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Baba Annie’s Garden with the Radiance of Giant Sunflowers
Thanks to the warm weather, the sunflowers in 94-yearold Annie Zaharichuk’s Vegreville garden are blooming out of control this year. Some of the sunflowers are over 10 feet tall and have over 35 blooms per plant. Annie’s grandson Jaden planted a few sunflower seeds last year and this year the sunflowers started popping all over the garden. Annie always looks forward to the sunflowers because they bring her so much joy.
Garden Tales at the Library
Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent
Ten participants from three to six years of age learned firsthand about growing a garden at the Garden Tales library program from May 15 to July 24 at Vegreville Centennial Library.
Samantha White, Library Assistant and Assistant Programmer, explained, “This program ran every other week from May to July and we had it on a bi-weekly schedule so that the kids would be able to see a significant difference in the growth of the plants when they returned.
We created it at the same time as our Seed Library and used seeds/donated plants from the Seed Library, including seed potatoes, tomatoes, wildflowers, sunflowers, lettuce, onions, and carrots. We also planted zinnias and marigolds that were donated by Sheila Steinbach when she volunteered to read for us one week. We had members of the Vegreville Garden Club volunteer to cover the story time portion of the program, including Sheila Steinbach, and Diana and Wayne Ashton.
Some program days were themed, but each included a story time, a craft, and either an opportunity to plant something, or water and track the progress of what was already planted. Some themes included an herb garden, a rock garden, and a fairy garden. For our fairy garden day, we painted little homes and gnomes for any fairies that might visit our garden.
We created the program for a few reasons. We wanted to utilize the patio planters and give kids the opportunity to learn new skills in a low-stakes environment. We also wanted to encourage people to use the patio space, as it is an extension of the library, to read or do crafts or just hang out.
We are hoping to have a mini harvest at the end of August/beginning of September.”
