Vegetable Project

The Vegetable Project is collecting gallon-sized plastic jugs and would like to accumulate about 500 of them in the next month and a half or so. We would be so happy if your family buys anything in these if you would save the empties for us. We can pick’m up in Albany and nearby. Just let us know.

We’re going to turn them into miniature greenhouses and would like to work with a number of classes, giving one student after another after another a chance to make one for him and herself. We’ll get a jump on the growing season. And we’ll build teaching and learning around doing and touching and tasting and experiencing with these, because that’s what the Vegetable Project does.

We did this last year with 500 kids and had a blast. It was our biggest undertaking ever. It was a bit exhausting. But it’s hard to resist coming back for more.

We cannot, however, drink so much milk or juice or water ourselves. Maybe you can do some for us. Maybe you know friends and neighbors who could help as well. Please reach out at [email protected].

And we’ll also circle back to describe the wonderful volunteering opportunities  that this project offers.

Many thanks.

–Bill Stoneman

Think the growing season ended a couple of months ago? Well, think again. And look at the leafy greens and root vegetables that long-time Vegetable Project volunteer Cremilda Dias harvested in her Albany home garden in the last two weeks. That is to say, mostly following single-digit temperatures.

And though extending the season with some simple coverings is pretty cool in itself, the really big deal for people who work to bring some teaching and learning outdoors, who wonder why Continue reading →

The Vegetable Project engaged 375 Albany students in outdoors hands-on learning opportunities in the first month of the new school year. We took 15 classes at Myers Middle School and Albany High School for touch-and-taste walk-arounds in our gardens, during which we encouraged kids to pluck tomatoes and beans and more and pop them right into their mouths. Ten classes at North Albany Middle School participated in a daylong celebration of doing and touching and tasting and experiencing that revolved around establishment of the new Friendship Orchard at the school. And we launched Continue reading →

Calling seven fruit trees recently planted in front of North Albany Middle School the Friendship Orchard might be a bit aspirational. And not just because seven trees do not exactly suggest the word orchard. But also because only time will tell if last month’s planting by sixth graders at the school will lead to the kind of loving relationship that the Friendship Garden, from which the “orchard’s” name is taken, has with its surrounding community. But that is our hope, or shall we say aspiration, at the Vegetable Project. Knowing what a special place Continue reading →

Moving a shed 800 yards from Albany High’s Abrookin Career & Technical Center, where Art Erbe’s woodshop students built it back in the spring, to the Vegetable Project garden at Albany High School was the first order of business on Friday. The drive was a bit stressful, but nothing compared to picking it up and setting it down.

Then, about as soon as the shed was situated, the first of four of Joanne Germano’s environmental science classes arrived for a Continue reading →

The first group of eighth graders to visit our garden at Myers Middle School on Wednesday had to cross quite an expanse of very wet grass to reach the tomatoes and potatoes and other fare we wanted to show them. Buckets of rain fell late Tuesday. And the footbridge that usually provides the shortest path from the school to the garden is closed for urgent repairs.

Footwear definitely got wet. And some students minded.

All of the students, however, got, at minimum, a few minutes of the great powerful health-giving forces Continue reading →

Heads up: The days will get shorter. And colder, in case you don’t remember. Winter happens around here. Spring never comes as quickly as we’d like. Planting flower bulbs, however, helps us feel a bit better about it. It gives us a great reason to stay outside in autumn’s chill. And then, it will provide the first burst of color in your garden in the spring. Even better, it does more than that when you buy the bulbs in our Flower Power Fundraiser now through Friday, Oct. 14.

The Vegetable Project receives half of all proceeds raised by our sale of bulbs. And that means that you contribute to our program to create hands-on learning opportunities for Albany kids when you buy bulbs. It means you support our work at teaching kids where their food comes from. It means that you support outdoor instruction. It means that you help us make a difference with kids who benefit from doing and touching and tasting and experiencing. And so much more.

Please click here to see the selection and place your order.

Creating hands-on learning opportunities is at the core of everything the Vegetable Project does. And we picked up the pace in the school year that is winding down. So much so that we thought our friends might be interested to know that we built real hands-on experiences with nearly 1,100 Albany schools students since September.

We build teaching and learning around doing and touching and Continue reading →

The Vegetable Project, as you may well know, is a volunteer group. And among the many pieces of what we do that we’re always eager for more help with is watering our gardens at Albany High School and Myers Middle School from now until the end of September, or maybe even the middle of October. Won’t you consider pitching in?

It would make a huge contribution to everything we do with and for kids.

So, we would be grateful for friends who sign up for dates and locations. But we also need/want to spend time with you, showing you the ropes, for at least the first time around. And that might take a bit of schedule coordination. So please reach out to Bill at [email protected] to say you’d like to find a Continue reading →

The school district where we work, like the rest of the school world, puts a lot of time and energy into measuring performance and progress and analyzing the data that all that measurement produces.

The  measurement folks probably haven’t noticed our worm composting bin initiative in the high school environmental sciences classes and might not know how to measure it. But the “thank yous” that we get from students time and again seem like Continue reading →