Garden Mosaics activities in the Bronx

Orlando Velez: In the garden we plant and grow vegetables. We did many projects like Bird Watch, Weed Watch, Gardener Story, Neighborhood Exploration, Gardening Enhancement and Garden Inventory.

The project I liked the most was Weed Watch, but it was very challenging. It was very challenging because we had to estimate a lot, and it was a close estimate. It was hard because wehad to keep quiet and sometimes I am not that patient.

I also liked Neighborhood Exploration. We saw a garden near to a Senior Citizen House and I thought that we can help them in taking a better care of it.

Gabriela Cisnero: What I have been doing in the Garden Mosaics is planting the plants, pulling out the weeds, harvesting and also cleaning the garbage that we found on the garden as part of the Action Project program.

I went to Saint Mary’s Park with Milagros and the students that go to the garden and we did Bird Watch. The part I liked the best was watering the plants, and

taking care of our community garden among other things, because that is how I know that I have a direct influence in my community.

Jhenny's Memories: I would like to tell you some things about Garden Mosaics. My friends and I have been learning about Weed Watch. We learned that many plants are weeds. We also learned that a strawberry is a weed .When we found that out we were all surprised.
We also did Bird Watch and learned about many birds that live in ourneighborhood. The birds we saw were House Sparrows, MourningDoves, American Robbins, and many other birds. I also worked last year in a couple of wonderful progr ams called Gardener Story and Garden Inventory.
This year I am working in the Neighborhood Exploration and Action Project. We worked a lot this past summer in our garden. I know you will have fun!

Mariano Velez: In the garden I was having fun especially when the water fight started!Everyone was getting wet. But the best part s were planting and harvesting. Sometimes we got to play but then we had to keep working and that was what was fun about the garden.
So why don't you join us! If you can't, try next time, because you canalways learn new things. I learned a lot from Weed Watch, Bird Watch and Gardener Story! From our last Neighborhood Exploration I learnedthat our community needs to work on some issues.

Juana & Ana: We were working very hard in the last three years and now we can say that our Community Garden is our favorite place to be. Our favorite activity was the Gardener Story. We had a lot of fun with Paco’s stories. He is an old Puerto Rican gardener who taught us many of his tips on how to plant. On Weed Watch, we worked hard too. Collecting and classifying data can be a learning experience. Also we were able to meet important people who helped us to understand better about weeds, not only the problems that they create, but their benefits too.