Downtown Greens Fredericksburg
Having the opportunity to be a Garden Education Intern with Downtown Greens here in the city of Fredericksburg has been a gift. The intern position for me has revolved around assisting with the Downtown Greens’ summer camps as well as assisting with their Youth Farm Program. At this point, I have had the chance to learn, play, and teach alongside different children, and garden educators.
Interning as a garden educator has been a lot about observing children and learning how their colorful minds work while in the garden space. Not surprisingly, each kid has his or her own way to go about learning and playing. I have been able to experience endless creativity when it comes to the crafts we have done with them in the garden such as creating sun prints, garden fairy houses, bead wind chimes, and even seed “bombs”.
I have been able to plant seeds with the children, mostly melon and cucumber, while listening to the garden educators at Downtown Greens teach them the importance of growing one’s own food. I also have had the chance to harvest with the kids. We have harvested veggies, fruits and greens such as kale, peas, raddishes, squash, mulberries, raspberries, garlic and garlic scapes.
In addition, I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with neurodivergent children which has reinforced my mantra of the need to treat everyone with the utmost care, kindness and respect. It has shown me that is is important to stand alongside these children and create a space where they can be themselves. Furthermore it has taught me that we need to educate all children on the different ways of being.
Lastly, Downtown Greens has given me so much gardening knowledge. As someone who loves learning how to grow and harvest food, I still consider myself a novice and am always looking for guidance. The garden educators have given me endless advice such as how to make my own solution for tomato bloom rot, how to pick off flowers from blooming vegetable plants so the fruit grows bigger, how to make earth friendly “insecticide”, and when to plant various edibles.
Thanks to the opportunity of interning with the Downtown Greens community I am able to say that this is an organization I want to continue being invested in, and it has shown me the type of work I would someday like to be doing.