Garden Project

Having a classroom garden has been a dream of mine for some time.  It finally came to fruition this year.  It started as a hodge podge container garden.  About six planters half with organic soil and half with regular soil.  It was a start of a scientific investigation into which soil would produce the better plants.
My container garden and a few donated plants (it doesn't look like much more than a mess)
At some point I expressed my desire for a real garden bed and I was blessed with two.  It took a few weeks for them to come to actualization.  The custodians at my school built them for me and left me to fill them.


This is where a generous group comes in, the Hogtown Brewers.  My husband and I have been members for some time, albeit not members in the best of standing, family has taken us away, but members nonetheless.  As part of their charitable giving the Hogtown Brewers donate $100 to teachers that are also members.

The contributions from the Hogtown Brewers initially helped with my container garden and plants.  After the beds were put in, I was able to use their contribution to buy soil, lots and lots of soil.  I also used the funds to get other gardening tools, tomato cages, and some seeds.

The local Ace Hardware donated massive amounts of plants to our school.  I was fortunate enough to receive some of these plants.  Unfortunately I took these plants in before I had an actual garden to put them in.  It all worked out in the end.


Plants that we received from Ace took refuge from Hurricane Hermine in my classroom.


This was our fall garden.  It didn't produce too much.  The plants we received from Ace hardware were at the end of their shelf life and we weren't able to provide the massive amounts of TLC that they needed.
Broccoli was about the only thing that survived the one freeze we had this winter.



Students decide what types of seeds they are going to plant for our spring garden.



Last year we had some issues with how shallow the garden box was, so as part of my wish list I asked for taller boxes.  My principal delivered.  My awesome custodians added a second board and now these boxes are deep.  To help preserve the life of the wood, and to give it a little pop of color I painted them (with my husband's help).


As part of an on going project we are creating stepping stones that go around the end of the boxes.  Students painted rocks that are somewhat theme based and we created stones based on topics we've learned in class.

In the background you can also see one of my wonderful parents (who just happens to be the school's master gardener) brought us the compost.

June 2018 The garden seems to flourish when school is out

October 2018 WATERMELON!!!



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