Today was another wonderful garden morning. Our classes on Friday are always a little hyper and all over the place so today we tried to begin with an exercise to get them more focused. We did a little stretching, turned our garden listening ears on and turned on our scientist eyes. We also shook out some pent up energy. I'm not sure it incrementally improved their behavior but I'd like to keep doing it just as a way to bring everyone together before we split up into groups for the lesson. The bug hunt went well. We got side tracked by looking at the plants though, which was fine by me. We sampled a few leaves of the "spicy lettuce mix" and some of the kids loved it. Others made grossed out faces and spit it out with lots of laughter from the group. It was a pretty cute little scene. The okra and cucumbers looked a little rough today with shriveled up and yellowed leaves. Prof. Curtis said it's from over-watering so we're going to have to tone that down! It's such a relaxing task, plus we're used to it being so hot, that I think we have been giving them a little too much water. The cooler weather makes watering much less necessary. Hopefully the 'cukes will look better once they dry out a little.
We had a nice treat again today of seeing butterflies in the garden. Some classes have been doing hatching them in their room and then bringing them out to the garden, so I think that's where the new members have come from.
On top is the infamous spicy lettuce! It looks so healthy and beautiful. The carrots planted in two rows on the sides are finally starting to poke their heads through too. On the bottom is the big momma collard that is somehow twice the size of all the others! They are looking really healthy and I think enjoying the cool weather. I'm going to head to the garden this weekend and spray some neem oil on the cucumbers which in addition to being over-watered are being munched on by insects. Neem oil is something I had on hand for skin care but was told by a visiting reporter today at the garden that it is also really good for pests. We'll see if it works!
No comments:
Post a Comment