Entertainment - Entertainment News

POSTED: Sunday, May. 17, 2009

Volunteers grow a children's story garden at Hovander park

Ferndale's Hovander Homestead Park attracts families with its giant barn, its majestic farmhouse, the open fields and the farm animals - all snuggled next to the Nooksack River, with Mount Baker luminous on sunny days.

And gardens.

Hovander is home to a demonstration fruit and vegetable garden, a weed identification garden, a native plant garden and a dahlia garden, courtesy of the Master Gardeners program at WSU Whatcom County Extension.

So Hovander makes perfect sense as the home of a new Master Gardeners project, the Children's Story Garden.

"There's a lot of gardening energy here," said Harriet Arkley, who organized the garden with Peg Nathon.

Both Bellingham woman are master gardeners; Arkley for seven years, Nathon for four.

A slew of master gardeners plan to host free events at the Children's Story Garden this summer and fall, and will oversee a summerlong "Veggie Patrol" class for youngsters age 4 to 10.

Kids in the class will plant, care for and harvest vegetables from seven raised beds that radiate from a central gathering place. The garden is just north of the Hovander farmhouse, next to a new greenhouse.

"It's fun for us that we have that organization doing that kind of activity, because we don't have the staffing to do it," said Lynne Givler, operations manager for the county parks department.

The Veggie Patrol sessions will include lessons about bugs, bees and other essential topics for young gardeners.

And stories.

There will be stories about vegetables and plants. Stories about the Hovander family. Stories about Paul Bunyan, the garden's mascot and the inspiration for its towering scarecrow.

"The foundation is here for all kinds of stories to be told," said Nathon, a retired elementary school teacher from California. "Children and stories and gardens just go together."

People who complete master gardener training at Whatcom County Extension repay the community with volunteer service. Arkley helped run a gardening club for students at Ten Mile Creek Elementary School. Nathon later joined her, and they began discussing the idea of a permanent children's garden somewhere in the community.

They scouted locations, and worked out details with county parks officials and with Whatcom County Master Gardener Foundation for a kids' garden at Hovander.

"It took a lot of talking and a lot of excitement," Arkley said.

With approval has come about $11,000 in financial support, plus in-kind help, from the foundation, local businesses, Birchwood Garden Club, Whatcom County Farm Forestry Association, and from Whatcom County Construction Careers Academy, whose students built the seven raised beds.

Each bed is 16 feet long (extra long so kids and their parents can spread out), 1 foot deep, and 3 feet wide (extra narrow so small kids can reach vegetables in the middle without having to step on the plants and soil.)

Each bed also has its own water spigot with an automatic timer for drip-hoses.

Jack and Judy Boxx contributed a flower bed in the shape of a bed, Paul Bunyan's bed. In time, flowers will grow into a colorful quilt and pillow case for Mr. Bunyan.

A Paul Bunyan theme was chosen because the goal is to inspire kids and their parents about gardening, not merely to explain the how-to of growing vegetables.

Befitting Bunyan's legendary stature, some eye-catching vegetables have been chosen for the garden, including skyscraper corn, walking stick cabbage, and radishes the size of Easter eggs.

Next to the seven beds, a structure will support a "house" of sunflowers.

"This is going to be a place where big things happen," Arkley said.

Like Nathon, Arkley worked with children before she retired to Bellingham.

She was the principal of an elementary school in Illinois that had its own garden. Arkley recalls kids in the cafeteria eating raw pieces of broccoli and turnip grown in the garden.

"They would eat things they would never touch, if they've grown it," she said.

With their mutual love of kids and gardens, Arkley and Nathon look forward to scheduling special visits to the Children's Story Garden by school classes and youth groups.

"That's how the garden will grow," Arkley said.

MORE INFO

Free events at Children's Story Garden, at Hovander Homestead Park:

• July 10 and Aug. 21: "Once Upon a Time in the Garden" storytelling sessions, both 7 to 8 p.m. Bring a chair or blanket.

• Aug. 9: Ribbon-cutting and ice cream social to celebrate the new garden, 2 to 4 p.m.

• Oct. 10: Pumpkin day, 9 a.m. to noon. Pick out a pumpkin and tour the garden.

Veggie Patrol summer program for children ages 4 to 10:

Kids meet twice a month at the Children's Story Garden to plant, maintain and harvest vegetables. Sessions include one-hour lessons about seeds, worms, scarecrows and other gardening topics.

Cost: $30 per child, $40 per family, with scholarships available. Register: 676-6736.

Online: whatcom.wsu.edu/mastergardener/csg.