Garden Club: Fall 3

October 17, 2012
BULB Planting Day.  The TEAM gardeners were out on this overcast day to plant some garlic cloves, daffodils called Ice Follies, tulips, and a few mystery bulbs donated by Ms. Bikkina.   We had some new gardeners from the Fifth grade that included Brigitte, Anthony, Cody, Grace and Zahmir.  And then we had a reunion with our experience gardeners.   Now Sixth graders, Kasim and Messiah played in the dirt and our returning now seventh grade veteran Shawn arrived to finish up the job.  It was absolutely wonderful to see these guys and they all seemed to have terrific and restful summers.  The season has wound down, the last of the clean-up has been done and it is time to let the soil rest and rejuvenate.  In the meantime, plans for next Spring are beginning to form and while entries will be much more sparse, please check in every once in a while to see what is cooking for Spring 2013.

Keep warm this winter and think green thoughts.  This has been a fantastic experience and I look forward to seeing everyone out in the garden, getting dirty next planting season.  Signing off for now.

Garden Club: Fall 2

October 11, 2012

Mother Nature is an amazing woman.  All summer, our pea plants struggle to establish themselves.  The odds were against them, the conditions too dry and scorching.  But take a look at the photograph with the ugly, shriveled watermelon vine and what do you see?  A thriving pea plant!  Here is an important lesson, never giving up no matter the odds.

Today was partial Fall clean up day and as you can see by the pictures, much was cleared away.  But why touch something that is doing so well?  So the tomatoes stayed, some herbs, the pea plant and the beautiful marigolds.  A note on the marigolds, I have been told that these plants are wonderful self-seeders so perhaps we will have marigolds a plenty next year as well!

Garden Club: Fall 1

The look of the garden might suggest a lush summer but we all know the truth of that.  But the grape tomatoes continue to be fantastic producers.  In fact, a few seeds have already taken root and are sprouting up eensy-weensy tomato plants.  Less active have been the two squash plants that were very disappointing although I have heard from other gardeners in the area that this season was not a good squash season generally.  Some reading up on what makes for happy squash plants is in order.  Thinking about next Spring, it must be remembered that the tomatoes and peppers need to be planted in the other box .  Another suggestion is to plant the tomatoes in large containers.  TEAM gardeners can tackle this question in the Spring.  Also, I think for the peas and beans next year we should create a different type of scaffolding system, less like a tripod and more like a fence.  Native Americans used to plant corn and once the stalks were established, planted the beans, using the stalks as support.  Really interesting idea.

Boy oh boy did the marigolds thrive.  Even if it is a wives’ tale that marigolds prevent bug infestation in tomatoes, I think having the wonderful color throughout the summer makes their inclusion in the garden an important consideration!

Did some weeding and some watering and have included a picture of some of the things we planted last Spring.  Some of the plants not represented include :  culantro (Alex’s suggestion), jalapeno (5th graders’ suggestion), basil, peppermint and thyme as well as our wonderful varieties of tomatoes.

Garden Club: Summer 5

Garden Club:  Summer 5

After a four-week hiatus, I was back in the garden and thanks to Ms. Nagle and Mr. Quijano, the garden has managed to suffer the terrible heat and arid conditions amazingly well.  We had a tenant living on one of the tomato plants, a huge caterpillar covered with small white modules.  After a little bit of research, I discovered that this caterpillar had a load of eggs clinging to its back.  Apologies for the fuzzy image but it was all I could get with my limited technology.  As best as I can determine, this is a moth caterpillar, not a “good” caterpillar to have in the garden.  As will be noted, some caterpillars turn into beautiful butterflies and the damage they can cause to a garden is minimal.  But many moth caterpillars as well as hornworms, army worms and cut worms can devastate a garden with their eating habits.  In the future, to attract good caterpillars to the garden, plant dill or parsley, making sure that you do so away from tomato plants.  Also remember that gardens need insects to be productive.  Without bees to pollinate squash flowers, we would have no squashes and that includes watermelons!

Happily we had loads of bees that were attracted to the herbs particularly the basil and the peppermint but we still have only a few baby squash to show for all the bees’ efforts.  Baby carrots and cherry tomatoes are ready for the table as are much of the herbs we planted which have gone to seed and now should be pulled to make room for another planting.  Also poking up a healthy head is some of the lettuce that was planted as seeds in early June.  Almost time to make a salad!

Gave the garden a serious watering, making sure that the water drained down well below the surface, giving the finger poke test to check on the degree of saturation of the soil. 

June 13, 2012: Garden Club Meeting 6

The scholars came late today causing great worry as this was to be our last meeting of the Spring.  But they did arrive, the fifth and sixth graders spilling out of the school together in a jumble of final day excitement.  And the timing couldn’t have been better.  While it was sprinkling earlier, by the time the gardeners arrived, the clouds had dried up and we had a great time. Because many of the gardeners would only be able to see the garden virtually (we gave them this blog site address), we had them plant a tomato plant and a little purple basil plant in a small pot to take home, along with a radish or two that they harvested from their very own TEAM garden. There were so many radishes! After potting their plants, we had them plant some mixed lettuces that we could harvest either over the summer or at the beginning of the school year. When we had surveyed the garden we realized that the tomatoes, carrots, peppers and peas were all plainly visible. We were sad that Shawn, a 6^th grader, was not able to make it but, A’Kayla made and brought his pot of plants to him. There were lots of hugs at the end, and I look forward seeing them in the Fall for a lot of harvesting!

Summer Visit One

June 21, 2012: Garden Club 7

June 7, 2012: Garden Club Meeting 5

Today, we had our fifth Garden Club Meeting.  Having organized the club but unavailable until today because of my own academic schedule, it was a thrill to be able to meet the gardeners face to face.  The experience was an amazing one, because I had been worried that the scholars would not find passion in gardening; however, the moment I got there I could tell how excited they were to plant. First they checked the water level (using the rain catcher we had installed prior) and the temperature. It was 76 degrees Fahrenheit and there was a little less than two inches of water in the rain catcher.  We taught the gardeners about the advantages of planting dill in a garden: dill is a natural, pesticide-free, way to ward off pests. While some planted the dill, others helped create homemade wind chimes, and another helped me thin the radish seedlings. At this point there are no carrots to be thinned, hopefully next week there will be some greenery poking out.

May 31, 2012: Garden Club 4

Happy Birthday Elijah!

It would be a great mistake to forget a ritual that had started shortly after planting the first herbs.  The gardeners discovered very early on the wonderful scents emitted from herbs when crushed between the fingers and it became a habit to pick from each of the herbs at the start of our meetings and rubbed them between the fingers to get the full scent!  The peppermint is a favorite.

There was some hard work today in the garden because it was clear that we needed to thin the radish seedlings that had become very crowded.  This takes a great deal of patience, sorting through the plants, choosing which to pick not only by the closeness of the seedlings but the hardiness of each plant.  We couldn’t bare to simply throw out the plucked seedlings so we attempted to transplant them.  At this writing, it is surprising to report that the transplanted radishes appear to be taking hold.  The importance of thinning seedlings is that without this step, the plants cannot thrive and the final product will be small or withered.  We also began training the peas up their trellises.  And because planting is the most fun, we did some of that as well adding to the herb garden.  We gave the garden a good, thorough watering which, because it was his birthday, included Elijah courtesy of Shawn.

May 14, 2012: Garden Club Meeting 3

The intention was to meet every Wednesday in the Spring but Mother Nature had proven to be stubborn and once again we were meeting on a Thursday.  But what a busy Thursday we had.  Not only were the pea plants making great headway but the radishes had burst onto the scene in the week that had just passed.  After surveying the garden, we hung a thermometer and put our rain gauge in place.  We discussed the kinds of factors that could destroy a crop, from drought and flood to animals, bugs, bacteria and viruses.  We looked at a number of pests common to crops including beetles, caterpillars and whiteflies.  As a side discussion, we tried to remember the ten plagues brought on Egypt by Moses and crossed our fingers that our garden would escape locusts.  To hedge our bets, we planted marigolds whose smell it is believed is unpleasant to bugs attracted to tomatoes.  Some research suggests that this is more superstition than fact and that it is an unhealthy plant that attracts bugs but with no conclusive evidence, better to err on the side of caution.  Happily, all the plants were looking very healthy and we staked the tomatoes and pepper plants in anticipation of their needing some support as they grew.  Despite the earlier sprinkle, we gave the garden a thorough watering, using our gage to determine proper saturation.  Ask your scholar how to test for this!

At the request of the Sixth graders, we planted a jalapeno pepper plant.  We also planted cilantro, sage and culantro in our herb garden.