also very cost effective, pretty fast set-up, and will keep animals out. Posts can also be donated.
Companion Planting:
We want to plant other herbs and natives to help keep down on pest control while adding other benefits to the soil as well as beauty. Pumpkin Patch
