9 Aug
Paseo de Jardines 2012!!!
Guys,
This Saturday is the 3rd Annual Paseo de Jardines, otherwise known as the Pilsen Garden Tour. This year the garden tour has a special theme, it will be looking at conservation projects in place at the gardens.
Roots & Rays is one of the hosting gardens and we are excited to be showing off our work, – the garden looks lovely! : )
The event is free, and starts at 4pm at the Orozco School parking lot, at 1940 W. 18th St, Pilsen (close to 18th St Pink line stop). We’ll be raffling off a rain barrel, a compost bin and a $75 i-go gift card. Seats are limited so either come early, or plan to bike/carpool and follow the bus.
More information at: http://pilsenalianzaverde.wordpress.com/
Please invite family and friends!
30 May
Build on
We had a great day on Saturday with the Build On group from Juarez High School. There were 21 students in total, brought by Jessie Schwartz.
We started the morning off with a garden tour led by Reihonna…
We got to pick and taste different greens, like the spicy mustard, and the mellow bright green lettuce leaves. The strawberries were delicious, perfect timing to harvest a couple and eat on the spot. Bright red, sweet and delicious!
After the tour, we divided up into 4 groups and got to work on some activities.
We filled all the rain barrels, then watered the plants and all the raised beds. Others planted marigolds..
Some of us just sat in the sun, chilling out and taking pictures. It was a really hot day. Water breaks were constant and it was lovely weather to just sit in the shade and hear the bees buzzing…
Others explored the garden underworld and unburied some hidden treasure! Well, that’s what we were hoping for, but unfortunately it was just an old locker… : (
But we did find something interesting inside… Huge, very slimy, friendly slugs. After retrieving them from the rusty locker, we found them a nice, dark, new home.
We also weeded, picked up litter, tore up newspaper for our compost pile, sorted out our recycling corner with all odd parts of wood and strange bits and pieces that we get from our neighbors for repurposing. We made new stands for our rain barrels and pushed the existing ones to new heights! Loads more water pressure now, thanks guys! We helped Lupe from across the road with her bricks, collected some big rocks to make the border of our new raingarden… Phew! What else? You guys were restless!
Thanks so much for coming! You were all amazing, – its unbelievable how much you got done. We really hope you come back, you guys have just the kind of energy we need here at the garden! A special thank you to Jessie from Build On, who organized our day!
If you had a good time and fancy coming back, remember we’re here every Sunday from 11-3pm, and we’ve got all sorts of activities, from gardening to painting to building. Families and siblings also welcome! We hope to see you soon : )
P.S. For those of you who took seeds and pots, don’t forget to come back for the soil!
21 May
Photos from Throwdown!
Hi all! We had a great week at Roots & Rays, the highlight of course being the Kid’s Garden Throwdown that happened last Saturday. We were a bit worried about the rain, but thanks to the help and support from all of our neighbors, the event happened without a hitch and we found that it takes more than rain to stop us! Thanks very much for all those who rallied together at the last minute to lend us the much needed tents!
Arts, crafts and education 
We had several activities happening throughout the day. Mia set up a safety table, with interesting first aid info and some coloring activities for our younger friends. On another table, we made seed bombs to further beautify our neighborhood! We also had some plant pot decorating and planting going on, thanks very much to our friends at the Greater Pilsen Economic Development Association for the buttons, and to Patricia Domiguez for the lotería, which was also a big hit!
Food!! 
We had some great food! Hurray for Yotl Ramirez from the San Jose Obrero Mission, who kindly donated his time, skill and goodwill to be our grill master and spent the day cooking up hotdogs and veggies.
All of our produce was kindly provided by Daniel Suarez from Blue Island Wholesale Produce, the biggest hit being the cucumber salad. We must have gone through nearly twenty enormous cucumbers. Which just goes to show that healthy foods can also be delicious! We also served up a couple of items from the garden, in particular greens, radishes and herbs. And how can we forget those amazing worm cupcakes? Thanks Lauren!
Thanks also to Nathalia from The Greater Pilsen Economic Development Association, who is a total star, and arranged sweets and pastries from Starbucks; and to Israel Vargas, also from San Jose Obrero Mission and Families in Crisis, who provided our much needed tables for the event.
Music, entertainment and special guests ♪ ♫ ♬ …. 
Our DJ Goerge from Gimme Da Mic did a terrific job with the music, playing special hits that were total crowd pleasers, we were very lucky to have him!
Our party was so special that we even had a special guest appearance: Dora!! Dora was a hit among young and old, boys and girls. Everyone wanted to get their picture taken with Dora! A very special thanks to Matt Kissane from Absolutely Entertainment for arranging her visit; it was very special indeed!
Piñatas
Well, you can’t have a party without a piñata, which is why we had two!
Diego’s was the first to get hit, followed by an Angry Bird! And boy, are those kid’s strong! When they were through with them, all that was left was a pile of shredded paper, and every last sweet was gone, LOL!
After the piñatas, the party started to die down, but even the clean-up was fun, thanks to the enthusiastic boys who helped us by lugging the heavy stuff back to place, and the many neighbors who stayed behind to lend a helping hand. 
Exhausted (but very happy) team after the throwdown…
Thanks again for all the help. So many organizations, families and individuals chipped in and worked together to make the throwown a very special day. We had a lot of fun, we hope you guys did too! Hopefully we can plan another event soon, so please send us your suggestions. Next time, if we’re lucky, we may even have some sun shining down on us!
More photos can be found here thanks to our friends at Victoria Lynn Photography!
10 May
Kid’s Garden Throwdown!
Hi guys! We have a great event planned for this weekend: Roots & Rays Kid’s Garden Throwdown!
We’ll have some arts, crafts and gardening workshops, a DJ, some pinatas, and food! We’ll also have some local artists painting the shed and others doing face painting!
Here’s the flyer, and if you want to get involved, give us a call!
