It’s Summer, and here at the Horseheads Library, we are bustling and blooming! Bustling with Summer Reading Club activities for kids and adults and blooming with our library garden. Late in Spring, my co-workers decided to have a children’s gardening program, based on the book “The Curious Garden” by Peter Brown. Kids who came to this program planted a variety of plants, including sunflowers, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and even their own chia heads. After a quick successful start in a miniature greenhouse, the plants were soon thriving, and our in-house gardeness extraordinaire (pictured here) got to work, transplanting, weeding and creating an outside garden spot for our bounty. This has attracted a lot of patron attention and appreciation as all want to know what we are growing, and more importantly what we will do with all of these goodies. So, at harvest time, we have decided to host a program where participants can come and sample some recipes using our produce, possible selections will include grilled pizza, a caprese salad, basil smoothies and cucumber soup. The date will be determined as we see how our garden grows, so be watching our website calendar for this and come and sample some of our wonderful garden fare, as our “Curious Garden” turns into an “Epi-curious Garden.” Also, new gardening books to check out include: “Grow, Cook, Eat” by Willi Galloway, Michelle Obama’s “American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and gardens across America”, and don’t forget our gardening magazines such as Horticulture and Birds and Blooms.
Happy Reading and Eating this Summer!
Janet Ackerman, Supervisor of the Horseheads Library