Kid's Garden Contest - Garden Visits, 2025

After completing the spring garden deliveries, the Transition Town team—Dave, and Laura—set out to reconnect with the young gardeners to see how their gardens had fared. They were eager to learn about the children’s gardening experiences, including what they grew, how their plants thrived, and whether they enjoyed managing their own gardens. We successfully followed up with 6 of the 12 contest winners, discovering a rich tapestry of gardening stories filled with both triumphs and challenges. These reflections echoed the common ups and downs of gardening that we all experience.

A follow-up discussions covered important seasonal preparations. The team offered advice on how to "put their garden to bed" for the winter, helping the young gardeners plan for the off-season and ensure their gardens are well-prepared for the next growing year. This proactive approach will set the stage for a successful and vibrant gardening season when May arrives in 2026.

Elizabeth
Had a good summer in the garden.
Her garden had a lot of bees this year.  She wanted to grow a lot of flowers.  The garden was overrun with the delicata squash and found a good size carrots in amongst the squash leaves.  She loves to eat the carrots and put them in her salad. 
Had to put a fence around the garden to keep out the rabbits.  There are a lot of flowers on the cucumber patch and talked about the male and female flowers.  The fruit under the flower indicate the “girl” flowers.  Talked about the cucumber beetles and how they can infect the flowers on the cucumbers.
Looked at the delicata squash and determined that many of them are ready to eat. Mom makes a “squasage” for dinner which is not Elizabeth’s favorite.
Had some corn that was undeveloped for this late in the year, so won’t produce much.
Next summer will pay attention to spacing and not grow things so closely.
 
Eila-
The garden got a slow start this year.  The starts did well, but the seeds did not germinate very well.
Eila grew edible flowers, cherry tomatoes, basil, ground cherries, carrots, and chard
Planning on using the basal to make pesto.
Nesturcians, Merigolds, but some of the animals helped themselves to the foliage
The ground cherries are small, and be sure to take the “wrapper” off and eat the cherry inside
Next year she will not plant chard and may try zucchini.
 
Isaac
Had good summer that flew by. He and his Grandpa worked together on the project.
Carrots were still growing and have yet to pick them.  The animals got to the radishes early on and ate them.  The garden overall got a slow start.
The beets were growing well.  Summer squash did also did well.
Isaac liked the project and spent once a week in the garden during the summer.
Did not like the fact that he had to weed.
He would do growing next year and do pretty much the same thing as this year
  
Dominique and Adriana
Got most of the planting done in May soon after the garden delivery.  The peppers were small for the length of time in the soil.    Also planted green beans, basil, carrots and melons.
There was some mildew blight on the melon leaves, and talked about how you can prune the infected leaves and keep the mildew at bay.
Talked about garlic for next season and that planting time will be in the late fall.
Adriana also planted Zinnias for cut flowers.  Also grew some sunflowers that the bees really liked.  Talked about the sunflower seed and using them for eating or seeds for growing next year.
 
Oscar and Wallace
Oscar planted Cherry tomatoes in the garden this year.  Also had carrot and basil which was very big.  Also grew beans and Marigolds.  The tomatoes looked very healthy as they were spaced out and branches were thinned to allow for good air flow and keeping the leaves dry.
Had a very slow start to the growing season, so plants were on the small side.
Was challenged by the lack of rain and being away a lot for the summer.
Lesson learned to space out the carrots and thin them when they got bigger.  Will want to add more soil to the garden for next season.