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| Gardening Leaders care for seedlings. |
Each Spring the student Gardening Leaders:
- help plan out the beds (rotating crops)
- assemble indoor greenhouses
- plant seeds indoors after spring break, in April (so the fragile seedlings don't dry out while we're on holidays)
- water seedlings
- transplant the seedlings at the end of May or beginning of June
- plant bedding out plants
- water the plants during recesses in June
Classes
- In the spring, any teachers interested can have their classes plant seeds.
- They care for them in their own rooms.
- Students can take home the seedlings or plant them in the school garden.
- The garden is drawn out on a board, cut into sections, and if they'd like to, teachers can choose a class "plot".
All winter long Wormologists help care for the 16,000 worms that eat our apple cores and banana peels. In the spring they put the finished compost in the garden. We have over 5 big Rubbermaid buckets full of compost each year to add (4000+ apple cores and banana peels). The compost goes in with the seeds or seedlings. When our outdoor compost is ready, it goes in the garden as well.
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| One of our student Wormologists. He's an expert scientist! |
In the summer
- School families and staff volunteer to water the garden for a week at time.
- Families caring for the garden, eat whatever is ripe at that moment (peas, lettuce, beans, herbs...)
- We plant food that will be ready for the students when they come back in September (potatoes, tomatoes, herbs, beets, carrots).
- The food is not for general public picking or eating, so there's enough for the children and families doing the work
- We ask they leave food for the students to harvest in the fall.
- Some plants are left unharvested, so students can see the entire plant cycle. Some potatoes & dried seeds are kept to plant the next year.
Tips
- Bedding out plants help students see parts of a plant and the roots, and see what the plants will become.
- In our short growing season, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, pumpkin, squash are more likely to fruit if they are bedding out plants.
- Direct seeding by Grade 1s will result in a million lettuces in a very small space. Too many! But it's important for kids to see and experience seeds.
- Lettuce, carrots, beets, spinach, peas and beans do well from direct seed.
- Harden off seedlings by setting them out in the sun for increasing time each day. Otherwise they get sun burnt.
- Some years will be more productive than others. It's part of the learning.
- Always plant lots of cherry tomatoes, potatoes, snow peas, lettuce and herbs like mint. They're always successful and great for taste tests.
- Be creative. Try new plants every year. Kids are thrilled to see what food looks like as it's growing. (The thrill of corn!)
