Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry wishes you a very Happy New Year!  The students are back at it this week, and we have been weeding and gathering our winter harvest; lettuce, collards  and kale.  The cold weather did keep us from building our greenhouse this week, but it will be in by the end of the month with the help of one of our wonderful volunteers, Bill Bradson.  Leslie and I can’t wait to have the kids fill it up with seeds trays for all our Spring crops! We have already ordered our Spring seeds; flowers, herbs and veggies will abound!

We are planning to plant so many seedlings, we are thinking of having a Spring Plant Sale!  So stay posted and we’ll let you know all about it!

Leslie and I wish you a Happy 2010!

Catherine McGuinn

Program Director of Adaptive Gardens of the Low country

Decorating at Adaptive Gardens

Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry wishes you a very Happy Holiday Season!  Joy is in the air and Holiday Gifts made by the students of Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry abound at the “Our Local Foods” Country Store.  We have had a ball these last few weeks putting the finishing touches on your Holiday Gifts!   Come and pick them up at “Our Local Foods” Country Store.   They wont last long!  They are truly a treat,  and all the proceeds come right back to our program.  So the kids that made these wonderful gifts can keep coming out to the farm and learning about horticulture and work skills this Spring.  And what a Spring it will be, with all of you great volunteers out there!

We are already laying out the greenhouse that will be built with the help of one of our wonderful volunteers, Bill Bradson.  Leslie and I cant wait to have the kids fill it up with seeds trays for our Spring crops!

Happy Holidays from Leslie & Catherine!

So come on out to visit AGL at Thornhill Farm in McClellenville.  While you’re here, you can do some holiday shopping and enjoy our Christmas Tree.  We made all the ornaments with gifts from the farm and decorated it during our holiday class parties this last week of school.  So even while the kids are on their Winter Break, they left some holiday spirit behind for us to enjoy!

Leslie and I wish you a Happy Holiday and look forward to seeing see you in the New Year!

Catherine McGuinn

Program Director – Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry

The bees have been a buzzin’ at Adaptive Gardens. From floating between the flowers of the calendula & marigolds and enjoying the intoxicating smells of the beeswax used in candle making, the students have been making our bee friends happy garden partners!

Bees in the garden at Thornhill Farm (Image by PDillon)

Students from Georgetown High, Lincoln High, Wando High & Windwood Farm have grown calendula plants from seed & transplanted them into gallon pots. These bright orange & yellow flowers are beautiful & have been perfect for the kids to use in the beeswax candles & soaps. In preparation for the spring flower garden we have planted Bachelor’s Buttons, Pincushions & Nigella! We will also plant Poppy & Statice to complete our flower bundles that we will sell in the spring!

Everyone has been excited to see our arugula, kale, collards & lettuce continuing to grow! The kids gave our garden a little drink of nutrients this past week with some organic fertilizer. They are very interested to learn that vegetables need vitamins just like humans. In true organic fashion, everyone has been doing lots of weeding to make sure our plants, and not the weeds, get the fertilizer.

The kids have been preparing for the McClellanville Village Art Walk on December 4th & 5th. In true elf fashion, they have been making ornaments, magnets & clay wall-hangings during a pottery class thanks to Nancy Marshall & Dorothy Doubleday.  They’re also planting narcissus, making holiday greenery arrangements, and, of course, making the soaps & beeswax candles. Everyone is very excited to know the Cottage Industry items they have made will be in the art walk (Note: The profits from the purchase of Adaptive Gardens Cottage Industry products are returned to support AGL’s work, so it’s an easy, and fun, way to support AGL!)

We are all looking forward to building our greenhouse after the holidays! Stayed tuned for more info about our upcoming projects & continued growth. Until then, we wish you Happy, Peaceful Holidays & thank you for your support!

We’d love for you to come and share your skills with us and the kids we work with; if you would like to do this, please contact me at catherine@adaptivegardens.org.

Lettuce, Arugula, Collards and Kale; that’s what we have been harvesting from the Adaptive Garden’s farm field.   The kids from Wando High School, Lincoln High School, Georgetown High School and Winwood Farms have been pinching leaves, sorting and washing the greens, and bagging up their harvest to sell in the Our Local Foods Farm Store on Hwy 17 N in McClellanville, SC.   They are very proud of their produce!  In fact, they are already helping to make the seed paper we will use to start our gardens for this spring.  Yes, that’s right, we have finally perfected something that looks like paper and has our spring seeds embedded right in it!  If you’re interested in stocking up on some for your own spring garden, look for it at the Farm Store.  It will be right there along side our very popular herbal and luffa, glycerin soaps and our newest product, bees wax candles!  We have been busy as bees making some lovely beeswax votive and 3 or 4 inch candles for your Thanksgiving table.   The kids have a great time making them and they smell really good!

Herb scented Soaps

For the last two weeks out here in the Adaptive Garden craft room, we have had a very special treat! Some very talented potters have donated their time and talent to teach us some new skills.  The kids at Lincoln High School, Leslie and I really want to thank Nancy Marshall and Dorthy Doubleday for coming out and helping the kids to make some lovely pottery Christmas ornaments, Botanical Impression Wall Pockets, and Botanical Impression Coasters and Trivets.  We love these ladies and we hope they want to come back every week!  We can’t wait to show off all of our pottery creations at the McClellenville Holiday fair Dec 4th and 5th!

If you would like to come and share your skills with us and the kids we work with, I would love for you to contact me at catherine@adaptivegardens.org.  We also really want to thank everyone that came out to Local Music on the Farm last Sunday- the  bands were great, the food was delicious, and the people were great to come out and show their  support.  We’re very Thankful for your Giving!
Hope you All have a Wonderful Thanksgiving, too!

Catherine McGuinn
Horticultural Therapist & Program Director of Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry

Also a special thank you to all of you who came out and made it a great day – we hope you’ll come have fun with us again the next time we have such a wonderful event hosted here at Thornhill Farm.

The Activity Center at Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry has been a busy place these last few weeks!  We have been perfecting our Germination Paper and our soaps have been flying off the shelfs at the “Our Local Foods” Country Store.  We have been harvesting our garden and sowing seeds that can over winter in the ground.  Our Gourdous surprises are almost complete and wont last long! They alone are worth the trip to the “Our Local Foods” Country Store outside McClellanville on Hwy 17 N.

there's a buzzing sound in the activity center

But, the best part of all this activity is that we are in the final preparations for “Local Music on the Farm”, this Sunday afternoon! We have some great local bands coming out to our farm stage and some magnificent food being prepared!  Friends and food, oysters and BBQ, music and hayrides; it doesn’t get any better than this!

Good food, good music, good times and all for a good cause!  See you this Sunday, November 8th!!!

Look for the gift baskets of AGL products in the silent auction!

- Catherine

Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry’s Horticultural Therapy classes have been such a success!  We have four mornings of classes, one for each of the three high schools (Wando High School, Georgetown High School and Lincoln High School) and the students at the Windwood Farms school and group home. That is a total of almost

Students working the garden

70 students with special needs coming out to the Adaptive Garden on Thornhill Farm!  We are teaching a lot of Horticulture and having a good time doing it!

We are so grateful to our for-profit partner, Our Local Foods, for making this program possible.  We like to give back to them as much as we can as well as to be as self sufficient as possible.  So, we created a whole line of AGL Cottage Industry products grown right in our very own Adaptive Garden to share with OLF and to provide you a tangible way of supporting us!   Our product line includes:

• organic soil mix
  
• herbal soaps
• herb starts for your garden
  
• coming soon – Germination paper!

The Farm Store at Our Local Foods

We are getting our very own organic soil mix tested as we speak!  This mix is so full of vitality you can smell it!  Look for our AGL label at your local garden store or swing by the Our Local Foods Farm Store and pick some up. While your here you can grab a variety of herb starts from our greenhouse which will be in full swing this Spring! One thing you might want to purchase on line is a few packages of our herbal and luffa soaps! They are in high demand at the OLF Farm Store! Come on out and see all the varieties we make or grab some online, they are going fast! We are still perfecting our papermaking skills, but we promise that our line of Germination Paper will be ready long before you start planning your spring garden. We have been experimenting with wildflower seeds we dried from our garden last spring. Maybe when you come by the store you can check up on our progress! With all these great students coming out every day, there is no shortage of helping hands! It may not be perfect yet, but we are having a lot of fun trying!

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about our the Gourdous suprises we are making for Our Local Foods Farm Store. You really must come see.  You’ll be out of your gourd if you don’t love them!

See you in the garden!

Catherine McGuinn

Horticultural Therapist and Program Director Adaptive Gardens

Friends from Wando High School

Adaptive Gardens of the Lowcountry provides services to disabled High School students in the Charleston area through the use of horticultural therapy.  Our belief and experience is that engaging students in the hands-on operation of a gardening activity, from preparation through harvesting (and eating), has a clear positive effect on the participants.  Further, at the completion of this program, some of the students are also trained in small scale farming activities, and are prepared to take a position working in this field.  What is horticultural therapy?