CROW WING COUNTY - The Northland Arboretum Park in Crow Wing County is filled with a rainbow of vegetables - red cabbage, red okra, brown onions. Children and young adults learn where the foods that interest them come from and how delicious fresh produce can be.
But that's not the only reason for this beautiful gift. They cultivated the garden under the guidance of master gardener Sally Jacobsen. And Jacobson not only uses vegetables, but also to make textile dyes.
"It's a great creative outlet," he says. "I want to try this and see if it works," as opposed to "I think I can do a great job, or I'll close up shop."
Jacobson became interested in fiber arts three decades ago while taking a course at the Weavers Guild. When the children arrived, he took second place. Then, a few years ago, she began to combine knitting with another hobby - gardening - making tinctures from plants. The wild grapes from her garden became the basis for the purple yarn to weave into her projects. Black walnut shells produce a rich brown color.
"A lot of them try," he said. "I tried dandelion, but didn't like the results, so I threw it away."
Following in the footsteps of brothers Bill Turcotte and Jackie Birkin, Jacobson became the University of Minnesota's 2020 Master Gardener Extension volunteer. With the lifting of restrictions related to Covid-19, she was able to animate a kindergarten at the Arboretum last summer. More than a dozen children join him every week to dig the garden, plant seeds, pull weeds and harvest vegetables.
"It gives children the basics of gardening, and the gardens produce a lot," he says. In addition to kid favorites - kale and broccoli - believe it or not, the plot is filled with lemon cucumbers, bok choy, purple beans, cantaloupe and more. Some will be the basis of an art project for lunch at the same time. Jacobson showed kindergartners how to capture the colors of summer by incorporating them into natural fibers like wool and cotton.
She also takes the kids through the arboretum to pick phloxes, goldenrods, hollyhocks and other beautiful flowers while using plants from their garden to dye the yarn. He also introduced them to flower punching – placing bright flowers between two pieces of muslin and punching them to transfer the color onto the fabric.
Candice Zimmerman, Executive Director of Arboretum Northland, is full of praise for the many volunteers Jacobsen and other extension master gardeners who help beautify the gardens and share the love of trees with others. “Very good cooperation,” he said. "They are our partners. They make this place really beautiful."
Growing up with a father and mother who cared for the earth and were gardeners and nurturers, Jane Burton always appreciated the importance of connecting with sunlight, earth and plants. After decades of teaching young children as an elementary school teacher, she knows that children learn in many ways. And today, while working as a volunteer gardener with 2nd and 3rd graders as they finished digging in the children's park residency program, she gave each of them a notebook lined with crayons and encouraged them to reflect on their experiences. .
"Some children are reluctant to express themselves in writing, but they work best with pictures," Burton says. One student writes quick words, another draws a bright yellow sun on a tree, and a third illustrates the mystery of growing beans reaching for the sky in a toy house.
“We did what scientists do: observe, write, report, we speculate what will happen in the future,” Burton says.
Burton and his team of Olmsted County Master Gardeners mentor students in the after-school and summer child care programs at Sunset Terrace Elementary School in Rochester. When they leave the program, they take their journal with them, along with encouragement to continue gardening and journaling.
"It's so powerful to understand when you see it and write it down," Burton says. "It really gives a whole new feel to whatever you're trying to learn."
This article is reproduced with permission from the University of Minnesota Extension.
Alison Sandve, Extension News Media Manager, can be reached at ajsandve@umn.edu, 612-626-4077 (office) or 651-492-0811 (cell). Contact Extension Communications at extnews@umn.edu .
