A wonderful group of youth working with a local garden project entitled, “Roots to Harvest”, came out to Willow Springs Creative Centre to help garden.

They worked to establish a large front garden to show case many of the original plantings formed on the property.

Along the nature path several small shade gardens were made. These will be planted up next spring with native ferns and shade plants.

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The beautiful painted tiles were made by the residents and add a nice touch to the gardens.

Above: Community Living residents stand proudly by their raised bed gardens. We covered this garden with plastic mesh to keep the deer from enjoying the harvest.

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On a very cold fall day workshop participants learned about pruning through a hands on session using Willow Springs Creative Centre’s old apple trees as examples.

Above: Willow Springs Apple Tree gets some much needed care.

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Willow Springs was asked to provide gardening programmng to the EcoLiteracy Summer Camp.

We taught the children to make twig planters using a tincan, 2 elastic bands, a handful of twigs and some raffia. They planted up herbs to take home. We also played a seed identification game, learned to rad seed packages and we planted vegetables in the Lakehead University Community Garden.

Above: These are some of the twig planters that children made while enjoying their week long EcoLiteracy Summer Camp at Willow Springs.

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The children were attending our Early Ages Art Camp for a week. The camp included anicent art activities such as felt making, willow furniture making, batiking, cropper & day work.

Pieces of their artwork were displayed through our garden and native trail at the end of camp.

Above: Children enjoy an unexpected visitor at Willow Springs

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Our vegtable crop from our raised beds were very tasty. The salad crops were delicious. We were amazed to harvest even potatoes from the raised beds. The soil was mounded up each week to allow for the hill of spuds to grow successfully.

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Willow Springs Creative Centre offered a unique gardening program to 11 homes for Community Living Thunder Bay. Each home has 2 to 8 residents who are intellectually challenged. Several of the participants also have physical disabilities. Raised garden beds were provided to each home. Throughout the summer gardening and art programming was offered each week. Willow Springs will host a Harvest Gathering for all the program participants. We will harvest vegetables from the homes’ gardens and create a fabulous lunch menu. The event will be held on Monday, August 31st.  The program participants have enjoyed tending to their gardens and are already talking about what we can do next year to improve our yeild.

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One of our priorities this summer has been to create our front garden. The centre piece of the garden is an old 1949 Vangaurd Standard car we found in the bush behind our old centre that use to be a general store. Working with two professional artists from the Thunder Bay Art Gallery’s Art Access Project, a group of young artists have been creating the car into a work of art. The car will be unveiled at our Orange Thumb Ribbon Cutting Ceremony as part of our fundraising Harvest Feast coming up on September 12th.

Watch for pictures of the completed car in mid september.

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At Willow Springs Creative Centre we have been extremely busy so far this summer, so much so we have not been on top of our blogging for the Project Orange Thumb. We have several gardening and art programs on the go this summer. One of our largest programs is with eleven Community Living group homes in the city. Each home has 2 to 5 residence who are intellectually challenged. Many residence have multiple physical disabilities as well. We wanted them to be able to experience the benefits of gardening so we had threeof the local high school shops classes build accessible, portable raised garden beds. These planters range in sizefrom 4′x6′ to 4′x10′. Wheel chairs can easily pull up under the planter and the gardener can reach to themiddle of the planter. Now that the planters have been planted up with radishes, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, spinach, onions, peas, beans and herbs the group home residents are caring for them. Our staff and volunteers visit each home once a week to run art and garden related activities. We have been eating salads from the gardens, creating trellises for the peas, and painting wooden tiles to decorate the planters. At the end of the program all the participants will come together for a Harvest Gathering and share their bounty with each other.

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Willow Springs home-based, accessible, therapeutic garden is beginning to take shape. We have an optimistic plan for our two acres of  land that includes a butterfly garden, bird feeding garden, raised bed vegetable gardens, art spaces, a treehouse, a performing area, a greenhouse, outdoor oven and much more. We are starting with the gardens in the front of the property so we can offer the community something right away by providing a beautiful view as they drive by. We hope thatthis funky frontgarden will be ourcalling card inviting passerbys in to take a look and find outwhat Willow Springs Creative Centre offersand how they can get involved. Our place out in Lappe, in Northwestern Ontario was originally a Finnish Co-op where the local farmers would bring their eggs and milk to sell. It was a general store selling dry goods, candy and the necessities of rural living in the 1930s.  Through the 1940s to the early 1980s the store was privately owned and gas pumps were added to augment the service. In our garden design we want ot pay tribute to the history of the place and therefore we have place an old car, we found in the bush at the back of the property, as the focal point of our front garden.  We will use many of the exisiting plants on the property to fill the gardens surrounding the car. We are going to use the engine compartment as a planter for annuals. A groups of young artists working in conjunction with the Thunder Bay Art Gallery’s Art Access Project are going to be creating the carinto apiece on art later this summer. Watch for the photos!

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