In the summer of 2006 we built the gan (garden) next to Hyde Park. It took a group of overzealous seventeen-year-olds with a strong love for wearing overalls and seven hard-working weeks, but at the end of that summer we had the first real functional gan in a long time.
We started out small with plants like mint, basil, and snap peas, but four years down the road, our gan has nearly trippled in size. We still grow peas, mint, and basil but now we have the space to grow lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant. So not only is the gan a great source for our seasonings and salads, but it is also a great place for informal learning and growth to take place.
Every day we work on and water the gan, we pick the herbs and vegetables, we run peulot (programs) with Jocelyn our Gan Specialist, and we sit and enjoy the aromatic mint and basil that grows four-years strong in our free time. At this point, the gan is a fantastic way for us to actualize upon our agricultural roots, seeing as the origins of Habonim camping trace back to farming communities modeled after the Israeli Kibbutz. It seems more than appropriate that
once every decade or so we make a concerted effort to reconnect with the roots that got us to where we are today. How fitting then, that we use plants and their roots to help connect us with ours.
Here is a picture of our beloved gan.
...Check out and Viva la Dance Party
M.C. SHMOLLY
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