As the 2010-2011 school year begins we have many exciting new roles in the garden.  Look for our table at muffin morning or send an email to Kristin at kpaull@planetpaull.com to sign up for one of the following garden committees.

• Composting
• Signs & Decorationi
• Garden Bed & Path Work
• Monthly Guest Speaker Coordination
• Thinning the Woods
• Rainwater Collection Investigation
  

Classroom Garden Parent sign up will be in your child’s class on Back-To-School Night

 FTE familes will be watching the garden over the summer.   Each week a different family has signed up to tend and nurture the garden.  Each day they will bring home the garden's produce.   In the last few weeks families have brought home tomatos, chard, cucumbers, string beans, zuchinni, basil and oregano.  I have heard of many dishes prepared from the garden - spaghetti made out of zuchinni, risotto with chard and beans, pesto using the basil - yum!

The week of May 10th third grade began their Heritage Garden.   Each class planted corn and cotton seeds.   when the corn is 4 inches tall they will add the other two crops of the Three Sisters (beans and squash).    Four days later corn and cotton began to sprout.   Here is a link to a few pictures of the sprouts.   For more information on the Three Sisters here is a link to the seed packets that we are using.   Thank you Nancy from the Natural Gardener for the cotton seeds.  She gave us seeds from her personal supply that she had gotten from a Native American Reservation in New Mexico.   We were a little concerned that due to their age they wouldn't sprout.   Yet, they seem to be sprouting fabulously.  Here is another link for more information on cotton.

This weekend we noticed two Monarch Butterflies visiting our butterfly garden.   We know that the chrysalis' in the classrooms are about to open, so we think these must be from the caterpillars we saw a few weeks ago!  The accompanying picture is one of the class chrysalis'.   Here is a link to one of the class slideshows of their Monarch Caterpillar's journey from discovery in the garden to butterfly.

Life in the garden has been busy.   When you visit, you may find a computer lab class taking pictures to modify in class, a kindergarten class having snack and listening to a story, a math class taking measurements, kids planting apple seeds that they found at lunch, or a set of 5th graders measuring the growth of their seedlings.  If you happen upon the garden between classes, you will probably encounter the singing of the birds and sounding of the chimes.   Please come in and see what's growing.

Following are a few highlights:  

Kindergarden planted bean seeds around the bamboo teepee at the end of the garden.  Then created predications about how tall their plants would grow.   In the classroom they monitored and journaled about the development of ladybugs in their ladybug habits.    When the ladybugs were fully developed, each class released them into the garden to help control aphids.

1st grade has been planting and tending their strawberries beds.   These are favored beds of many visitors to the garden.   They have also jumpstarted our compost creation.  

2nd grade filled and planted external butterfly, herb and hummingbird gardens.   Their butterfly garden has been the host for many caterpillars this Spring.   Most noteworthy are the Monarch Butterfly caterpillars that attacked the tropical milkweed plants.   The caterpillars continue to munch in second grade classrooms and have just started their chrysalis stage.    

3rd will be joining the garden next week as they plant traditional crops that they will harvest in the fall when as 4th graders they are studying American Heritage.  These will include the three sisters (corn, beans and squash) and cotton. 

4th grade whose garden based science was covered at the begining of the school year has been using the garden to provide real world examples of math concepts and as subject material for LA.

5th grade students each planted a seed in the garden.  They then planted the same seed in a cup and placed it inside on the window sill.  They have nurtured, examined and journaled about the development of their plants. A list of their seeds can be found under 5th grade seeds on the FTE Farm homepage.

With everything that has been planted in the garden we have focused on companion planting to support our plants and help with garden pests.