BES Garden Club

Today was another beautiful garden club day in the greenhouse! Freezing cold outside, but sunny and hot in the greenhouse!  The five young and capable gardeners searched for aphids, and looked at them with magnifying glasses.   They pulled all the leaves that were infested to be fed to the chickens (off-site).  The aphids were mainly on the carrot leaves, so they also had some carrots to snack on.  We released some live ladybugs to eat the remaining aphids. We learned about the aphid lifecycle, the way they feed on plants, and that there are natural predators.  A bag of cooking greens (collards, kale, and chard), and a bag of baby salad greens (kale, tatsoi, and mustards) were harvested for school lunches and dropped off in the school kitchen.

January 17: A beautiful sunny day, 31 degrees.  We pulled out the last of the lettuce plants from GH Bed 2 due to aphids, and seeded 4 rows of carrots where the lettuce had been. Garden Bed 1 was cleared and mulched with seaweed and hay. Snacks were baby carrots and baby kale.

click here to view garden map winter '16-'17

This blog will keep you up to date on the BES garden! On Tuesday's garden club members work in the garden during lunch recess.  On Friday's grade three and four students are welcome to work in the garden during 20 point time.   From time to time classes do integrative gardening projects that are linked to their class curriculum.   Here are a couple of photos from the third and fourth grade unit on paperwhites.   We grew them to sell at the Winter Faire and learned about bulbs, economics, and biomes.