Visitors and Spring Plans

What a looooonng winter it has been.  The students are certainly hoping for some warmer weather soon so that we can head out into the garden and get some planting done.  This was the week when last year we planted the raised beds with the cool season early veggies!  

Visitors
      The garden club students have been very busy preparing for a visit from a 3rd grade class from Mohegan School.  This visit is possible because of a SEEF grant.  The garden club students are preparing "learning stations" that the 3rd graders will visit.  "Learning stations" include; what is a seed, plant maintenance, composting, and the garden buildings.      Third graders will plant their own seeds and take them back to their classroom where they will observe the seeds over the next few weeks.  The garden club students will also take part in a couple of "google hangouts with the 3rd graders to see how their seeds are progressing.  Be sure to check back for more on this awesome collaboration.


Spring Plans
During FLEX! today, we discussed our spring plans.  The major plans include putting a permanent bed in the hoop house along one side.  This will provide space for our tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, and peppers during the summer and will be the prime location for our over-winter-gardening efforts next fall!  We are going to attempt to have fresh greens right through the winter!  
   To do so, we need to work on our watering system.  With the shed in place, the automatic watering system will be installed this spring.  We would like to have a dedicated water line to the hoop house, the garden, and the compost area for clean up.  
    Out of the 12 raised beds, 1 was planted with garlic, one was planted with asparagus and the other 10 will be planted soon with our early spring veggies including radishes, kale, kolibri, spinach, lettuce, carrots, beets, swiss chard, etc...  They should provide some great harvest throughout the spring.
      The empty field space will soon be better recognized as an early indian garden because the garden club will be following traditional planting practices and planting the "three sisters"  Check back for more on that later this spring.
      And lastly, we are planning a spring sunflower sale.  We will be germinating dwarf sunflowers shortly in the classroom and they will be available for sale in May.  They will be a great addition to any indoor or outdoor space.  

Please check back for more updates as we enter the most exciting time of our club.  If you would like to offer assistance or advice, please don't hesitate to contact us!

Happy Gardening

- Mr. Wolf

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