Sprout and About: Perennials and Pie Promises

Many a smiling face turned to the sunshine during the second week of summer program, as the rains subsided (most of time) to a few hot and humid days. Our students weathered the weather and worked hard on several different projects around campus including tree mulching and staking, vegetable garden upkeep, and perennial bed maintenance. The perennial bed in front of our school building has been running more than amuck since early spring, but students have turned it into a beautiful and very recognizable home to apple trees, currant bushes, monarda (also known as bee balm), baptisia, black-eyed susan, lilies and several other flowering plants, including mint. The kitchen has even harvested some of the mint to use in future recipes. The perennial beds do double duty in more ways than just mint though. The black and red currants (both old and newly planted) have nice edible fruit, good for both using in recipes and eating off the bush. Currants (the black more so than the red) are well-known for their nutritional and medicinal benefits, with a demonstrated ability to defend the body against cancer, aging, inflammation, and neurological diseases. They also have one of the highest anti-oxidant ratings of any fruit, are high in vitamin C and provide essential nutrients & minerals that are missing from most people’s diets. Our apples are in their first year of producing fruit and although the young trees don’t yet have branches sagging from the weight of a good harvest we can imagine a year of Laraway’s own apple pies, jams and our annual cider-press. For now, we can enjoy the colorful and much more elegantly coiffed garden, no imagination necessary.


Submitted by Hannah Bober, VYDC AmeriCorps State member

Bee balm in the garden