Winter maintenance in the garden!

 

Here we are... hard at work on a cold, Tuesday afternoon! The garden will be in shape in no time!

Making progress... in the cold!

 




More progress is being made in the new garden area! Today the new doors were built and put into place. Next we'll have to spread wood chips on the ground to make our garden area a true working space! Where are the students, you ask? Keep checking... they're inside bundling up! It's 42 degrees and frosty outside! Next they'll come out and help spread the wood chips and do some winter maintenance on the existing garden. More pictures to come soon!

This is a beautiful sunrise in our new garden area. I came to school on a Saturday morning in December at 7:30am and the sun was coming up over the trees. This is what it's like in our garden on the weekends. What was I doing there at that hour? Watering the baby Brussels sprouts and bringing home the garden gloves for washing! Hopefully the Brussels sprouts will make it through the cold 40 degree temperatures for the weekend. There's lots of condensation on the cold frames, so hopefully the Brussels are warm and flourishing inside!

A very busy December 2011!

So many good things have happened in the last few weeks, I don't even know where to start! There has been a lot of activity in the back of the building, but very few people have had a chance to stop by! No worries! Several special helpers have made sure there are plenty of pictures to post! I will try and keep everyone up to date on all that is happening while we hustle around these last few days of school! Check back shortly for more information and pictures! Ms. SW

Garden Thoughts from 1-SW

1-SW gardeners know how to think of the garden in three different ways-like a farmer who concentrates on growing the plants, like a scientist who examines all the facts and thinks about the environment, and like a poet who responds to the garden with feelings and imagination. Using their poets' sensitivity, the students composed some thoughts about garden photographs taken right after the storm.







The pepper is sad because it was snowing.


The pepper was lonely because its friends went home.


The pepper was sleeping under a blanket of snow.




Can you spot the snow-covered eggplant?



          




       The plants are altogether
        having fun with their friends.

       The brussels sprouts are happy in their 
        greenhouse.    

Ms. Collins is happy that her baby sprouts are safe!



The zucchini was warm under all those leaves and vines.

The zucchini was happy under its little tent.

The zucchini was swimming happily in a green ocean.

The zucchini feels worried because of the chipmunks.




Frozen lemon balm shocked by the October snow



A cold, snowy week in the garden!

What a difficult week this has been! I have been busy in the garden cleaning up the tree branches that fell during the storm! I took lots of pictures of what happened, but haven't had internet access to post them! Over the next few days Mrs. Gibson and I will get them posted so you can see what the garden looked like while we were off from school! The bad news is that we lost the last of our crops because they froze. The good news is that we have lots of work to do in the garden over the next two weeks to prepare for the next season! It's getting cold, so we have to hurry before the ground freezes up! Get ready to work like true farmers!

Preparing the Garden Beds for the Winter

The garden is a mixture of fall beauty, one last planting, and beds at rest as the days shorten and Halloween comes near. There is still work to be done to enrich the soil with compost to prepare the beds for next season's crops. Ms. Collins, one of our faithful garden boosters, happily planted some Brussels sprouts, a cruciferous vegetable that will mature in a few months. The garden is a place of peace and comfort in the autumn sun.



Ms. Collins and her Brussels sprouts-a last hurrah!





Did you know that good bacteria in the soil helps gardeners feel cheerful?-(source-a study cited in Prevention Magazine)





Gorgeous Mexican Sage!



Eggplants safe in their mini greenhouse, called cold frames.






Getting ready for next season-clean compost



An Even BIGGER Zucchini!!! A Garden Math Adventure Narrated by 2-Dr

A week ago members of 2-Dr discovered a gigantic zucchini (cocozelle) in the garden. It was 15 in. long, and we were very surprised! We only had a 12 in. ruler, so one of us held a finger at the end and her partner moved the ruler. The ruler was a foot long and there were 3 extra inches, so that's how we got a total of 15.

Two days later we decided to harvest the gigantic zucchini.. The vine was thick, prickly, slippery, and well-attached, so we had trouble breaking it. Because it was so big, we rolled the zucchini back and forth on the ground while twisting it. When the vine was weak, we ripped the fibers. The zucchini was heavy, and we felt excited, proud, and happy.





We brought it back into the classroom and passed it around to estimate the weight. We thought it would be lighter, but it felt like the weight of a newborn baby. We guessed that it would be about 5-7 pounds.

We were close! It weighed seven and a half pounds!

We liked bringing it to Mr. Conard. His first words when he saw how big it was were "Holy moly!"

Some of us expected the zucchini to be longer than the distance around the fattest part. We used a tape measure and a string. It was 16 inches long and 16 and a half inches around the fatness.

                Then we took it to Mr.Williams, and he was happy and showed Ms. Williams in the kitchen. He        looked at the menu and decided to cut it up into rectangles for the salad bar.

Even though the zucchini tasted plain, it tasted pretty good. It doesn't have a flavor like grapes or oranges or candy, but it tasted good dipped in blue cheese and ranch dressing. We think Mr.Williams will never forget the day that we gave him the giant zucchini.

Measuring the Italian zucchini!

This morning, class 1SW went outside and had our first quiet sensory search in the garden. We saw lots of things and were very careful about where we stepped!  Before we left the garden, we borrowed a yardstick from Ms. Dugan and measured the zucchini. It was 11 inches long! We were so excited! Then we came back to our classroom and wrote in our garden journals for the very first time. On the next visit, we will use our 5 senses to see what we discover! A special thanks to A. Drovetsky for snapping the picture for us!

A big squash, hiding under the leaves!

Today I found a big cocozelle squash hidden under the leaves in the garden. What's a cocozelle squash? It's an Italian zucchini. It is supposed to be very tender and flavorful. I have been watching it for about a month and hoping that it would get nice and big. It has! Tomorrow I will go outside and measure it with class 1SW if it isn't raining. I hope that the chipmunks don't get to it in the night! I sprinkled hot, crushed peppers around it in hopes of keeping them away! Cross your fingers!

Caught looking in the garden!

Deer on the run...

A not so fast turkey get away!



 There was a lot of activity in the garden when I arrived this weekend! Normally, I can't get my camera out fast enough, but today I was armed and ready! I saw several turkeys looking in the garden, along with some deer and a big furry groundhog. They all scampered away pretty fast, but I was able to snap a few pictures. One turkey had a hurt leg and was limping.

Who's having a feast in the garden?

SOMETHING has been nibbling all of our hard work! Here's what's left of our corn and cucumbers...

 

Math for Gardeners!

Is your math brain ready for school? Brush up on your math skills and see if you can do these math problems for gardeners!

Someone has been busy looking for "end of season" garden tool sales! She found lots of kid sized gloves!
They cost 6 dimes each. How much did each pair of gloves cost?

Someone also spent a Saturday washing off all the tools we already had. Now they're nice and clean and ready to be used!

Lots of medium sized gloves were also on sale! They were the same price as the kid sized gloves. Someone bought
20 pair. How much did they spend for all the medium sized gloves?

These are the new hand rakes that were in the "sale" bin. The secret shopper bought 4 reds, 7 greens, 5 blues, and 4 yellows. How many new hand rakes were bought in all?

These are kneeling pads, so we won't hurt our knees on the wood chips when we work. They cost $1 each. The secret shopper bought 20 kneeling pads. What was the total cost of the kneeling pads?

Groundhogs: Pests or Gardeners? By K.Miller

How Groundhog's Garden Grew
By Lynne Cherry

Reviewed by K. Miller

This story is about a groundhog who learned how to garden. First he was stealing from a neighbor's garden and the animals caught him. They told him to grow his own garden and he said he didn't know how. So, a smart squirrel taught him how to grow a garden. Read more and find out if he was a good gardener or a pest.

I liked this book because it reminded me of planting our garden in Short Hills. Also, the illustrations were really good. Sometimes the author/illustrator would put pictures around the edges of the pages. The pictures were of plants, seeds and things that are pests and things that aren't pests. My favorite picture is the one where Groundhog is getting out of his burrow in the spring and he and squirrel are cutting up potatoes to plant in the garden. Also, I liked the end pages because they had lots of pictures of things we grew in our garden. This is a good book to read!

Learn about Dr. George Washington Carver!

The Little Plant Doctor: A Story About George Washington Carver
by Jean Marzollo
Reviewed by J. Smith

This book tells about Dr. Carver when he was a little boy.It teaches you about how he helped people learn to grow their gardens better. He was too sick and weak to work with his brother on the farm, so he helped with the family garden. He also had a secret garden that no one knew about in the woods. At his secret garden, he learned about plants and
how they grew. Then people started to call him the "Little Plant Doctor".
I liked this book because he helped people with their plants and grew up to be a famous botanist. I also liked the illustrations, especially the page where he is hugging the little tree he planted. I recommend this book if you want to learn about George Washington Carver as a little boy.

Summer Harvest

        While carefully pinching off basil leaves, Alivia recalled from class that ladybugs help to control aphids in the garden.

                               A Pingry pupil picked a pretty perfect purple pepper!

A juicy cucumber!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Gibson (and some hungry chipmunks) have been sharing the bounty of the garden. It is fun to see the eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, and melons ripening in the combination of August sun and rain. As a taste tester, Mrs. Gibson can report that the few ears of corn harvested before the "critturs" gobbled them up were exceptionally sweet and tender. The purple peppers were a little bitter but interesting in an omelette and the cucumbers were delicious in a Pingry garden salad!

A chipmunk salad bar

There are some chubby chipmunks running around!

A garden salad of  peppers, one tomato, cucumbers, and basil-mmmmmmm

 The burst of yellow

Welcomes the small bee

Doing his day job

            

     The pumpkin pushed hard

       On the bonds of its cage

     Trying to escape

  

A shy ear of corn

Poked through the sheltering leaves

And whispered, "I'm here..."

         

          

    The pepper was green

    Until, kissed by the hot sun,

    It showed its red self