Sorry for the lapse in blog posts!

We've been lucky the past few weeks with nice weather. We prepared the garden a bit more for the winter rains, planted an ash tree on the west side of the school, made seed balls and learned a bit of tree identification. Last week was our final session, it was a great fall! Thanks for reading about our time together.

We lucked out again weather-wise and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon together in the garden! 

We checked on our cover crops, practiced reading seed packets, sowed winter window herbs to grow at home, and went on what might be our last bug hunt of the season!

We checked on our cover crops again, and the cereal rye has really grown.

We studied our seed packets: parsley, thyme, sage, oregano and chervil.

We created small posters with information about the window herbs we planted.

An Arugula Poster

A Parsley Poster

Club members working hard to learn about their herb and sow it properly.

Celia with her Parsley seeds and poster

Alec finished early and harvested/stored more Calendula seeds

And he found an interesting insect!

Maia found a grasshopper!

Today, we enjoyed this beautiful fall weather making more winter preparations in the garden! First we checked on the cover crops we had sown a few weeks back. They've loved this mix of rain and sun.

The red clover sprouting.

Our cereal rye is coming up quite nicely!

Enjoying our cereal rye cover crop.

We decided it was time to pull the last of the corn and beans.

Our final bean harvest.

We put all the spent plants in the compost.

Then we sheet mulched that corner of the garden by adding compost, newspaper and straw.

This week we packaged the seeds we saved last week (Pole Beans and Calendula), checked on our fall transplants and our sprouting cover crops, and went on a Bug Hunt!

(Designing our seed packets)

We began this week by reciting our Club Pledge. It was made using all the words and phrases we wrote last week in response to three questions: How should we treat our garden? How should we treat each other in the garden? and What do we want to learn about in Garden Club? Now the Pledge hangs on the Garden's bulletin board.

(The Garden Club Pledge: "We will treat our garden with respect. We won't step on plants or pull living plants or throw things like dirt. We will treat each other with respect and be nice to each other. We want to learn about many things, like nature, insects that pollinate, plants, berries, flowers and even outer space!")

Then we got to work preparing our garden for the winter by removing spent plants and planting garlic cloves, fava bean starts and cover crops like Cereal Rye and Crimson Clover!

(Planting garlic cloves)

(Planting garlic cloves)

(The whole gang removing spent sunflower stems)

(Elli, Elena and Celia Planting Fava Bean starts)

After we'd planted our cover crops, garlic and fava, we spent our last few minutes harvesting runner beans.

(Klara and Maia Harvesting Runner Beans)

(Simon Harvesting Runner Beans)

Before we left for the day, we took a Garden Club group photo:

The Llewellyn Garden Club met for the first time today! We began with a snack and a chance to get to know one another. Then we had a discussion of our club, our duties in the garden and the creation of our Club Pledge. 

Everyone answered three questions: What do you want to learn about in the garden?, How should we treat our garden?, and How should we treat each other in the garden?. Our answers will be compiled into our Club Pledge, which we'll review next week. 

(Garden Club members answering our Pledge Questions)

Then we discussed transplants and how to carefully and efficiently transplant starts. With our new garden partners, we transplanted Cabbage, Mustard Greens and Corn Salad so that we'll have some fall vegetables growing in our garden!

(Elena and Sam transplanting Cabbage)

(Simon and Alec transplanting Mustard greens)

(Transplanting fall vegetable starts)

(Sean and Watson transplanting Cabbage)

Then we discussed Seed Saving and inspected two plants in our garden that have mature seeds ready for harvest: Calendula and Sunflower. We harvested seed heads and sat in the shade processing our seeds. Next week, we'll package some seeds for planting in the spring and we'll get to taste some of the sunflower seeds once they've been roasted and salted!

(Elinor processing sunflower seeds)

(Alec and Simon hard at work)

(Elena and her sunflower seeds)

(Everyone finishing up our day preparing seeds)

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog of Llewellyn Elementary School's Garden Club!

This fall, students in the Garden Club will spend 10 weeks planting, tending and harvesting from the school garden. Utilizing the garden, greenhouse and school grounds as learning laboratories, students will learn about plant botany and cycles, seed saving, native plants, soil and compost, insects, healthy eating and much more!

Stay tuned for updates and photos...