Monday, April 22, 2013

Earth Day Weekend Projects!

Ladybug in the garden
What a great Earth Day Weekend with North County Community Services! This weekend Callaway Golf, Cal Coast Academy, and Teen Volunteers in Action all did wonderful volunteer projects with us. We love volunteers and are happy when groups come out to give a helping hand, and we are especially thankful for these three groups because of all the materials they donated to complete the projects!
Callaway Golf volunteers at the end of their project.
On Saturday May 20th, Callaway Golf came to the Gardens at North River Road in Oceanside with about 20 volunteers, 120 pepper plants, soil amendment, and all the materials needed to build a new compost bin for North County's Food Bank! In two hours, they were able to plant five beds of peppers, and build a stacking compost bin system. The compost bins are made of cedar, which is naturally rot resistant (a great quality in a compost bin!). Callaway Golf completes community service projects every month, and it was a pleasure to be able to partner with them to make this month's project and earth-friendly one.

Our finished succulent garden at Balderrama Preschool!
In the afternoon on Saturday, Cal Coast Academy installed a succulent garden in the courtyard of our Balderrama preschool in Oceanside. Where there was once an unused box of sand, there is now a gorgeous, low water decorative garden. With the help of about a dozen volunteers, they unloaded three pickup trucks of dirt, leveled the ground, and planted many spike-free succulents and grasses. They even brought three cute garden statues to add to the fun! We are so grateful for Cal Coast Academy bringing this project together and going above and beyond coordinating materials and donations to make this dream garden a reality!
Cal Coast Academy volunteers unloading dirt.
Cal coast Academy Volunteers

TVIA volunteers planted 36 tomato plants
Vegetable markers by TVIA
On Sunday, Teen Volunteers in Action brought out 17 volunteers, including teens and parents, to work at the Gardens at North River Road in Oceanside. They brought with them soil amendment, and enough tomatoes seedlings to plant three beds of tomatoes. They also brought paint markers to finish vegetable stake markers for our gardens! It was great to have garden work weeding, amending soil, and planting tomatoes for the teenagers, and a fun artsy project for the parents in the shade. We are looking forward to a big tomato harvest this summer!

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Spring is here!

The harvest mural at the Balderrama Preschool is almost finished!
This NCCS preschool garden in Oceanside had a great season!
Spring is in the air! It is a great time for volunteer projects with North County Community Services. We have many groups scheduled for spring volunteer projects like cleaning, gardening, painting, and sprucing up! We are especially looking forward to volunteer projects with North Coast Church at two different sites for their Weekend of Service event. They will be giving one of our preschools a whole face-lift, as well as helping at the Gardens at North River Road. Look out for before and after pictures coming soon! We also have spring projects scheduled with Kids Korps, the Navy, Immersion, Callaway Golf, Teen Volunteers in Action, Life Technologies, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Genentech.

Preschoolers planting a spring Garden

Although we have lots of volunteer groups scheduled, we do have more projects available for the right group! If you are interested in volunteering, you can always contact Abby at volunteer@sdnccs.org to see what is available with NCCS! We do volunteer projects all year round, but spring is such a great time to do projects because it is usually not too hot and not too cold. 

Spring means we are harvesting lots of winter vegetables before they turn bitter in the heat (volunteers picked 21 lbs of lettuce yesterday from the Gardens at North River Road!). We are also getting summer vegetables started- peppers, beans, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, and melons love some heat, and can all be planted now through at least June. HAPPY GARDENING AND HAPPY VOLUNTEERING!!!