Shine On! Photosynthesis

Monday was a beautiful day in the garden and all of the plants are doing very well. The gardeners spent time weeding (as usual) and watering. Hard to believe that after so much rain the gardens now need water. We also spent some time tying up tomato plants and learning how to remove unwanted suckers from the plants. Every garden looks great filled with healthy plants with lots of flowers and small vegetables. The students can clearly see the positive impact of sun, water and good soil on their plants and seeds and seem to be very pleased with the results. All of the adults have been very impressed with the enthusiasm and hard work displayed by the young gardeners.

Lenna found a couple of okra buds on her plants and shared with everyone.

The topic of today’s lesson was photosynthesis, which included a review of the 3 things that all plants need to thrive, light, water and oxygen. Most students were familiar with the basic concept of photosynthesis and Marlin did a great job of further explaining the scientific details of how it works and why the process is so important to sustaining life on earth. Afterwards, the students conducted a related experiment. Each student cut out several paper shapes, which were in turn paper clipped to a few plant leaves in the garden. After 2 weeks the students will compare the covered leaves to the others to see the impact. Should be interesting to see what happens.

The students made ladybug beanbags, which will be used for an outside game at a later date. We were very fortunate to have Nate and Sam’s mother Genenve and sister Louisa join the group today to help maintain the gardens while the boys are away at scout camp.

Grow, Grow, Grow Your Beans

A discussion about chocolate chip cookies started today's lesson. Just as you need certain ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies, plant growth requires certain ingredients. They are: water, light, air and nutrients.

The young gardeners designed their own experiments varying one of these ingredients, and made predictions about what would happen. Then they planted beans in various nutrients, or with different amounts of water or light. They'll check their beans in a couple of weeks to see if their predictions were accurate.


Planting their bean experiments



The gardens are looking good! Baylee and Josie are weeding Baylee's garden while Lenna looks on.

Coddle Those Cotyls

First thing this morning, the young gardeners examined their plants and began weeding. Baylee noticed that her squash plant had a bright yellow flower.

Lexie counted 9 flowers on her squash. We also spread new mulch between each garden to provide a dry place to walk. Several of the students commented that the mulch made the gardens look better. Jeff was kind enough to share some organic fertilizer to be used on the tomato and pepper plants.

The topic of today’s lesson was learning about seed germination along with the 5 parts of a seed. We talked about and looked at several different types of seeds including marigold, poppy and bean seeds. After the seed lesson, each student made seed bombs or seed balls. This included seeds, compost, clay and water and can be placed on the ground to grow perennial flowers.

Nate and Sam working on their seed bombs.

Seed or Weed - What is a Weed?

Today was all about weeds!

We learned what weeds are - Drake
We learned how to prevent weeds - Josie

Weeds are anything you don't want growing in your garden, and they compete with your plants for nutrients, water and space. So it's important to remove or prevent them by weeding and mulching. Our young gardeners didn't get to do much weeding today because the gardens are too wet. We surveyed the gardens and check the rain gauges - 1.3 inches since Monday!















Laurel found the first Anaheim pepper and tomato in her salsa garden!

After surveying the gardens, we went inside and painted picture frames. We'll decorate them later with imprints of leaves from our plants. We'll use the frames for pictures of us in our gardens!

Three Sisters Garden Beans, Corn & Squash

After discussing the benefits of companion planting, the gardeners in training constructed a bean tepee to be used for a three sisters garden. Since it was very muddy in the garden, we decided to wait to plant the seeds until the ground dried out a bit. The students did a great job working in two teams tying the bamboo poles together and then placing them in the ground.

The third step involved fastening string around the bamboo poles to create a ladder for the beans to climb. The final step will be to plant corn, beans and squash in and around the structure.

After completing the tepee, each of the the students made and decorated a rain gauge under the guidance of Chris Veach. Drake commented that making the rain gauge was his favorite thing that we did in class today and that he plans to use his at home.

Thanks to Baylee for bringing the snack today, yummy cupcakes!

Lasagna Gardening

Today we created a lasagna garden. Here two of our apprentice gardeners are dumping a bag of grass clippings to create another layer.













"We did lasagna gardening. We planted a few sunflowers in it, then we got marigolds for our gardens." Lexie Cree


"My garden has a lot of radishes left from Mr. Jeff last year." Nate Harmon

Planting Day

Prepared beds, ready for our plants!






"The Salsa Garden is fun. I can't wait to see my plants in bloom!" Laurel Cross



"Today was a cool day. We made our gardens with some help with the adults and master gardeners. I had so much fun and I can't wait to come back! They are helping us meet new friends and teach us things we need to know when we're older. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone!" Lenna Mueller

Growing Together

Today in our first session we got to know each other and learned some rules of the garden - be safe and respect others, protect wildlife and 'don't step on stuff'.

After a get acquainted ball toss game, Jeff gave us all a lesson in 3-seasons of crops. We got to see the early spring crops ready for harvest, including lettuce, kale and kholrabi.

Today's lesson was 'Why there is hunger' and a crossword puzzle illustrated reasons some people go hungry. Our youthful participants did a great job answering the clues!

Everyone got to pick what type of garden they are going to plant. Choices were sunshine garden, holiday garden, salsa garden and wierd garden - I can't wait to see them!

Here is a 'before' picture of the garden. By Monday this will be tilled and marked off in plots, ready for planting. Monday is dig in the dirt day!

Check back often to see our gardens grow!

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog for Garden N Grow 2010. Thanks to Fairview Christian Church in Gladstone Mo. for providing the classroom and garden plots for our program, which starts June 3 and runs through August 9. Check back often for updates on how the gardens are growing!

Here is the link to last year's blog - http://gardenngrow.blogspot.com/