Great Volunteers

Ms. Davis' class from Pendleton High School

Today a group of Pendleton High School students came to volunteer in the Garden.  They were so enthusiastic and helpful.  They planted ornamental plants in the Kindergarten Garden (sensory garden) and the Second Grade Garden (butterflies & insect life cycles) - in preparation for grandparents day.  We planted rather sad looking kale, collards and basil.  It was so much fun to share the fragrance of basil and rosemary with the kids.  We also had the joy of seeing a monarch caterpillar and talk about the long journey this small creature will make to Mexico in a few weeks!  It was all so much fun.

August 25 - Emergency Workday

August 25 - a great workday!!

Looking good and gardening

A spider taking her egg sac to safety: the essence of the Garden - looking closely and learning something new.

Melissa O'Neill working hard

The supervisors & the workers!

Potatoes

Potatoes

Ms. Frady's second grade class planted potatoes in the Spring - and guess what!!  They grew a bunch of them- some teeny tiny ones, small ones, medium and large!!!!  

Potatoes seem like an ordinary vegetable- best as french fries with a little salt, excellent as a baked potato or even mashed for Thanksgiving dinner.  Prepare to be amazed!!

In your grocery store you might have red, white and yellow potatoes ... did you know there are over 5,000 kinds of potato. 

Many kinds of potatoes.

Potatoes originated in South America and this is where the highest variety of potatoes exist.

The first Spaniards in the region - the band led by Francisco Pizarro, who landed

 in 1532 - noticed Indians eating these strange, round objects and emulated them, 

often reluctantly.*

Potatoes spread throughout Europe - "By the end of the 18th century, potatoes had become ... a staple.  Roughly 40% of the Irish ate no solid food other than potatoes."

Then, in 1845 the Great Potato Famine began - a potato blight and Colorado Beetle destroyed the potato crop with huge implications for the history of the United States of America. Want to know more? 

*Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/How-the-Potato-Changed-the-World.html#ixzz24y0caYyR

Bee: Nature Poetry

Bee! I'm expecting you!

Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due—

The Frogs got Home last Week—
Are settled, and at work—
Birds, mostly back—
The Clover warm and thick—

You'll get my Letter by
The seventeenth; Reply
Or better, be with me—
Yours, Fly.    - Emily Dickinson

How does theMemory Garden inspire you!

Spring is here - and maybe gone.

 The kindergarten bed.

 Potatoes

This is an odd year with things happening at a rapid rate.  I finally got to the garden to take pictures today.  There will be a first grade planting session tomorrow which will fill in many holes in the garden.  Right now, the kindergarten garden looks, and smells, the best because of the profusion of sweet peas flowering.