The Garden at 485 Elm
People growing together:
a collaborative community garden in Montpelier, Vermont

Young Hacks Academy: Thinking Outside the Garden

On July 22, The Garden at 485 Elm’s garden coordinator, Cindy Delfino, led a session at Young Hacks Academy in Montpelier.

Cindy had accepted an invitation to present the group of slightly-younger-than-tweens with a problem to solve.

Many in the group had some garden experience.  They enjoyed swapping zucchini stories. There was the time a family left a box of zucchini by the roadside with a “FREE” sign, which, at the end of the day, might have continued even more zucchini. Another participant told of catapulting zucchini over the fence into a neighbor’s yard.

Popular topics included cucumber beetles (“Gross!”) and the best kinds of poop to increase soil quality.

Cindy challenged the group to create an interface that would educate others their age about community gardens. After she left, they went to work. We would love to know what they came up with.

Image of children from the Young Hacks Academy website