Color

Color is my new quest for the Memory Garden. The first grade garden has the most color being a "Rainbow Garden." However, their garden is right at the far end of the garden - you can't see much of the color from inside the school. Here's a taste of the bursts of color ...


I am excited to visit the Garden today because a fellow parent has joined the quest for color - pictures to follow.

Corn, beans and squash are up ... and wildlife is moving in

The Three Sisters Garden is up and flourishing: each mound has 4 corn plants, several bean and squash plants. Fat, healthy sunflowers divide the mounds. Ms. Lane's class planted this garden and help construct the bamboo tee-pees for the purple yard long beans.

Increasingly there are signs of life in the garden - the tiny violets and violas are the host plant of this brightly colored caterpillar - I think this is a Variegated Fritillary Caterpillar. What do you think?








We have noticed more bird activity since we have a bird bath and bird seed back in the garden. A pair of mockingbirds have begun making a nest in a buddleia bush. They have started by laying several sticks parallel to each other - these are thinnish but long sticks, about twice as long as the bird was. You can't see it too clearly, but here is a picture of the beginning of the nest. The bird on the radio tower is one of the pair monitoring our activity in the garden.









Did you know butterflies are not the only insect whose life cycle includes metamorphosis?

This is the pupae stage of a ladybug, before it becomes a fully grown beetle.

Here is a coloring sheet showing the life cycle of a ladybug.

This website also gives tons of information about ladybugs.

A three sisters garden

Today was a chance to join social studies and gardening. Mrs. Lanes' first grade class planted a classic Native American garden - a three sisters garden. Rather than planting crops in monocultural rows - corn, beans, and squash all off in separate fields - Native Americans planted all three "sisters" in mounds. These three crops have a wonderful relationship- the corn provides support for the beans, the beans provide nitrogen for the corn, the squash shade the earth and keep it cool and suppress the weeds.

I was going to plant seed corn, but then learned I had to wait 2 weeks for it to come up before I planted the beans. A quick visit to our wonderful local feed and seed/hardware/allsorts store, Griffs solved the problem, 4" high Silver Queen starts. We enriched the soil with mushroom compost and made our mounds. Then 18 very excited first graders worked in shifts to plant the sisters. We planted the corn oriented to the North, South, East and West as Cherokee would have. Then each corn plant got two bean seed sisters and each mound will have 4 pumpkin seeds. I bought cheap seeds and there were only a few seeds in each packet so I shall have to back and sow some more tomorrow. I lined the garden with sunflowers. I'm not sure how successful this will be because it is smaller than Renee's Garden suggests is the minimum size - 10' x 10', but fingers crossed.


Some of the Native American stories about the three sisters are located at the Bird Clan of East Central Alabama website.

Spring activity

Ms. Lanes class have green fingers! Their seeds came up like gang-busters. And, thanks to Ms. Fran they survived and thrived through spring break.





Harvest!

Spring!

I can't believe it is almost late March! The daffodils are up and well into flower in the garden. Use of the garden has increased, Last Friday I went out with Ms. Lanes first grade class and we encountered two other classes using the space as an outdoor classroom- magic! We started seeds
for the Rainbow Garden: Red salvia, yellow and orange marigolds, oregano, blue cornflowers and purple basil. They sure do have green thumbs! Seeds were up by Tuesday!

A new semester - the garden progresses

Long view of the garden showing the new benches set up and ready to use.








The addition of benches and tables with colorful umbrellas makes this a perfect place for classes to gather and work. Last time I was out with a first grade class a third grade class was discussing and measuring their shadows. The Grandparent luncheon was held in the hallway looking out onto the garden and some tables were set up actually in the garden. It was a lovely event! Notice the student tiles, framed and hung by the local Boy Scout troop, between the two windows on the right.



The first grade have been learning all about seeds and the parts of plants. They planted lettuce, spinach, carrots, onions and garlic. Everything is sprouting!
These are lettuce seedlings. The first grade garden is the Rainbow Garden, the red pineapple sage and the verbena are quite stunning now.

The value of a garden to a school

I firmly believe that a garden can be a revolutionary learning tool for a school. When combined with discovery-based, inquiry focused lessons children will learn how to think- not just to regurgitate the "facts' you tell them. A garden focuses children in a wonderful way- they learn how to observe, create and analyze in an organic and unthreatening setting. I have been in the garden at PES when children have observed butterflies sipping nectar, have come face to face with a bee and learned how to deal with fear, and held a strawberry plant with a big fat ball of mud beneath it and asked with reverance- "can I hold that." They have discovered the difference between tomatoes and strawberries (really!) and that they can plant a bulb and it will come up in the spring. These(many) children are starved for someone to connect them to the natural world. It can be the canvas for many lessons from science to history to English language to math. The garden teaches them about the wonders of our world in our backyard, not just that wonders are "out there" "somewhere else" and that we have no control over them. In fact the lessons of the garden are that we can transform our world and make it a better place. From creating habitat for birds, catching glimpses of the resident rabbi,t or growing food for the local soup kitchen the children become active agents in solving national and international problems - this is learning beyond price..