Welcome to our monthly E-Newsletter supporting a network of school garden advocates. We will keep you updated on the latest news and work being done across school gardens programs here in Newark, New Jersey and the best resources from across the country.   

Looking for a specific resource? Interested in having your own resources published? Reach out to us to discuss more at pevans@citybloom.org and we would be more than happy to help.

Our Beekeepers Keith and Delicia filling up our newly built Bee Hives with hundreds of bees! We are excited to revive our beekeeping practices at Greater Newark Conservancy. Stop on by the check out the amazing progress! 

City Green School Garden Symposium

In-Person

Saturday, May 6th @ 8:30am-2:00pm                                                                                                                          Join City Green's School Garden Symposium! Learn the tips & tricks for building and sustaining successful school gardens with City Green's School Grounds team and experienced local teachers and administrators.

RSVP HERE

Second Saturday Family Adventures

In-Person

Saturday, May 13th @ 11:00am                                                                                                                                    Join us to explore the science behind plants as we learn about the different parts to a flower and take a hike around the garden to explore the many colors and flowers we see. Registration is required. 

RSVP HERE

Free Plant Giveaway

In-Person

Saturday, May 13th  @ 10:00am                                                                                                                                  Join us at Greater Newark Conservancy to pick up your warm season seedlings! We will have many seedlings to choose from including tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil, and more!

So You Want to Start a School Garden Workshop

In-Person / Virtual 

Wednesday, May 24th @ 4:00 PM

We will discuss how to plan and design your garden, basic gardening skills, necessary resources, outdoor classroom management, and how to connect the garden to your goals!

RSVP HERE

District-Led School Garden Programs Part 2: Organization & Management

Virtual

Wednesday, May 24th @ 4:00pm

This webinar will focus on engaging your school district community, including topics such as setting up peer learning communities for teachers across a district and community partnerships with examples from three districts across the country of different sizes. 

RSVP HERE

Teaching Kids About Nutrition Through Cooking & Gardening

Virtual

Wednesday, May 31st @ 4:30pm                                                                                                                             

Join Edible Schoolyard NYC program manager and registered dietician, Ryan Renaud, as he shares strategies for teaching kids about healthy eating in an engaging, age-appropriate, culturally responsive and affirming way. Ryan will describe Edible Schoolyard NYC lessons that show, don’t tell, about healthy eating.

RSVP HERE

Visit us at 32 Prince Street, Newark NJ 07103 as we are your community resource center! We have soil, compost, seedlings, and seeds for our community members at no cost. 

Check out what the Seeds of Change Grantees have been up to the past year in 2022. Looking forward to another successful year for these Newark schools! 

FoodCorps is a non-profit organization that believes every child, in every school, should experience the joy and power of food. That work starts in classrooms, cafeterias, and school gardens—and it starts with our FoodCorps Service Members. Bridgette Byrd shares what inspired her to apply to FoodCorps and her hopes for her students and community in Newark, NJ.

Filmed by Julia Sienkiewicz and edited by Chris Greening. Special thanks to the Greater Newark Conservancy and the staff and students at Avon Avenue Elementary School.

Every year, Jersey Fresh celebrates the Garden State's fruits and vegetables through the Jersey Tastes Harvest of the Month! For the month of May, we celebrate Asparagus! Click this link to check out the activity sheet for the month. This sheet includes videos, fun facts, recipes, and activities for all ages from Pre-K all the way through High School! 

At just seven years old, Kendall Rae Johnson is Georgia’s youngest certified farmer. Born and raised in Atlanta, Kendall Rae fell in love with gardening when she was three years old thanks to her great-grandmother Laura "Kate" Williams, who showed her how to propagate collard greens from a simple bare root. Watching the stems grow into big leafy plants stuck with Kendall Rae, and soon the family began planting seeds of cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and more broken collard green stems on her great-grandmother’s porch patio. Read more here! 

In this introduction to Ancestral Foods: The Story of Food, presenters Chantel Kemp, DK Kinard and Tutu Badaru take the audience on a journey that explores food transitions and food traditions. Making the connection between Africa, the African Diaspora, the Caribbean and it's connection to the United States. Exploring food as nourishment, as communication, healing tools for communities, and walking viewers through the relationships between food, self, culture, environment, and spirituality. Click here to watch!

On average, people waste 25% of the food they buy:
A household of 4 throws away anywhere from $1,350 to $2,275 per year in wasted food. This is a waste of resources, a waste of money and a contributor to climate change. Use our interactive PDF to learn the basics of no-waste cooking and how to eat to save money, keep food from the landfill and reduce your carbon footprint. Click here to learn more about the ABC's of reducing food waste! 

How do new gardeners learn?

“By trowel and error!”

Source: Wisconsin School Garden Network - Erin Moriearty

Register your school garden to be a part of our Newark School Garden Support Network and see where other school gardens are located near you!

Interested in bringing your students to the Outdoor Learning Center at Greater Newark Conservancy to experience the joy of nature-based education? Fill out this Field Trip Interest Form! We offer a variety of field trip programs that will spark the interest of any youth. Whether they are learning about urban habitats, diving into the world of bugs and insects, or seeing how worms can break down our food into a valuable soil amendment, your students will leave our site with a host of knowledge! For more information reach out to soleary@citybloom.org.

Dear Volunteers,

We are currently looking for volunteers who can assist with separating seed packets and potting up seedlings for distribution to Plot-It-Fresh members and the community.

We are appreciative of any time that can be devoted to our mission!

To sign up, register at this link here.

Every single Pre-K and 1st grade student in Newark will be taking a field trip to our Outdoor Learning Center until the end of the school year! Currently, we are hosting our Urban Habitats field trips with the 1st graders, teaching them about worms, birds, plant adaptations, and urban mammals!

Students have had an amazing time at Greater Newark Conservancy, not wanting to leave at the end of the program and telling us how much they loved their field trip! 

The work that we do would not be possible without the generosity of our donors. While we had to put some of our on-site programs temporarily on hold during the COVID-19 crisis, we are back to normal operations and ramping up a number of programs and activities at our Outdoor Learning Center, the Hawthorne Avenue Urban Farm, school partner gardens, as well as various virtual workshops.