New Beds and Books

Spring at the Garfield Garden brought a lot of great new additions. Thanks to our amazing garden committee and especially Kristina Taylor we were able to make several improvements to the garden and other areas of the playground.

Kristina won us a Lowe's grant which allowed us to add 2 new garden beds, 2 Little Library boxes, a picnic table for outdoor learning, and a Buddy Bench.

With the help of some dedicated volunteers we laid down weed mat, stained the beds, installed a drip watering system and planted a few new trees. The
gardens were now ready for students to start growing.

Hard at work amending the soil

Digging trenches for the new drip watering system

Adding weed mat and stain

Ready to GROW!

New beds, Little Library, and picnic table

Amazing Eagle Scout volunteer installed our Little Libraries

Ready for eager readers

Our Buddy Bench is where we find friends to play with at recess

November, 2014

The Garden Sleeps

The Garfield Garden was cleared of all dead tomatoes and squash plants in early November (with the help of a few visiting first graders who gobbled up any last remaining ripe cherry tomatoes).  We didn't get a picture of the towering sunflowers that the first graders grew but the diameter of their stalks was easily 2-3 inches and were about 6 ft. tall.  A couple of 5th graders helped remove the stalks but we were unable to get all the roots out before the first hard freeze froze them in soil - that will be a job for the Spring.  

Many beds produced large tomato plants which spilled out covering everything and carried quite a few green tomatoes. The Kindergarten bed was possibly the most prolific grower overall, with huge squash plants (were they pumpkins?), tall sunflowers and marigolds.  

Kept in the beds to winter over were some chives (3rd grade?) and some mint in the 4th grade bed.  The Blind/VI classroom has a 'sensory' garden with a few mint plants and two lavender plants which should hang in there over winter and be ready next Spring.

Mr. Robbie kindly ground up some leaves from the school yard and spread them on some of the beds to help feed the soil.  Before more mulch could be put down, we had our first big snow and now winter looks like it's here to stay.  

See you in the Spring!

Summers growth

Look how our garden has grown!  Thanks to our dedicated garden volunteers our plants are flourishing.We had an infestation of earwigs in the sunflowers. Wanting to keep the garden organic we sprinkled Diatomaceous Earth from Zamzows around the plants. It is made from ground up shell fish. To us, it is a fine powder. To soft bellied insects, like earwigs, it is like razor blades. Kind of gruesome (and cool).

Garden Volunteer Helpful Hints

Sarah Sims wanted to send you the following message regarding the sign up: Summer Garden Caretakers:

Garden Volunteer Helpful Hints
Hello! Thank you for helping Garfield’s garden grow!

Some info to know about the garden:

Garden log - please find this little yellow book and sign in when you come to care for the garden.

Tools - you probably don’t need anything more than your bare hands and a little muscle but if you choose to, you can bring some gloves, weeding tools and/or kitchen snips for harvesting herbs. If it’s harvest time, bring something to carry your veggies home.

Watering - custodial staff will be watering once a week. We are not sure which day(s) yet but will send a note out when we do.
Try to water deep enough to reach the plant roots, it will help the plants make it through the really hot and dry days.

Turning the water on - There is a round, metal faucet handle that needs to be attached to the faucet to turn on the water. The handle will be located in a white 5 gal bucket near the garden. The actual faucet is at the front of Garfield facing Broadway (go through the chain-link gate)

Weeding - If you aren’t entirely sure if it’s a weed or something we’d like to keep, leave it and observe it next time. If it looks just like something that is growing on the path around the beds, it is probably a weed! Most of the plants should be labeled.

Here is the list of everything that has been planted:

Garden Beds:
Kindergarten: marigolds, squash, sunflowers
First: sunflowers and peas
Second: tomatoes, green peppers, mint,
mustard greens and basil
Third: tomatoes, green peppers, mint, chives
Fourth: (not sure as of this moment what is planted)
Fifth: lavender, borage (flower) and tomatoes
Sixth: tomatoes, peppers, hot peppers, variety of herbs
VI Classroom: lavender, mint, oregano, basil

Harvest Tips:
Harvesting won’t probably be for at least a month, although a small bit of the herbs can probably be snipped within the next few weeks.
Generally speaking, if it comes off easily with only a gentle tug (tomatoes) then it’s ready to be harvested. For lettuce/mustard greens; a few individual leaves (outermost) can be torn off the plant while leaving the rest intact and root in the ground to grow some more.

There may be more updates as we move through the summer. In the garden log are some emergency contacts if you need help or have questions or are concerned about something going on.

Thank you! Enjoy your garden time!

- Garfield Garden Committee


To view the sign up, go to:
www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C0C4EABA92FABFC1-summer/5288010

THANKS TO THE SUMMER VOLUNTEERS!

Garden Volunteer Helpful Hints

Hello!  Thank you for helping Garfield’s garden grow!

Some info to know about the garden:

• Garden log - please find this little book and sign in when you come to care for the garden.  Inside you will also find harvesting tips.

• Tools - you probably don’t need anything more than your bare hands and a little muscle but if you choose to you can bring some gloves, weeding tools and/or kitchen snips for harvesting herbs. Just For Kids is open on campus during the summer and will have a bucket of tools available that you can borrow, but you will need to go during the their hours of operation.

• Watering - custodial staff will be watering once a week on               . So please pick your watering days to complement that and help sustain the plants through the hot, dry days of summer.

Summer 2014 Garden Caretakers

Thank you for volunteering to take care of our Garden this summer! 
June 8-14          Ana Harper
June 15-21        Ashely Morgan
June 22-25        Elizabeth Janey
June 29-5          Michelle Walsh
July 6-12           Laura Rodriquez
July 13-19         Catherine Dickson
July 20-26         Michelle Walsh
July 27-2           Gail Bryant
August 3-9        Betty West
August 10-16    Catherine Dickson
August 17-23    Michelle Walsh