Summer Growing!

The LINCS Growing and Learning Garden continues to grow, teach and be a place of destination. The Monday Summer Garden Gatherings have been full of lots of faces and best of all, new faces each week.
Lots of spinach, lettuces, broccoli raab and peas were all enjoyed in our first harvests, that lasted into July.

The sunflowers have been growing each day, reaching high for the sun! The perennials have been showing their colors, eager for butterflies and bees to land on them.

Our Garden Crew has been helping water, weed and spread wood chips. Great community efforts!

A great place to be on a Summer Monday!

Watering...with rain water from Farmer Rollie

Moving wood chips

Garden inspired Art!

Transforming the Space

The rain barrel is making its way back to its spring, summer, and fall home. 

What a transformation!! 

The garden is growing and changing and so is the physical space. Logs have been added for a gathering area, mulch has been spread by many different volunteers (including UW-Whitewater students on "Make a Differemce Day" and families/students after school) and perennial beds are even being added to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. 

What an amazing place to grow and learn! 

Season #2 is Growing!

Season #2 of the LINCS Growing and Learning Garden got underway on Tuesday, April 26. Many classes came out to plant seeds and seedlings in THEIR school garden. Students direct seeded radishes, spinach, lettuce, carrots, swiss chard and peas. Seedlings of broccoli raab, spinach and lettuce were also planted. These were donated by Turtle Creek CSA. Liesl also shared a book that was written documenting Season One of the garden. This book is available in the school library. New this year are in-ground beds. Two of these will be used for attracting monarch butterflies. Food plants- squash, cucumber and sunflowers- will be planted in the third bed.

 

Preparing the Garden for Winter

I 

Students in Mr. Stewart's class work together to move water from the buckets and rain barrel to the garden.

Some plants were pulled and composted and others were left for observation over the winter. Additionally, winter rye was planted as a cover crop and will be used as organic compost in the spring when it's time to plant again.

There were groups of students that even buried various items (organic items such as apple cores and banana peels and non-organic items such a plastic bags and containers) to observe the decomposition process. We can't wait to find the items we buried in the spring. I wonder what will happen....

We continued to water the garden in the early fall as the winter rye was sprouting before we let Mother Nature take over. Below are photos of Mr. Stewart's 4th/5th grade class watering. 

A student helps another student clean his hands after working in the garden.

Rain Barrel gets some color

The colorful garden space became even more colorful last week thanks to Ms. Crystal Gill, the art student-teacher at LINCS. Ms. Gill painted the rain barrel, with the help of some curious on lookers.

 

The artist creating. 

Tomatoes everywhere!

Reaching in for garden goodness. 

 Tomato season is here! Red tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, big and small are bountiful in the garden. Students have enjoyed snacking on them during recess, as a class after watering the garden and inside for their snack. The garden experience has been taken inside to a classroom or two...what foods come from tomatoes?

Harvest

Harvesting and enjoying. 

Having a taste gardenside. 

A treat left for a favorite teacher. 

Tomatoes for snack. 

Tomatoes for snack. 

Bringing the garden into the inside classroom. 

Reading what students are seeing, touching, smelling and tasting in the garden. 

First Days Back in the Garden

Many visitors on the first day of school. 

The first days of school have found many visitors- with two legs and six legs- to the LINCS Growing and Learning Garden. Students were amazed to discover how "big" the garden grew since they last saw it in early June.

Students were excited to find many tomatoes, green beans and green peppers to try. The kale and chives continue to be favorites.

Discovering late-summer insects is certainly a highlight. Grasshoppers, caterpillars and bees  provide the opportunity to learn about pollination, being respectful of all living creatures and everyone who depends on our gardens to live in. Japanese beetles demonstrate what a pest can do in a garden.

Hunting for  green beans. 

A fresh, local, healthy snack. 

Garden resident, a grasshopper. 

All eyes on the grasshopper. 

Kale all around! 

A fuzzy friend with gentle hands. 

A handful of green beans. 

A popular spot to spend recess.