day 3 May 26, 2008

Back to the garden today. At first we had a look at the how our seedlings are doing on the classroom windowsills.

Inspecting the plants,

lots of tomatoes, a mix of vegetables and flowers

and many other plants.

We then went out into the garden to work on preparing the soil. The children added more compost to the sandy soil so that someday plants may grow in it.

Nobody is perfect. We had forgotten to plant the pumpkin seeds, so we finished the day by starting those off.

And finally we would like to thank the teachers and children that volunteered to take home the seedlings and water them over the mid-term holiday.

day 2 May 26, 2008

There are sadly no pictures from day 2. We planted loads of California Poppies and created lables for the individual seedlings. Good news for the pond project. We will be able to borrow a pneumatic drill that will make it easier to get through the concrete and building rubish.

the saturday session May 10, 2008

Seeing the amount of work to be done, we planned an extra work session on Saturday. Ani, Berk and Ismayil joined us and turned out to be real weekend warriors. They stayed for the whole three hours and battled with rock hard soil, snails, weeds and the heat.

The future vegetable patch is now slowly taking on some shape. Below are the before and after pictures.

The place the herbs will planted is looking great.

And this is one of many flowerbeds.

The work was so hard that a few times the adults tried to hide in or behind the bushes just to get away.

Thanks to all the helping hands today.

day one May 9, 2008

Today saw the beginning of our garden project. The lucky 15 children had their first taste of what it means to create a garden. The kids willingly took up the fight against bushes…

and we even celebrated the first harvest…

… of weeds. The weather seemed to know we were up to something and summer kicked in just in time.

A garden has more to offer than plants and the children soon discovered ladybugs…

…the remains of an animal…

… and of course some worms. At first only the girls were brave enough to touch them but soon everyone wanted one for a pet.

Why? May 4, 2008

So why are we doing this? Before the kids take over the blog I will give a short overview of the ideas behind the project. Children living in a large city often don’t have the chance to spend much time outdoors. They are never able to build a relationship with their environment. The garden enables the children to take responsibility for their environment and profit from the results. The experience of growing vegetables gives children a chance to see that a garden and plants are more than something beautiful to look at. They are able to witness the growth of, and harvest the food, which they usually see cellophane rapped on a supermarket shelf. The pond as a habitat with many creatures and different plants offers further insight into the complexity of the natural world. As various life cycles occur in the pond throughout the year children will benefit during every term. The garden is designed to be an ongoing project for children to work in and learn from. All year groups can use the garden as a resource for curriculum subjects such as Science, Literacy and D.T., but more importantly it’s good fun.

the state of things May 4, 2008

In the beginning… May 4, 2008

The work on the garden will soon begin. Some tomatoes and herbs have been started of in the classroom. Just to give you an idea of the work ahead of us I will post some pictures. In the middle of the garden you will see a round patch where our pond will hopefully appear. Some concrete under the soil has made that a bit more difficult. Other pictures show the future vegetable patch and flower beds. Some bushes will have to be relocated to make space but with 15 eager helpers joining the project this Friday no hurdle is too great.