The past 2 days

Yesterday was a huge planning day. We plotted out every bed and planned exactly how many of each plant would go where. Now we have a definite plan of how many of which crops will be grown. This is really important for us to know so that we can figure out when to plant each crop, based on the time it takes to reach maturity. With this information we marked on a calendar when we would need to plant each vegetable. It took a lot of discussion and planning but we came up with a layout that was the most logical and beneficial. This will serve as our guide for the whole semester ahead.

Today we met with the kids for a half hour. We watered with them and planted watermelon and collard greens. We learned a lot today about working with the kids. Unfortunately we are learning from mistakes. We were pretty disorganized at first and there was no really clear direction. It's unfortunate that we had to have this happen, but it's fortunate that it happened this early on. We now know we need to be much more organized every day. A good part of the remaining day was spent planning out exactly what to do for tomorrow. We're confidant now that tomorrow will go much smoother, we don't want another repeat of today.

We got some more mulch today and spread it around the perimeter to reach the sunflowers and corn. It's surprising how much bigger it makes the garden look. The mulch will serve as a weed deterrent and also help to keep moisture in. We also noticed we are starting to see a lot of weeds coming up in the beds we haven't even planted in yet, and also some sprouts coming up in our greenhouse starters! It's so exciting to witness the very beginning of the long growth cycle.

Tomorrow marks the final day for the winter term, so starting Tuesday a new group of Eckerd students will be added to the project. We still have to figure out the curriculum for the upcoming semester and will be working on that a lot in the days and weeks to come.