Fall

Now that some wonderful parents have cleaned and tilled our garden, we will place a layer of annual rye grass over it to keep the weeds out until we are ready to plant our spring crops.

With some of our grant money, we have purchased our own tiller, green house, and benches for the children to write in their journals. When the district maintenance personnel put together our greenhouse, we will dig up our banana tree and place it in the greenhouse for the winter. We will also store some of our herbs in the greenhouse for the winter as well as use it to start our seedlings for the spring garden.

Start of a New Year

I have learned a very important lesson! Do not leave at the end of the school year without removing the leftovers from your garden, tilling it, and then covering with some sort of mulch. Otherwise you come back to school with 5 feet tall weeds!!!!

My husband and I tried to clean it up with our tiller but the weeds kept clogging it. We used the weed eater and that helped. Needless to say the ground is hard as a rock. This was a very unpleasant lesson!!

End of First Year Pictures

FINAL HARVEST OF OUR SPRING GARDEN

We were so pleased with the success of our first garden. The children in all six grade levels were so excited with their results. They eagerly picked the vegetables, brought them to the health room sink and rinsed them, and then took them to the cafeteria to be prepared.

The children ate fresh squash, zucchini, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, and radishes. It was interesting to see how they liked the taste as well as how they liked it cooked. Around 75% of the students really didn't care for the radishes. I don't think we will grow them this year. They thought they were too peppery tasting. They loved the carrots, zucchini, and squash both cooked and raw. They really liked eating the zucchini raw as a snack. They loved the salads with the red, and green lettuce and spinach. They perferred the cabbage boiled rather than raw in cole slaw. I found that amazing. So many of the children had never had zucchini, squash, and especially never tried cooked cabbage. They were so amazed they liked it. I don't think they would have been as willing to try them if they had not grown them.

The last couple of days of school, we had so many vegetables that we were able to send a large basket full to our local children's shelter. The children couldn't wait to share the fact with the shelter personnel that they had grown them

Early Results

Today for the very first time, the lunchroom had more salads ordered by the children than cheeseburgers. This is the first week that the children's vegetables from the garden have been put in our salads. There were 38 salads ordered instead of the usual 15-20. Way to go kids!!!

RADISHES

We have radishes. Some of the second graders harvested their radishes this morning. This is the first crop we have had come in, so far. See pictures enclosed.

We are Growing

Upon returning from Spring Break on April 6th, I was appalled at the condition of the garden. We had so much rain and with the poor soil we initially started with, the soil had become hard as a rock. Many hours spent hoeing and mixing in mushroom compost has helped. A good many plants were lost. I replaced those plants without the children's knowledge. They are so proud of their plants! Each class is helping with the hoeing and weeding. I have included some pictures.

Two 3 foot rain barrels were donated by a local company. I am learning how to adapt them into real rain barrels from the Green Steps site.

Our Master Gardener, Judy Camp had a friend who donated 100.00 to go toward our garden project. We are very grateful for all the community support.

I spent some time this morning talking with Ginger Bowen at Clemson Extension. We have a meeting in May to discuss getting a head start for our garden in the fall. We are definitely planning on doing strawberries, in addition to some vegetables. She will help us develop a garden journal for each child in our school to use to document growth, rainfall, temperature, etc, including stories they wish to write.