Sow what'd you do today?

The planting has begun!!!

Our preschool, kindergarten and first grade kicked off our planting today by sowing Japanese Mustard Green and Cimmaron Lettuce seeds into little Jiffy pots.

The students were very excited and could hardly wait until they got their turn to plant their seeds.  I have many pictures to share later, but until then, I'll leave you with these:

Cimmaron Lettuce

Japanese Mustard Greens

*Thank you to GrowNWI for donating the seeds for today's planting! :)

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!

Math & Beautiful Weekends

This past week was school spirit week at Avicenna Academy.  It was perfect timing as it was also the most beautiful week of the year thus far!  Some of our junior high students made their way out to the garden site to take some measurements for some work they'll be doing as part of their math class.  

                                                       

And, some students have taken advantage of the beautiful weather and begun painting our tires (for use in our sweet potato towers) and restoring an old tool shed on the property.  

Students in fourth grade and below will begin growing seeds in their classes so that we may transfer the plants to our garden once the time is right.  Meanwhile, I met with master gardener, Monica, from GrowNWI who let me know that once we ask the town of Merrillville to come and dump compost, they can till it in for us.  We also had a nice, long conversation about composting.

There's a lot of work to be done, but I'm so happy at the way things are falling into place!

And, just this morning I received an email with this link in it:  Garden of Hope

Beautiful Day

This morning's weather was beautiful and held up nicely for our groundbreaking ceremony.  We had many people show up: Bud Crist (President of Merrillville's Stormwater Utility), Derek Frazier (Food Procurement Manager with the Food Bank of NWI), Chuck Gleason (Project Manager with GrowNWI), Jon Hendricks (Photographer with NWI Times) and members of Avicenna Academy's board of directors.

Here are some pictures from today...

Part of the "community" in our garden...

 

One of our students collecting a sample from the core sampler.

Doug Molchan sharing the garden plan.

Students enjoying some refreshments after the groundbreaking ceremony.

A picture of the soil in the core sampler.  

We have a rich top layer (approximately 6") followed by a layer mixed with clay.

Groundbreaking

Tomorrow I will be congregating with a representative from the Town of Merrillville, the food procurement manager from the NWI Food Bank, some students from Avicenna Academy and possibly some board members from the school to officially witness the groundbreaking of our garden.  A photographer from the NWI Times will be present.  I'm looking forward to finally seeing some forward movement!  Pictures to come! :)

What's in a name?

Derek Frazier of the Food Bank of NWI and I sat down to discuss the name for our community garden.  Throughout the original stages of planning, we just called it "the community garden".  We decided it was time to name the garden and while mulling over our options, he shared the Food Bank's mission statement/motto: Fighting Hunger, Feeding Hope.

And, there you have it...

The Garden of Hope