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Bothin Organic Garden

New! Reserve the B.O.G.!

Forever Green, the theme for the 100^th Anniversary of Girl Scouts, will harness the power of the movement by engaging girls in community action projects focused on having a significant impact on the environment. 

The second phase of Take Action opportunities to celebrate Girl Scouting includes creating, rehabbing and/or converting community green space through 2012. To kick off the project GSNorCal has installed an instructional organic garden at Camp Bothin. 

A Day in the B.O.G.

Click here to reserve your day at the B.O.G. now!

The B.O.G. offers girls an exciting venue to explore organic gardening. What compost is, how it benefits the earth and how it's made. Not only does the B.O.G. provide an opportunity to be outside and get dirty but also offers different curriculum options to learn more about animal habitats, water and compost. Click here for information on how to reserve the B.O.G. and about the different curriculum available.

The goals for the Bothin Organic Garden Project (B.O.G.) are many fold:

• Restoring some of the Bothin Youth Center history. It used to have an apple orchard on the property.
• Create a garden and orchard that are organic and sustained through the actions of girls and volunteers.
• Provide engaging curriculum on science, history, math and environmental stewardship from camp season through the traditional Girl Scout year.
• Give access and outdoor experience, enriched by the garden and curriculum, to girls and families who do not have Girl Scouting or pathways to environmental stewardship readily available to them.

We want and need to include our volunteers and girls in this process to bring the garden to life. How can you be involved: 

• Partnerships: Sustaining the garden means we need help with it’s maintenance, growth and development. Are you involved with or do you know individuals/organizations that would benefit from access to the Bothin Garden like master gardening, sustainability programs or school programs? One of our partners in this project is Benjamin Eichorn from Grow Your Lunch. Ben offers not only expertise in sustainable organic garden design, installation and management but also curriculum development.
• Older Girls: Based in Marin or not, we would love to have older girls become our Dirt Divas and Garden Gnomes. Not only will they have a role in the growth of the garden, they would create their own projects that they work on together. That could mean so many things: harvest distribution, long range science projects, stewarding younger girls, etc.
• Juniors and Cadettes who want to learn more about organic gardens, farming and good food through monthly visits to maintain, plant and harvest. What a great Silver Project.
• Daisies and Brownies who want to do fun science, art and history - OUTSIDE – with the new curriculum that is now housed on-site ready for leader delivery
• Troop Leaders or Adult Girl Scouts who would like to donate time to girls to do the above. Don’t let the BOG look for company too long.
• In kind donations: We could use all manner of supplies to get this garden started. Please click here to see a list of what is needed and how you can help. You may have an extra shovel or two, or perhaps you are handy with irrigation and can donate some lines?  Whatever your interest or expertise we can definitely put it to use.

We hope that our project inspires girls, volunteers, and families across the council to take a look at the green space or lack of green space around and Discover what you can do; make the Connections that are local, useful and enriching, and Take Action in your neighborhood. Let us know what your ideas are for your community and how we can extend this experience to others.

Questions, Comments, Interest and Donations: Kymberly Miller at kmiller@girlscoutsnorcal.org, 510-562-8470 x6015.