During the summer of 1997 I had a chance to meet many of my immediate neighbors and others who live in the Tenney-Lapham vicinity. These encounters happened through my idea of giving away extra produce from a children's gardening project that I facilitated during the summer. The project is called "The Garden of Eating", and the children involved in the project are enrolled in the summer program of the Early Childhood Learning Center (ECLC).

It basically began with squash, too much squash that is, as anyone who has grown zucchini will understand! What to do with all the squash and the...beans...lettuce...tomatoes... I need not go on.

So arriving home one day tired and weary from working in our large vegetable garden I decided to set the veggies on a small table in front of the house. Along with the veggies I set out a sign encouraging passersby to help themselves and if they desired to, "leave a donation for the children who grew the food." My idea bore fruit as the veggies found a good home and we made quite a bit of money from those who donated very generously! Many of the people I met had questions about the project and so I want to not only say "thank you again", but to explain a little about our project.

The Garden of Eating project actually began in 1996 when I began working with the Children's Gardening Network (CGN) of Madison teaching children how to grow flowers and vegetables. We had a lot of fun and successfully grew a large garden. As in 1997, the children were participants in the ECLC summer program. So the plans for 1997 included a larger version of the first garden and a Children's Farmers Market at the South Park Bank located on S. Park St.

The children, ages eight to twelve, planted, hoed, picked, washed and sold the produce at the weekly sales. In the process they learned not only about where food comes from, but how to deposit money in the bank, the rudiments of accounting, marketing techniques, customer relations and group cooperation. At the end of the summer we had a Harvest Fest dinner, were invited to be interviewed on WORT and, the kids received their "paycheck" which was based on the summer long sales. It was an exciting, sometimes exhausting learning experience for all of us but I especially enjoyed meeting and chatting with so many of our "customers" on E. Gorham.

In case my neighbors are wondering if we plan to repeat our experience, "You bet we are!"; only our garden will be much bigger in 1998. We will be working again with local CSA (community supported agriculture) farmers on Drumlin Farm which is located off Rimrock Road in Madison. The Drumlin folks are great supporters of the Garden of Eating and are letting us use about one-half acre of land on which to grow our veggies and flowers. We would like to attempt a mini-CSA ourselves this year so the children may become acquainted with this concept of marketing food. So even though the snow and temperatures continue to fall, the seed catalogs are rolling in and we are turning our thoughts towards spring!

If anyone is interested in connecting with CGN, which supports the numerous youth gardening projects all over Madison, they may call me at 257-1072. And again, a big "thank you" to our supporters.

-Pam Karstens