Happy Holidays, Everyone! Yesterday was Follies, and today is the last day of school for the year. It's a very busy time of year, one of frantic shopping and curt tones. However, it is also a time of joyous celebration and kindness. All of us in Garden Club are extremely grateful to have this time to spend together each Friday. The Holiday Season gives us the perfect opportunity to verbalize our appreciation of each other and the readers of this blog for supporting the Garden Club.

In preparation for the upcoming break we will be sweeping and watering the garden. We will be away for several weeks and the garden will have no one to care for it in that time. So, before we leave, we must insure that the plants survive through Winter Break.

Wishing you Happy Holidays from the Garden Club!

Henry's directing and production debut!





Enjoy!

Hello everyone!

Today we set goals and came up with future projects. Some ideas were picnic tables, green houses, fixing the drain, dealing with clutter, combining plant families, making new planters, planting more edibles, decorating with art, rebuilding the worn out worm bin and collaborating on projects with the lower grades. We will be busy over the next few weeks, and we look forward to improving the garden!

~ Katy

Happy Walkathon!

Today was a day of sweeping, squeegeeing, watering and other general maintenance... It is perhaps not the most glamorous aspect of gardening, but it is an essential one. We finished the day, dirty and tired, but with a feeling of accomplishment.

Have a great weekend!!

Hello everyone!

The 8th grade is once again, back in the garden. However, the return of the 8th graders was compromised by the lack of 6th graders, who were called away on a special mission... The remaining gardeners were not deterred by the absence of the 6th graders, accomplishing much in our time together. We made the long and dangerous trek, a full eight blocks, to the nursery(Sloat). Our purchase consisted of lettuce, arugula, swiss chard and a broom. Upon our return, a frenzied planting session ensued, and a crop was harvested. We look forward to the future weeks, when our new plants will be ready to consume... Have a great weekend! 

The Friday 10/04/13 Report

Today, the PHS 8th Grade Physical Science Demo Fair deprived the garden club of most of our members, including leader, Todd. The people who stayed behind and helped were, Charly, Amelia, and Henry. They are all new 6th grade members of Garden Club. Our substitute leader is Eso. We got everything done (including the blog without access), with just 4 people. We harvested some strawberries, and corn, and then we ate all the strawberries, and Eso got the worst pick. Our 8th grade members are hosting a Science Fair today, but the rest of our members went to Park Lunch. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to the garden! Today was an exciting day, marking several important events and the beginning of a new era for the garden... We made our first trip to Sloat, finding new plants to fill our decrepit hanging planters. We began the task of rehabilitating the planters; hopefully the crows will stay away! We bought kale, bok choy, sugar snap peas, chamomile, sage, and broccoli. We also had a fruitful harvest, picking strawberries, green beans, corn, shallots and even a small cucumber!

Our new members have been a great asset to the garden, with our veterans showing them the ropes. It is wonderful to see the graduating class teaching the incoming sixth graders the ways of the garden; preparing for the transfer of responsibility.

It's great seeing everyone working together to keep our garden clean and flourishing!

Welcome Back!

Hey Y'all! Welcome back to another year of Garden Club!! We have expanded substantially since last year. Today our meeting included Isabell, Lane, Liberty, Lexi, Paulina, Eloise, Petal, Jillian, Nina, Katy, Tommie, Tanya, Amelia, Ivy, Emily, Henry, Sophia, Estelle, Eso and Todd. Quite a gathering, with kids from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. 

Our garden is remarkably forest-like. The corn is over a meter tall and the strawberries are amazingly tasty! There was plenty of work to do today, and the old-timers were extremely gracious in showing the ropes to our new members. The jobs were divided up, two old-timers and one new member per job. The majority of the work was general maintenance, as the garden was in need of much sweeping and squeegeeing after the summer. 

We are all looking forward to our year in the garden, as we continue working together to help it grow and thrive. 

Garden Club Friday

Welcome friends!  Today on Friday the 31st we had Arielle, Enyolli, Hannah, Hudson, Isabell, Josh G, Josh M, Katy, Lane, Laurel, Lexi, Liberty, Matthew, Nina, Paulina, Petal, SadieRay, Tanya, Tommie, Zach and our leader Todd. Over the last week we swept, snipped dead plants, watered the plants, cleaned, organized lab equipment, cleaned counters, cleaned benches, took out the recycling, threw trash away, counted bake sale cash, checked with Tony the business guy and did our weekly check in. Wow!  Sadly we weren't able to make our weekly salad. With the salad we walk around the school and pass it out after we are done eating. Todd also has chickens that will lay eggs and he brings them to us to make into omelets... We add mint and fava beans! Yummy!  We had so much fun over this hour and a half. We can't wait for next year so we can continue to take care of the garden:)

- Garden Club

April 12th Garden Club meeting

Today, we welcomed some new members to our gardening community, Matthew, Lexi, Enyolli and Lauren joined our meeting. We transplanted the corn and snap peas we started from seed to our bigger pots (SIP containers.) We removed huge weeds and some smaller ones from the raspberry bushes. We harvested fava beans and we made an omelette from Todd's chickens' eggs. Thank you to Gertrude, Gretchen, Phillis, Salt and Pepper! The worm bin has many, many worm and they are very healthy. The worm bin is now five years old and is still thriving! WE HAD A RARE AND EXCITING LADYBUG ENCOUNTER!

Students Do Garden Chores and Prepare Homegrown Foods to Share

Today we had a relaxing lunchtime doing our weekly chores. We decided to put bigger projects off until after break. Todd brought eggs from his chickens in San Anselmo. We scrambled them and added the cilantro we've grown. We also steamed the broccoli and cauliflower we had harvested. We sat together and shared the foods we had grown and prepared. It was a delicious treat! 

Tending, Harvesting and Feasting!

It is truly amazing what a determined group of young people can achieve in a single lunchtime meeting!  Students checked in on and fed the worms in the garden's thriving worm bin. Yes, that worm bin has been alive and growing for over three years now! It was originally created by a LEAF team as part of their community leadership project. Students went on to clean, deadhead plants, water and fertilize. They harvested the broccoli and cauliflower that were ready to eat. They steamed their veggies and prepared a lovely cheese sause! The team of middle schoolers then sat down and shared the food they had grown and prepared together. What a wonderful community project!