Planting, Harvesting and Feasting

PHS students were thrilled to discover worms and grubs living in the garden soil. They carefully observed each, named them and set them free back into the garden. It has been a very productive beginning to the 2014 - 2015. An amazing amount of greens have been grown, harvested, cooked and shared. Happy Winter Break! 

PHS' Urban Farm Report 12/05/2014

PHS middle school students welcomed first grade students to the deck garden. Gardeners harvested kale, chard, spinach and cabbage. They transformed these fresh greens into a delicious salad with homemade dressing. Students also prepared farm fresh eggs. The delicious savory snack was shared with the entire first grade. New herbs were added to the garden. First grade students are now looking forward to the day when they can harvest dill and use it to make pickles. 

A Wildly Productive Friday in the Garden

PHS middle school students welcomed PHS' first grade to the roof garden. Student farmers checked in on their crops and were excited to see how vibrant the kale, red chard, cabbage and spinach had become. They worked planting the broccoli they had started as seeds weeks ago. Students harvested greens, prepared a delicious salad, made a spicy dressing and scramble fresh eggs from Todd's chickens. They served this wonderful snack to Sarah, Robyn and their grateful classmates. It is truly amazing what can be accomplished in 45 minutes on a Friday afternoon. 

PHS Farmers Plant Their First Crop of the Season!

This is the seventh year of the PHS middle school student run garden project. PHS middle school farmers welcome PHS first graders to the garden to work planting their first crop of greens for the 2014 - 2015 school year. Our PHS team of farmers have prepared raised beds for their plantings of lettuce, red chard, kale, broccoli, spinach, carrots, beets and cauliflower. PHS first graders were wildly excited and super productive! We can hardly wait for the coming harvest! We intend to prepare a feast using the foods we are growing!

Hello Everyone!
We have reached the end of a dynasty. A long and glorious reign of awesomeness... Just kidding. But it is the last garden club meeting of the school year, and the last time the class of 2014 will contribute to our group. It is a bittersweet moment, with the excitement of an ever-approaching summer, and the melancholy of leaving behind friends and mentors... But enough of the introspection! Garden club is about having fun and spending time with friends, not about moping around, wallowing in self-pity! So, today we prepared the garden for the long summer ahead, and ate cupcakes to celebrate our work and dedication... Nah, we just like sugar! We missed some of our members today, who abandoned us, in favor of park lunch; nonetheless, we had an excellent time together. We hope you have a fun and relaxing summer! From the class of 2014, goodbye and we'll miss you. (Whoever you are, we don't know, we're just staring at a screen with page view numbers... It could be anyone...) Anyway... Regards from garden!

Howdy Y'all! Today was a normal, albeit chilly, Garden Club. We had some guests from eighth grade, who were working on some atom models, and were kind enough to take out the compost for us. We prepared the garden for the long, lonely week ahead, while the gardeners go on Spring Break. As such, we will not be posting next week... We hope you have a wonderful break, wherever you may be!

Hello Friends! Today we had a very small meeting, with only six members, not including Todd. We also had a visitor for a short time, but left him in Eso's capable hands when we ventured to the nursery. We acquired tomato plants, and some catnip seeds, before returning to school and planting our new additions. We were unfortunately unable to cook today, due to our limited time, however, we had a nice, relaxing time nonetheless. We hope you had a nice Friday and have a fantastic weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello Everyone, Happy Friday! We would like to apologize for not posting last week; our eighth grade members, along with our illustrious leader, were absent due to the trebuchet competition day. However, we're back! Today we swept, planted and watered. One of our members, Amelia, has just pointed out the benefits of planting particular plants together. We have put corn, beans and squash into one container. The corn acts as a support for the beans to grow on, and the squash is a natural insect repellent due to its spines. We also emptied the garden of the trebuchets, relocating them to behind the math room, on the roof. On an unrelated topic, Todd's birthday was on Tuesday. Happy Birthday Todd! You are a kind, supportive, and an all around awesome person! Thank you for your guidance and leadership! Have a good weekend!

Happy Pi Day Everyone! Today was a relatively uneventful day in the garden, free of alien invasions and giant spiders. However, we were gifted with some visitors. We had some eighth graders, working on the construction of their miniature trebuchets. Even Scott stopped by briefly, in which time he sang a snippet of "The Garden Song". It wasn't a very exciting Garden Club, but the sun is shining and we're spending time together! How can it get any better?! Have a great weekend!

Hello once again! Today was an eventful day in the garden and one of our members, Katy, nearly had a heart attack... we were going through some wood pieces that had been stationary for more than a year, slowly fermenting outside. As we cleared the wood, we first discovered two small spiders. We handled these incidents with great poise and maturity (depending on how you define poise and maturity). However, the final straw came when a spider the size of a quarter, scuttled along one of the boards currently in the hands of Katy. She screamed, prompting a domino effect of screams and scurrying children. Todd saved the day, throwing the innocent spider off the building. We recovered from our panic attack, and got back to work, slightly shaken but much wiser (again, depending on your definition of wisdom). It was an exciting end to the week! We hope you all have a pleasant weekend!

Hello Everyone! We hope you're having a great day! It's been raining and the garden is luscious and green. It's been a while since we've posted anything but pictures, so today we'll be catching you up on everything that's happened thus far in 2014. We continue to perform basic, necessary jobs, including sweeping, squeegeeing, watering, etc. We have had a profitable harvest so far, and we have a delicious salad complete with dressing, every week, created by our members. Todd has also been kind enough to bring eggs from his chickens, so we have been gifted with scrambled eggs as well as greens. Plans are in the making for a new picnic table, one we will be building from scratch. Garden Club attendance has dropped slightly, today we had only eight people (including Todd). However, less hands has not translated to a drop in efficiency. Have a fantastic weekend! Here are some pictures from our day.

A Day at the Garden