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Welcome Back to the Farm!  After a busy summer working with Georgetown Disabilities Board, Old Santee Canal Park, Charleston County Alternative Recreation and Windwood Farm, Adaptive Gardens is starting school programming again for the fall.

We began by going to Windwood Farm & introducing our new Activities Director, Jodie Thomas, to the boys.  They seeded lettuces & beets, which have begun to sprout!  Georgetown High School came out on Monday & got more seeds started, washed lots of pots, weeded & harvested Luffa Sponge.  Wando High School will be seeding and collecting seeds from flower heads & the Luffa sponges.  Programs with Georgetown Disabilities Board, Old Santee Canal Park and Lincoln High School will begin in the next couple of weeks.

This fall participants will continue to develop their seeding, transplanting, watering, weeding, soil mixing and composting skills, but will learn a multitude of other things.  We will begin focusing on landscaping skills, worm composting, animal care and further development of cottage industry products!

We are all enthusiastic about the upcoming programming  & would love to hear from you anytime or have you visit the farm!

PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES WILL BENEFIT FROM HORTICULTURE PROGRAM FUNDED BY WHOLE FOODS MARKET 5% DAY

Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry, a non-profit assisting people with disabilities through horticulture, will be the recipient of Whole Foods Market 5% Day on June 22, 2010

Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (Tuesday, June 22, 2010) Shopping at Whole Foods Market in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina on June 22, 2010 will help fund a horticulture program working with people with disabilities.  Whole Foods Market will donate 5% of the net sales for the day to Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry.  Funds raised will allow individuals with special needs to participate in the horticulture program offered and develop lifelong skills.

Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry is a non-profit, on Thornhill Farm, teaching persons with disabilities practical skills related to: healthy living, social bonding, vocational and recreational pursuits through horticultural activities.  Through activities such as: making soil, seeding, potting plants, tending the garden & making seed paper, the participants are able to focus on social skills and fine and gross motor skill development.  Catherine McGuinn, Program Director for Adaptive Gardens says, “When walking down the rows we do a lot of side-stepping.  They (program participants) have to move their feet apart and back together…that’s a great way to work on balance and coordination and gross motor skills”.  This is just one example of the therapeutic methods used to work with individuals with special needs when they come to the farm.

For more information regarding the programs offered by Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry, please contact us at: info@adaptivegardens.org.

After a wonderfully successful year, it has come to an end.  We have been doing lots of weeding in the last week, but it didn’t go without a reward!  As a special treat the kids learned how to make dirt.  No, not making soil (they have been doing that all year), but “dirt”.  They mixed chocolate pudding, chocolate ginger snaps & gummy worms to make “dirt” they were allowed to eat.  It was a fun, end-of-year activity for everyone!

As the students weeded in their last week before the summer, they were able to see the progress of of all the plants they started from seed.  Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, zucchini, rainbow chard, broccoli, kale and luffa in the vegetable garden.  The poppies and chamomile were in full bloom for them to see.

We will miss everyone during the summer, but hope everyone has lots of fun.  Although we won’t be seeing our normal classes, Catherine has set up horticultural therapy outreach programs with Windwood Farm, Georgetown Disabilities and City of Charleston’s Alternative Recreation Department.  For those that can’t make it to the farm, we will go to them!

There will be lots of new faces & new gardens & lots of room to grow!

Spring is here and it’s time to get moving!  The Adaptive Gardens class have been busy!  Gardening can be very physical, which is great for young bodies (and old)!  As part of the special education programs, the students that join us at Thornhill Farm have Individual Education Plans (IEP’s).  These IEP’s describe the skills that each individual student is learning to master.  While many of these skills involve fine motor movements and vocational training, something we focus a lot on out here at the farm.  Every students is encouraged to learn a recreational activity that will increase their gross motor skills and use those large muscle groups.  In short, get moving!  Which is exactly what we have been doing this week.  Hoeing and weeding, bending and planting, pushing and pulling; moving our bodies and enjoying the beautiful rewards!	Spring in the garden
If you want to come and get moving with us email me at catherine@adaptivegardens.org.  Also, if you or anyone you know is interested in Horticultural Therapy, I am teaching a class for the Charleston Horticultural Society on April 10th.  For more information contact Leslie Brady at http://www.charlestonhorticulturalsociety.org/ . And, Don’t forget about the two plant sales that AGL will be participating in on April 24th! We hope to see you at Fam Jam at the Charleston Children’s Museum, downtown on April 24th, and/ or Plantasia, with the Charleston Horticultural Society, also on April 24th!  So on April 24th you have two Fabulous Family Fun locations to support Adaptive Gardens of the Low country and get everything you need for your Spring vegetable garden!
Lastly, our very own Adaptive Gardens Organic Potting Soil Mix is also for sale! Look for it at the Our Local Foods Farm Store and Sweetgrass Hardware, too! Can't wait to see you in the gardens! Catherine McGuinn Horticultural Therapist and Program Director of Adaptive Gardens of the Low country

I love the Vernal Equinox! It not only represents the start of springtime, it really sums up the mood of this time of year, in my mind! The image of the earth in equal parts light and equal part dark always seems so fitting to me. One minute you’re crazed with Spring Fever, planting seeds with abandon and the next you’re scouring the weather reports for sign of an early spring frost, fearing you’re about to lose all your hard work!  This is when I am so thankful that I get to work with all the students that participate in the Adaptive Gardens Programs.  The students that come to us to learn recreational horticulture are such excited gardeners! When darkness crosses the experienced gardener, and they can only see five more weeds for every one that is pulled, the new, young, fresh gardener full of brightness and light sees every fresh bright green sprout even before it fully emerges from the soil!  I think it is these great excited, new gardeners out here in the Adaptive Gardens that have single handedly chased winter away!  And I, for one, try very hard this time of year to bask in their sunny glow!

Spring Fever!

If you want to come and join us in the Springtime revelry email me at catherine@adaptivegardens.org. Also, if you or anyone you know is interested in Horticultural Therapy, I am teaching a class for the Charleston Horticultural Society on April 10th. For more information contact Leslie Brady at http://charlestonhorticulturalsociety.org/ . And, Don’t forget about the two plant sales that AGL will be participating in on April 24th! We hope to see you at Fam Jam at the Charleston Children’s Museum, downtown on April 24th, and/ or Plantasia, with the Charleston Horticultural Society, also on April 24th! So on April 24th you have two Fabulous Family Fun locations to support Adaptive Gardens of the Low country and get everything you need for your Spring vegetable garden! Lastly, our very own Adaptive Gardens Organic Potting Soil Mix is also for sale! Look for it at the Our Local Foods Farm Store and Sweetgrass Hardware, too!

Can’t wait to see you in the garden! Catherine McGuinn Horticultural Therapist and Program Director of Adaptive Gardens of the Low country

We are preparing for Spring at Adaptive Gardens of the Low country!  We know it’s still a few weeks away, but with a welcome splash of warm weather over the last few days, we can’t help but be excited anyway! Seeds are sprouting and our students are exercising their fine motor skills transplanting them to larger pots.  Our Vocational Work Crews are learning some landscaping skills by dividing bulbs and planting them around the activity center.  Pretty soon, not only will it feel like Spring, but it will begin to look like Spring!! If you’re getting Spring Fever too, don’t worry, we’ve started your Spring garden for you! You can come by the Our Local Foods Farm Store and pick up your Spring lettuce sprouts or you can wait until April 24th! Whats going on April 24th, you ask? Not just one AGL plant sale, but TWO! That’s right, there will be two plant sales that AGL will be participating in on April 24th!	Dividing seedlings in preparation for transplanting into the garden
We have great community partners, and two of them have asked us to participate in their Spring Plant Sales. First is the Fam Jam at the Charleston Children’s Museum, downtown on April 24th, and second is Plantasia, with the Charleston Horticultural Society, also on April 24th!  So… on April 24th you have two Fabulous Family Fun events, and you can support Adaptive Gardens of the Low country while getting everything you need for your Spring vegetable garden! And we mean everything, even our very own Adaptive Gardens Organic Potting Soil Mix!  That’s right, the amazing soil mix we use on the farm will also be for sale! Look for it at the Our Local Foods Farm Store and Sweetgrass Hardware this Spring too! We would love for you to come visit us! If you want to come tour or volunteer email me at catherine@adaptivegardens.org.  Also, if you or anyone you know is interested in Horticultural Therapy, I am teaching a class for the Charleston Horticultural Society on April 10th.  For more information contact Leslie Brady at http://www.charlestonhorticulturalsociety.org/ .	Transplanting seedlings into the garden
Cant wait to see you in the gardens! Catherine McGuinn Horticultural Therapist and Program Director of Adaptive Gardens of the Low country

After a long holiday weekend with snow, the students that participate in the Adaptive Gardens programs where very eager to get back to work! Our greenhouse was finished and the tables were built! The only thing left to do was start filling them with seed trays!  As we began working with one of our groups this week, it was hard not to see the similarities in the beautiful unexpected weather we had just had and the classes we hold.  The Horticultural Therapy Program created for Adaptive Gardens of the Low country was designed to offer horticultural skills  while accommodating a variety of disabilities and learning styles.  So, we work with a wide range of students.

Greenhouse - just after weathering the snowfall

Some of our students are considered to be severely or profoundly disabled and often have multiple physical and cognitive special needs, others are behaviorally and emotionally challenged and are learning social skills and behavioral control with the help of their aids and teachers.  With each of these groups there are unexpected beautiful moments, like a student who last week had to be taken on a “self checking walk about” after an angry rant, and this week gently fluffed baby lettuce sprouts while watering in the greenhouse.  These moments just shine through brightly, like white snow on the newly built greenhouse on a McClellanville farm!

Watering in the greenhouse

We would love for you to come visit us! If you want to come tour or volunteer email me at: catherine@adaptivegardens.org. Leslie and I cant wait to see you in the gardens! Catherine McGuinn Horticultural Therapist and Program Director of Adaptive Gardens of the Low country

It’s not just about the plants out here at Adaptive Gardens of the Low country on Thornhill Farm. Our participants have been hard at work building greenhouse tables! Bill Brabson, our new favorite volunteer, has proven to be an Excellent teacher! All four of our school groups have had the chance to learn and build the greenhouse tables. As they learn and grow, so does our program! We add space for all the seedlings that will grow and sell at our plant sale, so that you can start your spring garden, and each of our students grows as they learn meaningful life skills.	Measuring wood for the work tables
We pack a lot into the time we have with our participants! This week they practiced their measuring skills. They used their fine motor skills to mark the wood and hold the screws in place. They even learned to operate the electric drill! In the end, we ended up with so much more than just a greenhouse table. Our participants learned and practiced some invaluable skills that are transferable to most any job they choose! If you want to be apart of all this fun, then get out here and join us! Email me at catherine@adaptivegardens.org. Leslie and I cant wait to see you in the gardens!	Assembling the greenhouse tables
Catherine McGuinn Horticultural Therapist and Program Director of Adaptive Gardens of the Low country

 

 

It might be cold outside, but the AGL students have been hard at work planning for Spring!  We have been building tables for our New Greenhouse with one of our Fantastic Volunteers, Bill Brabson, and planting trays of seeds in anticipation for the Spring Plant Sale.  This year, we will have the Adaptive Gardens plant sale at the Charleston Children’s Museum during their Fam Jam in April! It’s amazing to see how much the students that participate in our programs have improved over the last semester with us! We have students who have really had fun and worked hard to meet their individual goals.	Getting seeds started for the spring & summer gardens.
I had a student the other day who couldn’t verbally tell me how much fun he was having as we harvest lettuces and turned the compost pile, but he let me know in every other way! He even tried to take the shovel out of my hands so he could do it on his own without my support!  As Spring comes, it’s so great to see how everything begins to grow! Our seedlings grow and fill our new greenhouse, and our participants grow and learn new horticultural skills!	Making tables for the greenhouse
If you want to be part of the excitement this Spring, then get out here and join us!   Leslie and I cant wait to see you in the gardens! Catherine McGuinn Horticultural Therapist and Program Director of Adaptive Gardens of the Low country

It’s happened! The long anticipated Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry greenhouse, has been constructed. It looks great, is solid as a rock, and will serve as a key asset for our gardening program for many years to come.
There are a lot of people who played key roles in bringing this project to fruition. Of particular note, are the AGL students, who did great work on the construction of the greenhouse! Every class got to play some part in the construction and assembly of our new greenhouse!

Also, Lee Leland, the Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry’s indispensable “Jack of all Trades” was a huge help! He designed; he built; he even coordinated the efforts of the kids! Thanks Lee!
We cant wait to fill up the greenhouse with plant starts for our spring and summer gardens.

Come on out to Thornhill Farm and check it out! While you’re here be sure to drop by the Our Local Foods Farm Store and pick up some of our bags of mixed lettuces grown in the Adaptive Garden’s field and harvest by our classes. Also, be sure to grab some of the the seed paper the Adaptive Gardens class made! We have spring lettuce mixes and wildflowers that will do great in your early gardens!

Leslie and I cant wait to see you in the gardens. If you would like to help out with our activities, please contact us to discuss opportunities – we can always use a hand.

Catherine McGuinn

Horticultural Therapist and Program Director of Adaptive Gardens of the Low country