Everyone should be able to enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables. The Kroger Community Kitchen Garden at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden helps make that possible by growing and harvesting produce and delivering it to Feed More’s Meals on Wheels and Kids Cafe programs serving Central Virginia’s most vulnerable populations. We started the Community Kitchen Garden with […]
Read MoreNeed some tips for starting your vegetable garden? We have them here! Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s Senior Horticulturist Laurel Matthew recently shared some of her insight on Facebook Live and and we posted it to YouTube as well. Laurel was kind to provide some helpful information she’s learned over the years (below). Laurel works hard […]
Read MoreThe iconic view of the Conservatory and the Central Garden leading up to it immediately draw in visitors. However, hidden behind the Conservatory, an oft-overlooked treasure awaits. The Kroger Community Kitchen Garden and the Bob Stapleton and Keith Tignor Apiary are two of my favorite places to show visitors. Although the Kitchen Garden has been […]
Read MoreThe Garden is full of beautiful landscapes, blossoming flowers, art installations and small wildlife. It is beautiful year round and always offers something new to engage with. However, one of the most amazing areas of the Garden is the Kroger Community Kitchen Garden. This time of the year it’s bustling with visitors, horticulturists, volunteers and school […]
Read MorePeople right here in Central Virginia struggle with hunger every day. The populations most likely to be affected by hunger, children and the elderly, may have trouble not only getting enough food but getting the right kind of food — fresh locally grown vegetables and fruits. The Kroger Community Kitchen Garden is working to change that. […]
Read MoreHow We are Using Mustard Greens to Fight Southern Blight Soil is vital and essential because it sustains life. You cannot have a healthy garden without healthy soil. The rear portion of the Kroger Community Kitchen Garden (KCKG) was hit last year with southern blight, a common soil-borne, plant disease. Southern blight affects all parts of the plant and […]
Read MoreSadly, we recently discovered southern blight on some of the tomatoes and peppers in our Community Kitchen Garden. Since our mission is education, we wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the causes and symptoms of southern blight and what can be done about it. Also, it’s a chance to show that everyone — even […]
Read MoreTomatoes are a favorite summer vegetable for many, and for good reason. There is nothing like a sweet juicy tomato fresh off the vine in the middle of July! Tomatoes are a perfect vegetable for beginner gardeners because they are so easy to grow, and there are so many types and varieties to choose from. […]
Read MoreCarMax Cares about our Garden What would you do with 295 hours? You could sleep for 16 days straight, or brush your teeth 8,850 times. Or you could help with community-improving projects by volunteering all of those hours with Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. That’s exactly what the CarMax Foundation is doing during the month of June. […]
Read MoreAs heirlooms are cherished, so are heirloom vegetables and heritage herbs of yesteryear. Virginia’s rich lineage of historic perennials, annuals, herbs, shrubs and trees are still available for planting today, including some that grew under the watch-care of President Thomas Jefferson. Seeds from plant varieties grown or documented by Jefferson are collected and preserved by the […]
Read MoreA new apiary is open for visitors to learn about bees. The Bob Stapleton & Keith Tignor Apiary, adjacent to the Community Kitchen Garden, will definitely add some sweetness to your visit at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden this summer. The apiary will feature a 10-frame observation hive, traditional Langstroth-style hives, and a top-bar hive, which, by its design, is wheelchair […]
Read MoreIt’s that time again! It’s time to come out of winter hibernation and get the garden ready for spring planting! If you’re like me, you’ve been waiting for the warmer weather and are itching to get outside again. The winter months give us the opportunity to rest a bit and plan for the next year, but […]
Read MoreIf 1,200 pounds of fresh-picked summer squash appeared on your doorstep one summer day, what would you cook? Amory James knows. He is the Food Production Manager at FeedMore’s Community Kitchen, where we’ve delivered 5,297 pounds of fresh produce harvested from the Community Kitchen Garden so far this summer. James and his staff use the vegetables to prepare between […]
Read MoreSometimes, you just get lucky with the camera. That’s what happened earlier this week when we had our staff “huddle” (a weekly 15-minute stand-up staff meeting) next to the Community Kitchen Garden. My colleague Lucy Coggin and I were geeking out about the Spanish flag (Ipomoea lobata). I was giddy at what she was whispering to […]
Read MoreFor those you out there that consider yourselves lovers of craft beer and beautiful gardens, you might already be aware of a fun new partnership that started in 2015. The craft beer industry is quickly becoming an integral part of the local and tourist economies in Richmond, and across the state of Virginia. So the […]
Read MoreThis is turning out to be a very successful season in the the Community Kitchen Garden. It’s the second week of July, and this week we delivered 518 lbs. of fresh vegetables to Feedmore’s Community Kitchen. This brings our total for the season to just over 3,000 lbs. To put that into perspective, here are […]
Read MoreIt’s been another hot but productive week in the Community Kitchen Garden. We hit our first 1,000 lbs. of produce this week with help from a group from Forest City Enterprises on Monday and young volunteers participating in the Youth Volunteer Program, which kicked off this week. The YVP is a summer program for youth […]
Read MoreIt’s been a great, but hot, week in the Community Kitchen Garden. This week we took two deliveries to Feedmore’s Community Kitchen for a combined total of 478 lbs. This one week’s deliveries exceeded our year-to-date donations. Welcome summer! Here’s what we delivered: beets: 73 lbs., squash/zucchini: 324 lbs., celery: 38 lbs., kale: 10 lbs., eggplant: […]
Read MoreThis week Genworth Financial sent another great group of volunteers to work in the Community Kitchen Garden. The volunteers helped harvest 159 lbs. of fresh vegetables to take to Feedmore’s Community Kitchen, our largest donation of the season so far. This donation brings our year-to-date total to 461 lbs. The harvest included spring crops like kale and […]
Read MoreLewis Ginter Botanidal Garden is usually a pretty colorful place, but in the Community Kitchen Garden those colors equate to a wide variety of nutrients! Red vegetables like tomatoes and watermelon are high in lycopene, which helps the body fight off free radicals. Orange fruits and veggies like carrots, sweet potatoes, and winter squash are […]
Read MoreBeing a volunteer at the Garden means you sometimes get the best view of the blooms. Plus, you have an insider’s perspective on the Garden. When horticulture volunteer Hillary Liddick emailed me earlier this week she was so cute. “My husband got me a way-too-fancy camera for my birthday this month, so I’m trying to put […]
Read MoreLast week was an important week in the Community Kitchen Garden: we made our first harvest of the season! On Monday morning I had the pleasure of working with Lewis Ginter volunteer Diane Kerns and HandsOn Greater Richmond volunteer Becky Potter, and we harvested 81 pounds of lettuce and kale. That’s nowhere near the largest […]
Read Moreby Laura Schumm, Community Kitchen Garden Horiculturist, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden A recent Tweet from the folks over at Kersey Creek Elementary School in Hanover County got us thinking about Harlequin bugs and how we can help provide suggestions for combating them organically. There are many pesky insects pest that you will most likely run into sooner or […]
Read Moreby Laura Schumm, Community Kitchen Garden Horticulturist, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Spring is here, and it has been a very busy week in the Community Kitchen Garden. This past Saturday, a group of student volunteers from Virginia Commonwealth University and several Lewis Ginter volunteers worked cutting back ornamental grasses around the Conservatory, planting early spring vegetables, […]
Read Moreby Hilaire Ashworth, PR & Marketing Intern, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Today volunteers from HandsOn Greater Richmond helped Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden staff prepare for the spring growing season in the Community Kitchen Garden. Since the weather has been too cold to plant anything outside, volunteers assisted with repotting seedlings in the greenhouse. There are approximately 3,000 seedlings already started and […]
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