Recent ActivityAnnouncements  Happy Harvest Days!!!What an amazing week last week was, and this week promises more of the same! Third, Fourth and Fifth grades harvest their veggies! We were awash in bok choi, cabbage, lettuces, swiss chard, spinach, radishes, herbs, garlic, onions, kale and more! This was our first ever huge harvest, and we decided to act fast to harvest before any crazy freezes we might have this late winter- last year we lost most everything to the snow. Not this year!!! We harvested, cleaned and cooked up a celebratory feast! Special thanks to Mary Firme, Allison Downing and Quingfen Li for the delicious miso soup and greens dishes they served the third graders! Mr. Lofgren and Kate Hunicke-Smith headed up the fourth grade feast with dishes like tabouley, arugula pesto on cucumber and a huge green salad! Fourth graders sure are lucky to have a resident chef to craft their feast! Last but not least a big thank you to Lisa Embree for brewing a big pot of vegetable soup and making an amazing salad! One kid said, “I don’t usu- ally like vegetable soup, but I love this!” It was an amazing full-circle moment where we watched the kids enjoy the fruits of their labor- they were more interested in trying new foods they had grown themselves! We will be posting the recipes on the website should you be inter- ested in recreating the magic at home. We will be out of the garden while we wait to get our spring garden ready. In the meantime we will finish a few hardscaping projects. We will be back in the garden with 3rd, 4th and 5th grades the week of February 6th. Thanks so much to all of our wonderful volunteers- we could not have done this without you!
Oh the devastation!!!We knew it would happen though we have fought valiantly. Those little critters (we think mice) had a holiday feast of their very own over the winter break. Our brussel sprouts are but tiny stems- they were nearly 2 feet tall! Some of our kale and chard got hit as did all of our cauliflower, some of the broccoli, some spinach and even our beets. But, the bit of evidence left behind were the tiny bites in our giant radishes!!! So, we plan to set up some wildlife cameras to better see our culprits. We tried sprinkling organic rodent repellent around the garden, but our delicious veggies must have been oh so irresistible. Well, these things happen in a garden, right?
So, as our kids are harvesting their goodies this week, we have talked about how farming communities share their harvests with one another should one family have had bad luck with disease or pests. That is what our kids are doing. Our kids are harvesting their veggies, and pooling what they have pulled to share with their entire grade. We plan to have some harvest celebrations this week and next week. Hopefully, we will get everything we can pulled in before we have much freezing weather. Take a look at the great pic of the kids as they prepare to pull out some Dino Kale. Yum!
After our harvest weeks, we will be out of the garden until it is time to turn our beds, compost and then plant before spring break. We will take this time to finish our fabulous new sign and add some bed surrounds to our upper beds. We will also be installing our weather monitoring station. Yippee! We will post pics once we have these projects completed. Be sure to get your tickets to our school auction- come out, have a great time, and support our school. The money made from this event funds our beloved garden and so many of the programs, field trips and resources we love so much.
Stay warm! Your garden team, Kristin, Lisa, Rose and Sandra  Hooray!!! The garden is completely planted!Please be sure to check out our digital map of our garden! We have many seedlings already sprouted- having achieved germination and emergence! Hooray! Over the next two weeks our classes will be watering and exploring all of our garden and all of its little seedlings. They will also be studying Invertebrates in the garden during the activ- ity time of their lesson. In perfect timing, we have a huge infestation of aphids on our Tropical Milkweed. So, we will be releasing ladybugs to control the aphids as another natural way to battle pests without chemicals.
The big news this week was that we solved a summer garden mystery! Our corn never really seemed to have a chance to take off before it was utterly de- feated. Then, the bean teepee began to take the same kind of nosedive. Well, with the heat and drought we just figured it was all too much for those crops...until...we started to turn and amend the soil. We found at least 200 white grubs in those two beds with some more in a few other beds in the garden. Ladies and gentlemen, we had a colony! So, the first exciting thing we did was pull all of the grubs we could find out of our soil, and then we fed them to the chickens- I believe Mrs. Gable called them "chicken caviar!" The kids loved it, the chickens went crazy for it, and now the chickens get super excited when anyone starts walking towards their coop. Nothing like a little treat to help the chickens get over being overwhelmed by an audience! Next, we had to get rid of any larvae or lurkers. We sprayed the entire garden with beneficial nematodes- small wormlike organisms that will not harm our seeds or plants but will eat all of the grubs, ants and fleas they find! With two treatments this fall and possibly two more in the spring we should be rid of our grub population and we should make a huge dent in any ants we have. Please come by to check out the garden when you are at the school. We will be cleaning up the area out there, working in our perennial beds, and preparing for an information board! Our next big work section will be when we need to weed and mulch. But, for the next two weeks we just get to admire the tender green lovelies popping up all over! If you have not planted at home yet then this is the right time to do it- you want to be in the ground 4-6 weeks before the first frost. Our local garden stores have such great varieties to try out- lettuces, chard, kale, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli and more. Happy planting!!! Links Files
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