Community Garden Day

Come out to our first garden work day at Justin Elementary!

Saturday, October 14th

9am-12pm

Bring the family and help clean up the garden, build signs, paint rocks, and ready the garden to plant for the fall and... 

help our school garden bloom!

Helpful things to bring:

• gloves
• garden tools
• a tiller 
• hammer
• battery operated drills
• river rocks to paint    
• Pansies or Violas to plant                           

 

Plan a visit to the garden

Cameron watering Mrs. Briseno's butterfly garden. There's lots of tomatoes to harvest! Come pull a few weeds, collect trash, and enjoy the garden while you collect some produce! It's quite nice in the morning!

Tomatoes waiting to be picked!

                             
 Every time we visit the garden Mrs. Morris's bed has something new blooming!

 Our climbing garden has some giant gourds, cucumbers, and squash growing in them!

This beautiful Swallowtail was visiting today!

I Spy...

Mrs. Gavin and I pulled a bucket full of weeds this Wednesday! In the process we found lots of surprises! Come out and see what you can find!

 Above: Swallowtail Caterpillars munching on dill from the Sensory Garden

Below: A Chrysalis waiting to turn into a beautiful butterfly

 Above: a gourd growing in the Climbing Garden - the kids will love these in the fall!

Below: a Lily growing in the 2nd grade Butterfly Gardens

 Above: Sunflowers that grew from last years plantings in the 2nd grade Butterfly Gardens

Below: Cameron Mechell finding some large cucumbers in the Climbing Garden

 Above: Lots of cucumbers - there should be some regular sized ones ready next week! 

Below: tomatoes and peppers from the Salsa Garden - lots of tomatoes should be turning red next week as well!

Pick some crops for home - Cost: just pull some weeds and water our garden (watch for wasps and bees that are busy pollinating!)

sign up here:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080d44aea728a20-free

Free Weeds Pull Your Own!

Do you like to garden? During these summer months we could use a few gloved hands to pull weeds and grass from our garden beds. Please click on our SignUp Genius to sign up for a slot!
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080d44aea728a20-free

Our Garden is Blooming!

 Our 2nd grade butterfly gardens are in full bloom! Our new Swallowtail will enjoy this habitat!

 Swallowtail caterpillars love to feed on our dill! This one was drying out when Mrs. Gavin was tending to the garden.

 The climbing garden is especially fun! We have cucumbers, gourds, and long necked squash growing here!

Our Master Gardeners have been working hard on our garden. Check out our Sensory Garden, Climbing Garden, Salsa Garden, and Salad Garden. 2nd grade will be adding their yearly butterfly garden soon in the other 2 beds. Excited about getting kids out in the garden for our Earth Day assembly on Friday!

Master Gardeners Preparing the Soil and Bunny Nest

Master Gardeners

Today our Master Gardeners pulled weeds and worked in 32 bags of soil.  That is 64 cubic feet of dirt!  Our beds are ready to plant starting with a Salad Garden, Salsa Garden, a Five Senses Garden, and a Gourd Garden. Our 2nd graders will be working on the other two beds to add a Butterfly Garden as they learn about butterflies! We are so excited to see kids out exploring and observing nature!

Bunnies in the Garden!

While pulling weeds Mrs. Reynolds found a sweet bunny nest in one of the beds. There were at least 3-4 bunnies in that burrow! They were very camouflaged and lots of great discussions and observations happened during our work time! 

Can you see them under the nesting material?

sweet potato splices

Each class will be sprouting sweet potato splices in their classrooms to add to our Edible Garden or surrounding areas on Earth Day!