Very Productive Wednesday

This past week the kids made plant markers, drew pictures of what they are planning to grow in their gardens and planted bulbs. The seedlings from the last workshop are already sprouting and all of recent watering is bringing up NEW volunteer plants and weeds alike.
Our junior gardeners are all enthusiastic weeders (sometimes at the detriment of our plants) filling buckets with crab grass, spurge, lamb's quarters, and various undesirable green things. Unfortunately we also lost a volunteer artichoke and a couple of parsley plants to some over-ambitious little hands and feet. But that is the nature of learning about gardening. Very early in my gardening experience - I caught and destroyed many ugly little critters, only to discover (much) later that they were in fact juvenile ladybugs - UGH. But we all live and learn and I'm fairly certain that any future "accidental" artichokes that hit our garden will be treated much kinder.

End of the Year - Teddy Bear Picnic

We ended the school year with the Annandale Garden's First Annual Teddy Bear Picnic. The kids were invited to bring their favorite furry stuffed friend and shared healthy snacks in the garden. In celebration of a full school year of gardening, students were issued "Junior Master Gardener" pins.

New School Year and a Fresh Start

Before and After

At the end of the last school year, June 2009, our garden suffered an invasion of gophers. The little beasts destroyed a number of our flower beds in a remarkably short time and managed to turn our pretty little garden into hole-y mounds of dirt. After a brief battle with smoke bombs and employing streams of water to flood the gophers' homes, I gave up and left the garden to the gophers for the summer break and took the time off from gardening.
This week was my first week back to the garden and aside from the 3 foot tall weeds, was relieved to find that the troublesome critters had abandoned our garden for greener pastures.
The class and kids will be returning to the garden in the next week and we are all eager to begin planting.

wednesday = garden fun day!

Another great day in the garden with the first, kindergarden, and pre-school classes. There are snap peas, beans galore and flax + linnea + sweetpea blooms everywhere. Nothing makes a gardener happier than kids scrambling to eat peas off the vine!

room 4's jade plant cuttings

Mr. Lee's first grade class brought up their designed pots and started some jade plant cuttings. The kids will bring home the plants after they have rooted, just in time for Mother's Day.

Aside from the beautiful flowers, we also discovered some green strawberries and sweetpea pods coming up.

early spring is here

After a number of very wet weeks we were able to finally spend some time up in the garden. Even though the kids missed spending time with the plants, the plants certainly needed the rain and all of our patience was well rewarded with numerous blooms and new growth.

more journals from room 19

greetings from room 19

We have been going to the garden for a long time and learning about plants and writing in our journals about our plants. -Patty

If there aren't any worms in our garden the soil wouldn't be very good. -Roberto

There's beautiful flowers in our garden. -Michelle

We have chickweeds in our garden and you can tell what's a chickweed because it has a little thread in the stem.
-Victoria

rainy days with room 19

The last few weeks have been too wet and rainy in the garden to do much so the students have been making hand bound sketchbook/journals. Here's a sample from the 4th grade class.

Watching Our Garden Grow

I am so excited to see our garden being used by our students. It is great to see their enthusiasm. The children look forward to their time to go up and do their part. Many thanks to the volunteers who put in their time to prepare the area so that our students can go up there. I know that they have learned and continue to learn not only about plants, but about working together to create a special place.

new year's projects

The classes that have been regularly visiting the garden have helped plant, weed, and water. Like all dedicated gardeners, the kids have tended and nurtured their plants and now are able to benefit from all of their hard work. We are currently observing the plants that have begun popping up everywhere as well as identifying all of the different volunteer plants that have sprung up. Next week all of the participating classes will have journal / bookbinding workshops. The books will be used to record their plants progress, sketch what they observe and for day dreaming of future gardens to come.

Mr. Lee's first grade class and the LA's Best after school program assisted in a mosaic tile wall that will be installed as one of the pizza garden's plant bed walls. The kids helped break tiles, design the image and glue + grout. The plant bed structures are hard work but well worth the effort.

The students pulled buckets of weeds and with the upcoming rain we are all eagerly anticipating another flurry of garden activity. AND a guinea pig from the second grade class appears to have a taste for chick-weed and blades of grass.

inspiration

Gardens and plants are a perfect inspiration for artwork and creativity. The students created beautiful plant markers and drawings of their ideal garden. Many were particularly inspired by the idea of a pizza garden (notice the drawings of pizzas growing out of the ground.)

lovely drawings

lovely drawings continued

lovely drawings continued

lovely drawings