Winter Planting in Arizona

After the outside temperature has cooled down in the Sonoran desert, the 3rd grade students at Dysart Elementary have been busy cleaning out the school garden, pulling out rocks and weeds, and I have been busy redigging the raised rows to plant the seeds.  A few weeks ago, we had a generous landscaping crew come into the garden to help pull the weeds as well!  Unfortunately there was an accident with the irrigation pipes, and we had to postpone the fall planting.  But the irrigation system was replaced this week with a more effective and user-friendly one.  Our class was eager to finally plant our winter crops!!  In Mrs. Gura's garden plot, we planted beets, lemon balm, carrots, bok choy, and parsley.  After we planted the seeds and watered the plot, of course...... it began to rain.  ha ha ha!!

See the video below about our preparation as readers to go work in the garden. 

And here is a video clip of our class planting the seeds in the garden!

Autumn Harvest & Garden Club

Finally!!  After all the literal blood, sweat, and tears invested into the school garden during the very hot summer months, there is an actual harvest of fruit and vegetables!! 

We have 11 pumpkins.........



Green Pumpkin....



The Pumpkin Patch

 


Time to Bake a Pie!  :)



 

And watermelons.........

And a few cowpeas survived the brutal heat......

And acorn squash are growing on the vines!!

The School Garden Club will begin this next week, on Thursday, November 17th.  There will be two groups, meeting on Thursday or Friday, after school from 3:15- 4:15 p.m.  It is open to 3rd-5th graders.  The students will be maintaining the garden (weeding, irrigating, and mulching), learning how to create different kinds of gardens, cooking meals with the food from the garden, and learning about nutrition.

September Snooze

It's been a while since I have last posted on the School Garden blog, so I wanted to give a brief update on the garden.  As some of you know, I spent almost every day of summer vacation working in the garden: fertilizing/mixing soil, creating furrows and raised mounds, planting new veggies, and weeding, weeding, WEEDING!! 

Once school began, obviously my free time quickly came to a grinding halt, and the miserable heat became relentless.  After so many days of the mercury rising above 110*, no amount of irrigation was helping those poor plants.  Some animal snuck into the garden and ate all of the melons.  The peas stopped growing, and the baby pumpkins died.  At that point I knew it was time to admit defeat!!  So the garden is having a little siesta, which is good for the soil anyways.  I stopped irrigating it, and letting the plants and weeds die off so we can start with a clean slate.

"So when is that?" you ask!!  I am hoping to kick-start the garden with a Community Garden cleanup on Saturday, October 15th.  It will be from 7-9 a.m.  We need to get the garden cleaned up and ready for the Garden Club to begin on Tuesday, October 18th.   

I know you are anxious to help out!!  I need ready and able volunteers to come pull weeds and dead plants.  Since the garden is about 1 acre, all extra help is greatly appreciated!!   Due to so many weeds with "stickers," please wear gloves and closed-toe shoes.  Volunteers of all ages are welcome, as long as you can follow directions and not trip over the irrigation!  :) 

Thanks!  Together we can make a difference.  :)

August Harvest

Check out what's growing in the garden.....

Pumpkins

Cantaloupe

Zucchini

Corn

Sunflower (planted on the last week of May)

Watermelon

The Secret Garden (Nursery)

The Dysart School Garden received a valuable donation today- seeds!!  Baker Nursery contacted me, letting me know that a seed company had donated hundreds of seed packets to distribute amongst community gardens.  So, I drove over to the East Valley to pick up the free seeds after school.  It was such a relief to stock up on seeds for our upcoming winter crops: bok choy, broccoli, herbs, beans, peas, carrots, onions, beets, mixed greens, and cabbage. 

After sifting through the huge box of seeds, I took some time to enjoy Baker Nursery.  You would think that a nursery in the middle of a large urban area would appear functional and detached.  But when you enter the property, Baker Nursery is always charming with its warm, caring, and inviting atmosphere which encourages the customers to build relationships amongst fellow gardeners.  Although it's quite popular on weekends and especially during the cooler seasons, Baker Nursery's reputation is mostly by word-of-mouth.  It looks quite humble in appearance when first driving by, but once you enter the property, you realize the valuable resources it has to offer to southwest gardeners.  There are trained, professional gardeners who know how to garden in the southwest.  I love their vast variety of plants and cacti.  Baker doesn't just sell plants, but this nursery models different kinds of gardening throughout the property.  There's even a large air-conditioned greenhouse (which I found a few homeless people enjoying the cool air).  Before leaving, I found the nursery cat, who was curled up in a cardboard box and meowing for attention.  (Too bad my camera battery died right then!!)  If you are interested in visiting this fun gardening retreat in the middle of a city, you can view their website, located on the right side of this page.

African Bag Gardens in Arizona

I found another great technique for gardening from the Send a Cow organization called "Bag Gardening."  Although you are supposed to purchase this kit from the organization (if you live in the UK), the materials are simple and it would be easy to prepare, organize, and implement in the backyards of Arizona. 

The materials you would need for a bag garden are: a muslin bag, rocks, funnel, 3-4 large sticks, and garden soil.  Please take a look at the "Bag Gardens in UK School" video  and "Bag Gardens in Uganda" video to see exactly how children in other continents create and enjoy their bag gardens.  It looks like a fun project and easy to maintain for families in Arizona!!  Also, it would keep our local critters (gophers and rabbits) from destroying the harvests. 

Keep in touch with this blog, and later in the fall I will be hosting a Saturday workshop for families, learning how to make Bag Gardens.  Would you be interested?  Feel free to leave a comment.  :)

The Garden's First Haboob

As you may know by now, Phoenix experienced one of the largest haboobs in its history last night.  What's a haboob?  Hopefully any 2nd grader can tell you that (part of our state standards)!  It's a fast-moving dust storm that looks like an enormous reddish-brown wall.  When it comes over you, the air turns a brownish-red color and is full of dust.  It's difficult to breathe and see inside a haboob.

So I had decided to work in the garden last night, not knowing about the haboob.  When I was driving down the road to the garden, all I could see were very large, intense-looking thunderclouds moving closely to El Mirage.  They were so spectacular that I just focused on the northwest, keeping an eye out for random lightning strikes.

I spent about 30 minutes in the garden, digging up a new furrow for more pumpkins.  It was so nice and cool, the temperature dropping about 20 degrees.  The wind kept beating me hard, though, and I was getting sprayed with dirt and dust.  After I saw two lightning strikes getting closer, I decided to head into the car.  That's when I noticed this raincloud:

I was fascinated with it and all the dancing lightning bolts in the desert and the White Tank Mountains, so I drove to a nearby street, closer to the cloud, to take pictures.  (I was inside the car, but had all the windows down.)  I was facing the west, not know that a haboob was coming from the east.  ha ha!!  The sunset was spectacular, and there were several professional photographers on the same street, capturing the view as well.

I was wondering why the sunset was so red!!!  I had NO idea that this was approaching me from behind...



(Photograph from ABC15.com)



The garden survived the haboob just fine!!  It's just....... more dirty.  ;)

Keyhole Gardens

Besides providing the DES community with fresh produce, the school garden's mission is also to inspire families to begin their own vegetable gardens.  As most of the families of the southwestern United States have small backyards and rocky landscaping, it is inconceivable to some parents HOW to create a large, productive vegetable garden.  Throughout the school year, there will be hands-on workshops in the garden, teaching the students with their families different techniques and methods of veggie gardening.

One fascinating kind of garden that is used in South Africa is called Keyhole Gardens.  Please view the video, "How to Make a Keyhole Garden," to see for yourself how it's done.  (It's really quite fun to watch.)

"A Keyhole Garden is a type of kitchen garden that recycles as it grows. The design - which looks like a keyhole from above - incorporates a central 'basket' where compostable waste is placed and water is poured. They are especially useful in areas where good soil is scarce, often adding nutritious vegetables to diets. Send a Cow uses them as part of our training, and they get fantastic results; families start to grow enough to eat and sell.  Keyhole Gardens are also a great way of introducing children (and adults!), to sustainable principles such as composting and using 'grey water'. They are an excellent project for schools and groups to get involved in – perhaps as part of a bigger African gardening area?"  --excerpt from http://www.sendacow.org.uk/keyhole-gardens

Although the villages in Africa differ from Arizona by their high altitudes, they do have several similarities:

• high temperatures
• low rainfall

This will be one kind of gardening technique that DES families can sign up to learn about in the fall!!  Would you use it?

It Takes a Village to......

....... raise a child, but also to raise a productive garden!!  I'm so glad this is called the "Dysart School Garden," because it will take our entire school community to get it completely functional.  Thanks for everyone's encouragement, support, and advice.  I appreciate it all, and I have a funny story to tell about my latest garden advisors. 

If you read my last post, I was brainstorming ways to pollinate the non-producing vegetables.  After publishing the post, we did head out to Lowe's and purchased several heat-resistant perennials.  I began planting them around the northeast corner of the garden's perimeter, which was a slow and tedious job due to the compacted nature of the soil on the edge of the garden.  After an hour in 105* heat and only planting six flowers, I needed to stop or have a heat stroke. 

I was walking up to the school office to pick up my children (who were smart and waited in the air-conditioned building).  Along the way, I noticed my favorite district landscaping crew pruning the trees by the front door.  They were my biggest fans throughout School Garden #1 (see first post of this blog).  We would sit on the straw bales (my organic fence) and chat during their breaks, and I have sneaking suspicion they were my zucchini and watermelon consumers.  :)

One of the landscapers, Jesse, asked me how the garden was going, and after an hour of back-breaking work in crazy heat for non-producing vegetables, I told him exactly what I thought of that garden.  We went over the solutions for the soil, rabbits, weeds, and bees.  Jesse was very sympathetic and encouraging, and I left, feeling a little better. 

When I came back an hour later to turn off the irrigation, Jesse was waiting at the garden's gate with news for me.  He said that another landscaper, who was filling up the playground with bark chips, is a rose farmer who was a well-known agriculturist in Mexico.  Jesse called over the landscaper, whose name is Rogelio.  Rogelio began our garden discussion by letting me know the reason why our first School Garden was so incredibly successful.  On an early Saturday morning in October, while bulldozing the area for the first garden, Rogelio had transported in beautiful, healthy El Mirage farm soil.  I was blown away by that news-- no one ever told me!!  So as we walked into the garden, Rogelio scooped up the soil, took one look at it and let it sift through his fingers, and promptly deemed it worthless for plants.  He went up and down the garden, looking at the soil and shaking his head.  Apparently the soil that was under the 800 Building (which is now the garden soil) is just useless.... no nutrients to facilitate plant growth!!  But Rogelio had a solution; he is going to transport more farm soil into the garden for us.  I am so excited...... although that means so much more work.

When the soil comes in, I'll be asking for volunteers to help out.  :)

A World Without Chocolate

A garden without vegetables and melons is definitely like a world without chocolate- all work and no reward!!  I have worked in the garden every day for one month, and have had 5 hot peppers as my result.  Considering the size of the garden, that is seriously an issue.  The soil has been amended, rocks have been removed, and the pests have been deterred. 

It's time to consider the effectiveness of the pollination of the plants.  As I've spent a lot of time in the garden for the past month, I have not seen one bee.  It has been over 110* in the past week, which may affect the bees' activity during the day (my speculation), but most of June was not extremely hot.  So there should be bees around!!  But as this is an urban garden, surrounded by asphalt, buildings, and grass fields, there isn't a whole lot to attract bees. 

So I've been researching bees and how to attract them to our garden.  Some fun facts to "buzz" about:

• About 1/3 of our vegetables, fruits, nuts, and flowers are pollinated by bees
• Only social bees live in hives, but many species of bees are solitary and live in single nests
• Bees never know their mothers
• 4,000 species of bees live in the United States
• Bees come in all shapes, sizes, and colors
• Only female bees sting, and they do not always die afterwards
• Bees are very shy
• Bees cannot see red but can see ultraviolet

My plan is to plant some flowers (obviously not red) around the perimeter of the garden to attract our pollinators.  We will include lantana and bougainvillea during the summer months, as they are heat-resistant, grow quickly, and attract bees.

In the meantime, I will be pollinating the squash, zucchini and melons by hand!  I will be using a paintbrush to dust the pollen from the male flower onto the female flower.  Hopefully that works as well. 

Interesting websites about bees:
http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/workshops/projects/72/show/
http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/general_guidelines.html
http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/insects/ahb/inf21.html
http://www.ehow.com/list_6381948_flowers-do-well-arizona-heat.html
http://pelotes.jea.com/honeybee.htm
http://www.westmtnapiary.com/Bees_and_color.html

Cowpeas-- Not to Be Confused with Cowpies!!

We have so many cowpeas planted in the garden this summer!!  I have found out from the local nursery that they are heat-resistant, drought-resistant, and consistently yield good harvests.  So they are happily soaking up the Arizona sun and growing quickly. 

You may be scratching your head and wondering, "What is a cowpea?  Why haven't I seen them in the stores?"  They are also called "black-eyed peas," and they are known to bring good luck when you eat them on New Year's Day.  This tradition dates back to the Jewish culture, recorded in the Babylonian Talmud (rabbinic discussions).  The Shephardi Jews arrived to the southern United States in the 1730s, bringing their tradition with them.  Another reason for this tradition is that the cowpeas were left behind when the Union troops stripped the southern countryside of food, as they felt the crops were only good for the animals.

The history of cowpeas is actually quite interesting.  Cowpeas originated in Ancient Africa (5 to 6 thousand years ago) and were known to be used in Ancient Rome.  They were brought over to Jamaica in 1675 and migrated to the southern United States in the 1700's.  Cowpeas were known as "poor man's food" and were used to feed the cattle. 

But cowpeas are quite beneficial to gardeners and those who eat them as well!!  Cowpeas provide nitrogen to the soil, which helps to rotate with other "hungrier" plants, such as corn.  Cowpeas also consist of 24% protein and contain the amino acids lysine and tryptophan. 

A favorite Southern meal that includes cowpeas is "Hoppin' John:"

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large ham hock
• 1 cup onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup celery, chopped
• 1/2 cup green pepper, chopped
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 pound black-eyed peas, soaked overnight and rinsed
• 1 quart chicken stock
• Bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon dry thyme leaves
• Salt, black pepper, and cayenne
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped green onion
• 3 cups steamed white rice

Directions

Heat oil in a large soup pot, add the ham hock and sear on all sides for 4 minutes. Add the onion, celery, green pepper, and garlic, cook for 4 minutes. Add the black-eyed peas, stock, bay leaves, thyme, and seasonings. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 40 minutes, or until the peas are creamy and tender, stir occasionally. If the liquid evaporates, add more water or stock. Adjust seasonings, and garnish with green onions. Serve over rice.

** Borrowed from the Food Network Recipes

Another yummy recipe to try is: Beet and Black-Eyed Pea Salad

Little Bunny Foo Foo

One issue that we have had for years at the Dysart Garden is.... rabbits.  There are large metal storage containers located across the street at the high school, and many rabbits live under them.  Of course, they love the garden!! 

When we had the first garden behind the 800 Building, it was fenced in with alfalfa bales, and those bales kept the bunnies happy and well-fed for the year.  Therefore, the bunnies never got into the garden.  I would see them at sunrise and sunset, happily satisfying their appetites with the alfalfa, and they would scamper back to their storage housing as soon as the students came to school.

But this new fancy garden of ours has a concrete curb and a high fence to keep out animals and unwelcome guests.  Ironically the concrete curb is too low and the fencing is too high, so there is a nice gap for little rabbits to slip right through and feast on the plants.  I have been startled on more than one occasion by almost stepping on the rabbits as they freeze in fear when I come into the garden, hidden in the ever-growing bermuda grass.  I am also noticing that my cantaloupe vines are being nibbled on, and coincidentally the beans just aren't growing!  ha ha....

So that leaves me with a new problem to solve!  I have been researching rabbit repellant ideas provided by online gardening forums (which are really quite entertaining).  Here are my possible solutions:

• Plant marigolds, which provide a heavy scent that repels rabbits. 
• ** But will marigolds survive the intense Arizona heat?
• Install chicken wire along the bottom of the fencing. 
• ** Ummm... have you SEEN the size of this garden?
• Use Shake Away, which is dried bobcat urine. 
• **Checking into that at Baker Nursery today.
• Sprinkle bloodmeal around the perimeter. 
• ** Also checking...
• Spread hair clippings around the perimeter. 
• ** hmm... not getting a haircut soon enough...
• Use a humane trap and set them free somewhere else. 
• ** NO.  Bad experiences with traps.  Don't ask.
• Adopt a cat and feed it well with bunnies and gophers. 
• ** Ironically I found a cat in the garden the other night.  I need to get some tuna fish for it and make it my pet, I guess.  :)

Soil of El Mirage

When I began the first vegetable garden at Dysart Elementary three years ago, I first consulted our own native El Mirage resident farmer, Dale, who used to own most of the land of El Mirage.  He gave me helpful advice about creating the best soil conditions for gardening, and we did yield the most amazing crops. 

Now that the garden is in a new location and is incorporating the soil that an older school building used to occupy for about 30 years, I am struggling with keeping the plants alive.  I have turned over the soil by hand, created furrows, watered diligently.  I am keeping the crazy weeds away and consistently battle the gophers and rabbits.  The plants do germinate and grow, but I am not seeing the abundant vegetables and melons that used to grow for me.  I know you're thinking, "But it's Arizona in the summer!!  How can anything grow?"  I found out that there are certain plants that really do enjoy this intense heat, and I have those planted in the garden.  Also, we have enjoyed an unusually "cool" summer so far, so they have had about a month of cool evenings and early mornings to sustain them.  So, that leaves the soil as the problem.  I had my doubts about it from the first.  What is the solution?

I began by mixing in steer manure into the furrows this past weekend.  Let me say, "deodorized" steer manure still smells BAD!  As I research the use of steer manure on-line, it's fascinating to see the passionate responses from gardeners about using it with vegetables.  The debates are quite interesting!!  One side feels that putting cow poop on vegetables leads to disease, and the other side feels that the humus found in steer manure is very helpful in gardening.  I have come to this conclusion: I have used it before, it worked wonders, and as long as you wash off your vegetables, it's all good. 

But this also makes me wonder about the pH levels of the soil in our garden.  Basically, pH stands for the acidity levels of the soil.  It ranges from 0 to 14, 0 being very acidic and 14 being highly basic.  Plants need the nutrients phosphorus (P), nitrogen (N), and potassium (K).  Using manure does affect the N-P-K levels of the soil, thus decreasing the pH levels of the garden.  If one needs to increase the acidity of the soil, using agricultural lime is important. 

So what's my next step?  I need to purchase a pH testing kit and figure out what's going on!  Let me know what you have found out about the soil of El Mirage.

The Dreaded Southwest Weeds

The community garden has been invaded by the two most persistent and invasive "weeds" of the Southwestern U.S.: bermuda grass and nut grass.  The bermuda grass is unfortunately the result of the garden bordering our school's soccer field.  There's nothing I can do about that!  The nut grass has popped up on its own, enjoying the unusually moist, rich soil of the desert.  My question for you is, how do you take care of these two weeds?  I have been digging them out of the garden, but it truly is an uphill battle!!  Here is the research I have gathered on these two nuisances.......

C. dactylon (bermuda grass) is found in the U.S., mostly in the southern half of the country and in warm climates. It is fast growing and tough, making it popular and useful for sports fields, as when damaged it will recover quickly. It is a highly desirable turf grass in warm temperate climates, particularly for those regions where its heat and drought tolerance enable it to survive where few other grasses do. It has a relatively coarse-bladed form for different turf requirements. It is also highly aggressive, crowding out most other grasses and invading other habitats, and has become a hard-to-eradicate weed in some areas. This weedy nature leads some gardeners to give it the name of "devil grass".  Bermuda grass has been cultivated on saline soils in California's Central Valley which are too salt-damaged to support agricultural crops; it was successfully irrigated with saline water and used to graze cattle.  This grass is given significant importance in Hinduism due to its medicinal values and dedicated especially to Lord Ganesha.  Cynodon dactylon has been studied at the University of Allahabad in India, and has been suggested for treatment of urinary tract infections, prostatitis, syphilis, and dysentery.  It is also used in traditional cultures for toothache.

Cyperus rotundus (nut grass) is one of the most invasive weeds known, having spread out to a worldwide distribution in tropical and temperate regions. It has been called "the world's worst weed" as it is known as a weed in over 90 countries, and infests over 50 crops worldwide.  Its existence in a field significantly reduces crop yield, both because it is a tough competitor for ground resources, and because the roots release substances harmful to other plants. The difficulty to control it is a result of its intensive system of underground tubers, and its resistance to most herbicides. It is also one of the few weeds that cannot be stopped with plastic mulch.  Weed pulling in gardens usually results in breakage of roots, leaving tubers in the ground from which new plants emerge quickly. Ploughing distributes the tubers in the field, worsening the infestation; even if the plough cuts up the tubers to pieces, new plants can still grow from them. In addition, the tubers can survive harsh conditions, further contributing to the difficulty to eradicate the plant.  Most herbicides may kill the plant's leaves, but most have no effect on the root system and the tubers.

From Brown to....... ???

So this is what the garden is looking like now......mostly brown. It's half-planted, but the seedlings are small yet healthy and green. I hope that they will "take off" soon and fill the earth with productive plants and abundant crops!

I was looking at the School Garden videos that I have shared with you on the right hand side of this blog, and was feeling a little frustrated yet hopeful when seeing the beautiful, luscious and healthy gardens in the cities throughout the United States.  But I need to remember that this is a process, and we are just beginning!  It will look green....... by December.  :)

Our Garden's History

The "seeds" to the Dysart Community Garden were sowed in the Spring of 2008 when a few teachers at Dysart Elementary School got together to write a School Garden Grant, in hopes to create a productive vegetable garden for the children and their families of our community.  We did receive the grant, and three third-grade teachers spent two fun-filled days at the University of Arizona's Master Gardening Training Center.  It was inspiring to see how melons and vegetables grew in 110* heat that week, and we left the workshop with great plans for our own garden.

Soon afterwards, we purchased the lumber, soil, tools, and plants to create raised vegetable beds that would line our portable classrooms at our school site.  I had stored all the materials and tools in my classroom, located in a portable, and locked the door on a late Friday night.  A fellow teacher was going to meet me on Saturday to build the veggie boxes.  I arrived early on that Saturday to broken glass, an open classroom door, and missing/broken gardening supplies and tools.  It was all a mess, and all of the necessary tools were stolen.  One of our students was so upset by this crime, she wrote a letter to Home Depot and Lowe's, asking for help with providing us with necessary gardening tools to get going again.  Lowe's answered almost immediately, rising to the need, and they were gracious and generous when providing free materials.  So we began our raised box gardening, planting lettuce and tomatoes during October 2008.

But then our third grade team received ANOTHER shock: we were going to have to move out of our portable classrooms because our school was finally beginning its long-deserved renovation!!  And, that meant to us as gardeners, our raised veggie boxes would have to find new homes soon.  Luckily I had moved to a remote classroom at the very edge of the school property, and it had land behind it, not being used.  So we transported our boxes over to the empty land, and got set up again.  But I thought, "Are we really having an impact on our school's families by growing a few vegetables in boxes?"  The answer was obviously NO!  I saw all of that empty land and knew what to do.........

And, thanks to the landscaping crew at our district, they came in on a late October Saturday morning and backhoed the new vegetable garden.  I purchased bales of alfalfa from a local feed shop, added some steer manure and other soil additives to increase the pH, and we had our true vegetable garden!!! 

At this time, I began our School Garden club, and at first, we had over 40 students participating!  But as the time went on, about half the students realized that gardening is not all fun and games; instead most of the time you are pulling weeds, chasing bunnies, and trying to herd off underground gophers.  After a few months, we settled down to 20 faithful students, ranging from 2nd-5th grades, who came twice a week to help in the garden and take vegetables home to their families.

During the winter and spring crops, we grew: lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, artichokes, tomatoes, and herbs.  The summer crops included: cantaloupe, honeydew melon, watermelon, squash, and zucchini.  I have never seen zucchini and watermelon grow so abundantly!!  The vines would go over the "fence" and try to grow up the walls of the building.  I also learned that zucchini plants HURT badly when scratching bare legs.  I still have a scar on one of my legs!  I harvested the zucchini and froze over 20 gallon-sized baggies of shredded zucchini for families to make bread with.  The watermelon seemed to have a mind of its own, always "disappearing" at night and during the weekends.  I hope our secret garden visitors enjoyed their free fruit.  :)

Then, once again, the school garden had more bad news........ it was time to be demolished during the second part of the school renovation.  But, once again, we had another blessing arise.......

We were given free fencing, irrigation, and soil from the construction company (thank you, D.L. Withers!!) and our school/district!!!  Our new garden is almost an acre, and is equipped with everything a gardener dreams of..... but.........

ROCKS.  Rocks and rocks and rocks.  I don't even have to purchase river rocks for the paths of the garden, because there are so many.  As I dig furrows and mounds, I come across the most unusual and beautiful rocks I've ever seen in a garden.  I keep wondering if I will strike gold at some point, as this IS a mining and mineral state.  So I still dig and throw rocks into paths , and it's been the 2nd year of the garden.

To be quite honest, the first year of our new school garden was disappointing, and it was my fault.  I let the overwhelming amount of rocks and weeds deter my focus and energy away from the end goal= free food for families.  Also, our irrigation pipes were stuck up high at different areas of the garden, and when children try to help, they trip on the pipes, hurting themselves and breaking the irrigation system.  So I spent a year thinking about how to solve all these issues, but never taking initiative. 

But after school ended in May 2011, I knew it was time, and I've been in that silly garden for at least 1 hour every day for the past 3 weeks.  It's been hard, but fun and productive.  I am hoping to have it open for the community in the next few weeks, and then we can set up times for volunteers to help me out so it can truly be a community garden. 

So that's the history...... hope you are part of the present and FUTURE!  :)