January happenings

January is typically a planning month in the garden. So we planned, and we also prepared. The kids had five stations to rotate through his time. 

The first was making a bird feeder out of a toilet paper roll, peanut butter and birdseed. 

The next item of business was stopping in to check out the seed catalogs for seed planting wish lists for the next meeting in February. 

The kids took it very seriously. We even heard from a parent about a variety of beans that only their family grows. We are hoping to try those in the spring. 

Another important station was to help start a worm bin. Worms produce wonderful fertilizer for the gardens. And they are very helpful to the soil when they are in the gardens. We created worm bins by layering them with newspaper, food scraps, worms and a bit more newspaper. They were sprinkled with water and have been working hard to eat up all of the food scraps and make worm waste for the gardens. 

Then the kids were allowed to try a snack. On Monday we had bird nests.  Granola nests with yogurt, berries and bananas. Of course we used the scraps in the worm bins. 

On Thursday we had dirt cups...chocolate pudding, crushed Oreos and gummy worms. The kids were very careful not to offend the real worms by showing them what they were eating 😉. 

After fueling up we had them write in their journals about what they did and learned that day. Then we went outside quickly to put in the things brought in for the compost. Our students are doing a great job of adding to the compost. This month we got a bunch of egg shells, lots of dryer lint, coffee grounds, food scraps, and some horse poo. We are going to have the best and healthiest gardens ever. 

I want to thank all of the wonderful parent volunteers who worked so hard with the kids to get them through all of the stations.  I also want to thank the special volunteers who have stepped up to provide snacks and work in the gardens outside of Garden Club time. We have  big plans this year and everyone has been so supportive. Even the First graders are working to help raise funds for a special project this year...we want to build a greenhouse that we can use for seeds and plants throughout the winter. 

December in the Garden

This month there wasn't too much to do in the gardens so we added a little bit to the compost.

 

Mr. Drahms worked in some new material and turned everything for us. The kids enjoyed seeing the steam come up and were amazed by how warm it is just putting their hands near the pile. 

We were able to harvest some beets and one more Napa cabbage. 

Then we went inside and worked with the herbs we dried last month. The kids made two things with the dried herbs. One was called Scarborough Fair, named after the Simon and Garfunkel song in which they sing "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme". It is a culinary blend that can be used in the kitchen to season foods.  

The other thing the kids made was a sachet for freshening drawers. They took rosemary, mint, and lavender and put those into an organza sachet to take home. 

But the kids probably had the most fun with their snack. They made Grinch fruit snacks with grapes, bananas, strawberries and a marshmallow. 

 

 

Of course all of the fruit scraps were put into the compost so as to not have any waste. 

Next month we hope to have some more compost to work in...keep dropping off your compostables!

November = Compost and herb harvesting

This month we wanted to get the compost cooking.

What we started last year had gone cold. There's nothing wrong with that but we want to be able to use the compost by next spring. 

So we added some great materials.

Coffee grounds...an unbelievable amount of coffee grounds. 

Chicken and horse manure. 

Leaves, grass clippings, egg shells, food scraps, dryer lint and wood ashes. 

We had a wonderful parent volunteer who mixed it all up for us and now we have a great pile going. 

The kids harvested lots of herbs for drying before our next meeting in December. 

The herbs are drying in our donated dehydrator. My classroom smells heavenly. We have lots to do in December when we have to decide what to do with all of these dried herbs. 

Our snacks this month were delicious! Fruit salad. I wanted the kids to see that we could use all of the scraps from making the fruit salad in our compost.  Nothing goes to waste. Even rotten bananas. The ones we bought for Thursday's meeting were rotten through, even though they looked good on the outside. Fortunately we can at least use them in some way. 

I think we made the most of a very quiet month for gardening. Looking forward to next month.

Please remember we can always add to our compost pile. Please feel free to send in any compostables.  Any time!

fall bulbs

Sra. Melara made a delicious snack for our garden club meetings this week!  The first was an Asian raman noodle salad with the napa cabbage we had harvested earlier.  Most kids thought it was amazing.  She also made beet and sweet potato chips.  Healthy and delicious!

Once outside, we mixed in some topsoil and compost to our freshly weeded beds.

Digging in dirt is always a favorite activity.

We decided to plant garlic for the first time this year.  We used several varieties to see which will grow better.  There was an elephant garlic (very big!), regular garlic from the store, and organic garlic.  Check out the evidence on top of the soil.

We've also planted 70 tulips in one of our beds!  That should be beautiful come spring.  And another bed has red onions.  We've never planted those in fall before, so we are already looking forward to spring to see what will happen!

garden clean-up (round 2!)

Round two of our garden clean up was very exciting!  Wild animal kingdom in both gardens, but first we learned to compost those extra cabbage leaves.

Our pile is growing!

A precious little frog was found, observed, and later set free.

Look at that tangled mess of weeds.  The kids worked hard and were able to clear all the beds.

A tiny ladybug baby was found among all the weeds.

But the highlight was...

....a lizard!  Well, two lizards, that were living in one of the beds.  We tried to journal about them, but it was just too exciting.

Those that wanted to got close-up for a really good look.

But some preferred hard work with big tools.  Our beds are now ready for a late fall planting.  But what will we plant?