US visits Corpse Flower

This week an amazing botanical event went down in the Bay Area! Trudy, the "Titan Arum" or "Corpse Flower" at the UC Botanical Garden bloomed. Why is this amazing?? Trudy is 16 years old, hadn't bloomed in 4 years, and her blossom was 6 feet tall! It only stayed open for about one day, and gave off the stench of rotting flesh in order to attract the flies that would pollinate it in its native home in Indonesia.

Walter and Adriani, youth and adult staff members respectively, went along with me to Berkeley to check out this massive and stinky blossom (in photo). Although Trudy was already starting to close up her blossom and was no longer stinky, we were so thankful for the opportunity to see this massive tropical flower.

We loved the rest of our tour at the garden as well, thanks to Christine Manoux who showed us around! We were all so inspired and felt like we had travelled the world after strolling through the Asian, South American, and African sections of the garden. What a special visit!

GoogleServe 2009

We would like to say a huge thank you to the folks from Google who came out to the International Studies Academy garden on June 9th. The team built new beds, mulched, built a fabulous pathway and were overall garden superstars. Thank you so much for your support and dedication!!!

If you're interested in organizing a work day for your company or organization please contact us: helpout@urbansprouts.org

2009 Childhood Obesity Conference

Tomorrow at the 2009 Childhood Obesity Conference in LA, I'll be presenting on Urban Sprouts' program model for garden-based education and our recent evaluation results!

This work is a partnership with Portland, Oregon's Ecotrust, and also shows off their accomplishments in Farm to School and creating locally grown and produced school lunches.

If you'd like to see the slides and download the handout of the model, follow this link.

Also check out these California resources on School Gardens and Farm to School.

Farmer-in-Residence Update

Our 4 Farmer-in-Residence families are off to a tremendous start. We have harvested mustards and lettuce, the squash are blossoming and we're about ready to begin trellising our cucumbers. Work will begin in the next few weeks on new beds at ISA and June Jordan as we prepare to expand our program to incorporate more families.
More Photos.

If you are interested in helping with any of the expansion projects please contact audrey@urbansprouts.org.

Join Us Online

Urban Sprouts has entered the social media world.
Please click on the following links to join us on Facebook and Twitter. Stay updated on Urban Sprouts news and opportunities.
Help us spread the word!