Growing Together: Open Forum

My favorite activity is connecting with families and finding the vegetables and herbs they use in their cooking and identifying their recipes and uses. I did this with our student garden I had at my home during the pandemic for neighborhood children. A wonderful take away for me was also learning new ways the parents shared for gardening, things they learned in their country or from elders in their families.  Tying their culture to the gardens allowed me to bring in languages, root words and meanings, and history and the ability to travel the world while we gardened in my front yard.

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THERESA HAGELBARGER
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I agree Theresa! 

I have a session I am running this summer in our garden called "Flavors of Home" and I am excited to work with young gardeners in identifying the plants they have close relationship to based on what their families teach them! I love the idea of bringing in different language through investigating root words and meanings. Do you have any favorite activities or resources that you've done? I'm looking forward to preserving and pickling, create a collective recipe book, but I am always looking to see what other educators are doing!

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Mallory Muya
Queens Botanical Garden
Bronx NY
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Hi folks, love these ideas! I love bringing families into the garden and asking young gardeners what they might already be growing at home.
Some resources that could be helpful:

• Yummy recipes and resources from Soul Fire Farm
• At Cornell Garden-Based Learning, we just published our newest youth curriculum- Project S.O.W. (Seeds of Wonder): Food Gardening with Justice in Mind . We have an activity Connecting with Elders where we hope to uplift the power of connecting with elder wisdom in your community.
• The Food Project has awesome resources and a youth created cookbook!
• Cultural Toolkits from Food Hero

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Lori Koenick
Cornell Garden-Based Learning
Horticulture Section
School of Integrative Plant Science
Cornell University
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-28-2022 12:01:16 PM
From: Mallory Muya
Subject: Cultural Gardening

I agree Theresa! 

I have a session I am running this summer in our garden called "Flavors of Home" and I am excited to work with young gardeners in identifying the plants they have close relationship to based on what their families teach them! I love the idea of bringing in different language through investigating root words and meanings. Do you have any favorite activities or resources that you've done? I'm looking forward to preserving and pickling, create a collective recipe book, but I am always looking to see what other educators are doing!

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Mallory Muya
Queens Botanical Garden
Bronx NY
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