Lessons

Within a matter of weeks, the garden will be bustling with students planting, laying down mulch trails and building and painting signs and benches.  I'm sure they'll have plenty to reflect upon once they start doing the work they've been planning all year. 

Meanwhile, as the garden coordinator, I've already learned quite a few lessons that I've been sharing with the students:

1) If you ask for help, you just may get it!
Explanation: This project started out as a very small idea and it's grown into something much larger that involves more people than I could have imagined.  I no longer feel overwhelmed or in the dark.  Not only have the kids learned a lot, but I have, thanks to everyone who has contributed to this effort.


2) Almost anything can be recycled or reused 
Explanation: We are using an old discarded turtle-shaped sandbox to grow mint, as I've been told mint grows like a weed.  Also, we're reusing coffee cans, discarded cookie tins and other receptacles as planters.  We've also come up with a creative use for tires (see below).


3) While there are always new "problems" popping up, there's almost always a very simple (yet creative) solution!
Explanation: While looking at the plot of land that the garden sits on, we discovered there were quite a few discarded tires.  Tires, of course, cannot be tossed with regular garbage and we didn't want trash laying around and cluttering up the property.  As it turns out, what initially seemed to be a problem was turned into a solution for another issue: sweet potatoes don't grow well in clay, which is what we have going on beneath the top 6" of topsoil.  However, if you plant sweet potatoes and then place a tire above them and add more soil, the potatoes will grow into the soil in the tire.  Periodically you can add more tires and soil until eventually you end up with sweet potato towers! 

I look forward to this coming week.  I'll be posting pictures of progress in the classrooms as our students start the seeds indoors.  Hopefully we'll get the first tilling done this week so that we can call the town of Merrillville and request our delivery of compost so that we may till a second time.

I'll update soon!