Join me as we take our periodic stroll around the garden!
Junior High students often change the message on the blackboard hung in their garden. Yes, welcome indeed!
I might have mentioned we are planting a lot of peas to get ready for our first Harvest of the Month program in May. (Pinecones are to discourage critters from walking in the bed.)
As we were harvesting the broccoli, one child told me she didn’t know that the part of broccoli we eat is curled up flowers. I told her we’d leave one plant in the ground to flower so she could see for herself.
Broccoli is also coming up in one of our container gardens. That’s one of the funny things about school gardens—mystery plants! (Someone, at some time, had an idea, a vision, a spare plant…who knows?)
The strawberry plants look luscious. Keep. meaning. to. enclose. them. in. nets.
The tulips are finally up in the breast cancer awareness ribbon. Watching them bloom took on new meaning for me this year as two very brave and beautiful friends of mine have kicked cancer’s butt in the last year.
New child-created signage on the bulletin board on the CATCH nutrition concept: go, slow and whoa foods.
We’ve been moving native strawberries out of this prime veggie growing location to the hillside around the fruit trees, as a move toward a permaculture fruit tree guild. We hadn’t moved all of them by Science Day though so I split the bed to make some room for pea planting, pinning back the strawberries with some white picket fencing we keep moving around the garden. Cute!
Someone donated this flag last year, and we fly it—announcing our allegiance to daffodils!
Mrs. Shull’s fourth grade class peas. Each child did a letter on an index card, I laminated them and kids taped them to bamboo skewers.
We have a gazillion wildflower seeds in the garden, from seed ball making activities, former projects, etc. Wildflowers have a special immunity in our garden. Wherever they want to pop up, we gladly let them stay.
This little donated table broke. No worrries. With a tree stump standing in, it makes another cozy little spot to hang out in the garden.
A local grape grower trimmed these for us! Our first crop this fall? (Stay tuned.)
Look who decided to bloom. (Oh little wisteria, you have no idea how close you were to being uprooted.)
Our honeysuckle reading teepee. Last week a child sitting inside yelled, “Mrs. Elisara! Come here! There’s a chrysallis at the top of the teepee!” Sure enough, a butterfly-to-be was dangling from the ceiling. (The president of the entomology club later ID’ed it.)
If you’re not familiar with Box Tops, they are the little pink coupons found on hundreds of products. Schools collect them and mail them in, receiving 10 cents for each one. It adds up, and at our school, the proceeds have been earmarked for the garden. Twice a year we receive a check. Here’s what we bought with our latest earnings: pea trellises, bean towers, seed starting mix, trays, compost, and our 3×3 raised bed frame.
Finally, it’s always good to step back and get the big picture!
What's not to like? 
I love the index card idea! Totally going to use that! The tulip ribbon is so beautiful. What an awesome idea!!!
Looks like you’re catching up on your backlog of posts……:) Thanks for reading so faithfully, sister!
Sitting at my desk at Peace of the City, candles lit, grey, cozy room with Christmas lights on and a wonderful CD playing called Walking Through The Clouds…best “attribute” of all is watching the drenched kids and teens roll into POTC seeking refuge from the rain and thunder!
Guess what, though we do not have your amazing garden here in the inner city of Buffalo– when it is my turn to teach Jesus TIme in Homework CLub tomorrow, I’m going to go through this last post of yours word by word and picture by picture with the kids.
I amy even try to rig up the projector.
Thank you for documenting beauty and children.
Peace.
Diann
Enjoying this picture of you at your desk. I wish I could watch the slideshow. I’m sitting in the sweet idea that these things we do can connect us—the kids you love looking at pictures of things done by kids I love….it leaves me feeling very grateful. Thanks. If you’d like, tell me how it goes, what you say, how they respond…..
The kids loved it…most children these days are remarkably media savvy and your garden seemed real to them. They liked that I had been there [to the boys school where the gardens are], that I knew you for a long time, that this is in a place so foreign. Urban gardening has caught on, so the kids were not unfamiliar with it all. Of course, they wanted to start their own garden at Peace of the City. That is not possible at the moment, BUT they are going to grow flowers and beans in Homework Club!
Peace.
Diann
Send me pictures when they do!
Wow, the garden looks amazing!!! Maybe Big E or Little E could give me a tour next week!!!! MOM
That would be great! Elliot made the bulletin board—one of our sick week projects!
Love the garden tour, helps me feel connected even when I am still so far away, can’t wait to come home and see it all in person!
Very fun post! Enjoyed the tour! Didn’t know pinecones could be so useful! And didn’t know that broccoli was curled up flowers! (I also see why having a portable camera on hand comes in handy!)
T,
My daughter/master gardner/mother of two really cool boys/auntie to two really cool girls/wife of a really humble husband/ loves lady bugs,peas and composting…..”.ROCKS”….dad
The garden is looking great! Say, does the pinecone border really keep out the critters?
Anne