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!