Teaching others how to garden in our challenging Sonoran desert climate is just one of the ways our group, Rita Gardens, is helping support gardening success in our community. We have workshops for all ages and abilities on everything from Gardening in the Desert, Companion Planting, Organic Gardening, Composting, Raising Earthworms, Kids’ Gardening and Harvesting Food From the Desert. We also offer other creative DIY workshops like Soap From Scratch, Canning 101, Healthy Gut Homemade Probiotics and How to Make Prickly Pear Jelly. By the way, we are always looking for people to help teach workshops so if you have a talent in any of these areas and love to teach, email: Welovetogrow@gmail.com.
Our work is endorsed by Calvin Baker and the Vail School District. We are actively partnering with several schools in our area to either refurbish existing gardens or help develop new ones. School kids are always energetic gardeners, enthusiastically planning, digging, planting, weeding and composting in eager anticipation of harvest time! Many of our schools are already doing lots of great things in this area, including Cottonwood Elementary’s “Brian’s Park” Preschool Garden; Rincon Vista Middle School’s wonderful garden retreat; Empire High School’s 3 distinctly different garden areas; Old Vail Middle School’s amazing aquaponics; and Cienega High School’s gardens, green houses and orchard; to touch base on just a few. Look for more school gardens popping up in your neighborhood soon!
