November happenings in the gardens

This month's meeting started with a crisp apple snack and a sampling of fruit from the gardens. 

Thank you to Mrs. Szabo for the yummy snack. 

We still hadn't had a hard freeze so earlier in the week I harvested the last of the tomatoes and peppers so the kids could try them for themselves. We composted all of the scraps. Most of the kids tried and liked our harvest. Some tried it and didn't like it, but at least they tried something. 

Then we started working in the gardens. First order of business was to remove the still thriving papaya tree from the compost pile. 

The kids broke it up and we put it into the compost pile, along with coffee grounds, shredded paper, food scraps and egg shells everyone brought from home. 

Some friends cleaned out the tomato bed and we composted those plants. 

They did a great job!

Another group worked hard in the second grade gardens cleaning out the dead plants and weeds. We cleaned those all up and trashed the weeds and composted the plant parts. 

A few friends turned the compost as much as they could before we had to hurry off to class for the day. 

Thanks to everyone, parents and students, for your hard work!

October is even more work

This week we did a long term science project and tried to clean out some in the 2nd grade gardens. 

The science project was to see what happens with decomposition. Each student buried something to see if it will decompose. Some of the things we buried were:  a toilet paper roll, part of a backpack, plastic wrappers, fabric scraps, food waste and a drawing. 

Each student was given a plot in one of our beds and they buried their item. The 5th graders documented where everything was buried and now we wait. We will check on our decomposing items in the spring. 

We took the rest of the time to clean out a couple of beds in the second grade gardens. 

These guys were breaking down a huge sunflower to put in the compost. 

All hands on deck to get rid of the ever bothersome weeds. 

We left it much cleaner than we found it. 

Back to work

Last week's meeting was a lot of work. We needed to harvest sunflowers and weed.  

There were lots of sunflowers and the kids did a great job of removing the seed heads and pulling out the stems without damaging other plants. 

They did a great job of separating the seed heads from the stalks (which will be composted) and all weeds were thrown away. 

This empty bed will be used for our next lesson...decomposition. Look for details in your reminder email. 

After the sunflowers were removed we found these beautiful basil plants. 

Removing weeds from the pepper plants. We are hopeful we have enough warm days left to get one more pepper harvest. 

A couple of the beds had some garlic coming back up from what was left behind  in the spring. 

Working hard to get those weeds out without hurting the tulips and zinnias in there. 

All of the sunflower stalks were moved to the area around the compost. We are holding off composting them for two reasons...1) we need to break them down a bit smaller before we add them to the existing compost.  And 2) look at that amazing plant growing out of the compost. We have determined that it is a papaya tree. It has blooms on it so we are waiting to see how far it gets before it dies. Papaya trees are tropical. They won't survive our cold weather. This one is so big we couldn't even transplant it to the greenhouse. So, once the papaya dies off we will begin adding compostables to the pile...look for an email requesting students bring in items to compost. 

After the rain and winds from Hurricane Matthew we had some damage to the greenhouse. We are hoping to get that repaired so we can start using the greenhouse for more than just storage. We have a lime tree to put in there very soon and a project planned for the spring. Be on the look-out for more information coming. 

Garden Club is back in session

Today we had our first garden club meeting of the school year. We have 26 enthusiastic members who are ready to work hard and get dirty in the gardens. 

Our first priority today was to check out the state of affairs in the gardens. We found many treasures. 

And a LOT of weeds. What are we going to do with them?

The butterfly bush is in full bloom. And boy does it smell sweet! 

Our scavenger hunt had us searching for things high and low. This fit the "something soft" tally mark.  It's a lamb's ear leaf and one garden club member said it really does feel like a lamb's ear. 

Those are the nasturtiums we planted in the spring to try to help prevent squash bugs. They sure are pretty and healthy looking. The squash bugs didn't touch them. But they devoured the squash, zucchini, melon, watermelon and pumpkin plants. Oh well. 

And we found another one of those caterpillars with wasp eggs all over it. So cool to see. But I'm sure the caterpillar isn't happy about it. 

We are trying to figure out what this plant is that's growing from the compost. The compost hasn't been turned all summer so it got cool. Since it's not heating up right now some kind of seed from what we have composted is growing. It's huge. I'm going to do some digging this weekend and I hope to find out what it is soon.  I will keep you all updated. 

One of the sunflowers is still blooming. So pretty. 

This sunflower is ready to drop its seeds. 

This is an okra seed pod. The okra wasn't picked so it has gone to seed. 

We found a garden friend. This praying mantis was minding his own business on the stalk of a sunflower. He didn't appreciate us watching him. But he was cool to look at. 

We had a great first meeting of the year. We found so much to look at. Everyone got some kind of herb or pepper or tomato to take home. We cleaned out some weeds but there's still so much to be done. Thank you to all of the kids for your hard work and to the parents for helping out with our group. It means so much to have your support!

Our first big harvest and donation

This week I went to water the 4th grade gardens. I was surprised to see the garlic was beyond ready to be harvested so I started digging. 

I found a lot of garlic. And a few extra large ones. 

I noticed that the onions needed harvesting as well so Mrs. Friedel came in the next morning and we dug up all of the onions too. 

I contacted the Chesterfield Food Bank and they scheduled a pick up from us for Friday. 

Naturally we had to have a Garden Club picture. 

In the bag is the garlic and in the wagon, the onions. 

I also took a few photos of the gardens:

The herb garden

The butterfly garden

The zucchini and squash plants

The tomatoes

Remember I said the garlic was "beyond ready" to be harvested...well some of it had opened up so much that the bulbs had opened and individual cloves were separated. We will save these cloves for planting our next batch. 

Another year of Garden Club has come to an end

This week we held our final two Garden Club meetings for the school year. 

Monday was cool and rainy but we did get our basil planted in the 2nd grade gardens. We also harvested lots of radishes. 

We rinsed them and sent each child home with one to try. And we talked about parts of a plant. What part of the radish plant do we eat?

The root!

We had a fun snack of dirt cups. The moms prepared pudding and the kids got to add their Oreos and gummy worms (or bears). 

On Thursday the weather was sunny and warm. We planted the last of the basil and the bell peppers in the 4th grade gardens. We also weeded a bit and popped the flower heads off of the onions and garlic. We were given some bean seeds from the Barkers and planted them in with the sunflowers. The seeds have been grown in Mrs. Barker's family for many generations. 

Our pepper bed. 

Our basil plants. 

You can't see them but we planted the beans in this spot. 

We also harvested radishes. One per student. The kids washed them off and some even tried them before school started. But most brought theirs home. 

We only had time for a quick cookie before the kids rushed off to class. 

Thank you to the volunteers who provided snacks and helped with the gardens this entire school year. 

Be on the look-out for a sign up genius to help out with the gardens over the summer. Mrs. Friedel is working on that and will send it out soon. 

I am looking forward to what will grow in our gardens over the summer. Please bring your families out to see them all if you get a chance this summer. We have many great things growing and it's because of all of the work your children have done this school year.