Reynolds Elementary Garden: May 2014

Friday, May 30, 2014

Sunny summer days ahead!

Hello gardeners!

Can you believe it has already been a year since we all first stepped into the garden!? It certainly has been an exciting year and a continual learning experience. We have grown a great variety of produce this year and have witnessed the miraculous journey of a seed to a lovely piece of fruit or vegetable. We have observed the effects that weather and our environment have on our crops and the habitat of the garden. Some of the kids were also lucky to catch glimpses of the insects in action, both helpful and harmful.

Take a minute to scroll through the first photos of what was just an empty plot of grass and see all that has happened to take us to what our garden is today!

I hope that the students, teachers, faculty, and volunteers have enjoyed the addition of the garden to Reynolds elementary and that together we can work towards making this outdoor learning center a fantastic complement to the schools learning tools!

Looking towards the fall, please reach out to me with any ideas, feedback or comments, this is our garden and the more variety in participation the better!

nuzha13@hotmail.com

Also, we will be working in the garden over the summer, planting, harvesting, cleaning, maintaining and PICKLING, we will have many okra, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant and much more, if you like gardening please let me know and I can keep you informed on our work days!

See all the exciting photos below and have a great summer, don't be strangers!

Thank you for joining us on this adventure in learning!

Maryah Nijim Roberts

The "garden lady"

Garden soup made by Mrs. Mann's first grade class, yummy!

Our pumpkin is taking over!

Happy figs growing!

Little pumpkin in training!

A Sunday harvest, and those are 18 inch cinder blocks, some huge zuccini!

Friday, May 9, 2014

May Flowers!

Hello everyone!

I hope that you have all had a great end of April and beginning of May! Certainly our many April Showers brought us some lovely May flowers, vegetables and fruit!

I also wanted to congratulate the school and all those who organized the Carnival on what a great success it was! I believe fun was had by all and we also had many new parents and kids come out to visit the garden. A big thank you to Mrs. Mendez for making her delicious fresh Mint Watermelon Juice, two of the many things we are growing in the garden at this moment!

This has been an exciting year for the garden as it was planted and sprouted just this past August. I thank all of the teachers and students for being so supportive of the Reynolds Elementary Garden. Looking forward to this next year we will take into consideration all the great feedback that was provided in the surveys and strive to make the garden a teacher friendly learning tool for the whole school.

We are still hoping to have a stand at the Grogan's Mill Farmers Market before the year is up, however, with the weekends running out it just may have to be a summer activity.

For all those who would like to stay in touch with the garden this summer please send me an email as we will be working in it over the summer and most definitely will be harvesting over our hot summer months. One way we can preserve some of our bountiful harvest will be by "pickling" some vegetables, we can pickle okra, beans, and cucumber!

Our Eagle Scout candidates will also be carrying out their projects over the summer, so hopefully when school returns in the Fall we will have some lovely new updates to share!

I know many of you are busy with rounding up classes and studies for the end of the year, so if you would like me to stop by your classroom with some treats or show and tell from the garden please email me and schedule a time that suits you! Today I was able to bring the green peas that Mrs. Sasitarch's class planted and I have harvested enough for them to all enjoy some! Also, as you will see in the pictures, the cucumber plant that was planted from seed by the second grade has already produced some nice looking cucumber, everyday we will be on the lookout for new tasty treats! The other things that are all fruiting are the tomatoes, okra, sugar snap peas, zucchini, strawberries, eggplant, and of course our resident pumpkin plant that just might take over!!!

Teachers and faculty, if you are making some tasty dishes for dinner please feel free to come and harvest some fresh herbs, I have to trim them back often and always give them away to the first person I see in the hallway!

I will be in the garden this coming Monday at 10 if you would like to join me!

Thank you,

Maryah Nijim Roberts, nuzha13 @hotmail.com