Shine On! - Photosynthesis

Thursday the class learned how a plant makes food for itself. That process is called photosynthesis. The chlorophyll in the choroplast grabs energyy from sunlight and combines it with the water and carbon dioxide the plant takes in to produce glucose and oxygen.

The cloroplast is what makes the leaves green. The students started an experiment where they covered part of a leaf on a few of their plants. In a couple of weeks they will uncover the leaf to see if it looks different than the other leaves.

No rain in the rain gauge since Monday. The young gardeners weeded, watered, and performed the never ending search for bad bugs. Garett has a small yellow squash on one of his plants.

It was so hot, the students were glad to go inside to the classroom. After the photosynthesis lesson, everyone stuffed and decorated a ladybug beanbag. These were tossed in the air to land on numbers to learn the hardiness zones. We'll hear more about those in a future lesson.

Sand, Silt or Clay - Soil Types

Monday the rain gauge had 2" of water so the weeds were easy to pull, but there was standing water in some areas of the garden. The lasagna garden remained at 8".

Miss Chris took this great picture of squash bug eggs.



Eggs are usually found under the leaves between the leaf veins. We scraped the eggs off the leaves with fingernails and squished them between our fingers.

Some good bugs we saw today were fireflies, spiders and a spined soldier bug. Bad bugs we squished were squash bugs, striped and spotted cucumber beetles and bean beetles.

Miss Chris showed the young gardeners the difference between male and female flowers in our squash family plants. The female has a swelling under the flower where the vegetable will grow and the male flower has a straight stalk.

We already have yellow squash and peppers on some of our plants.

The young gardeners got their hands dirty again in the classroom with soil experiments. They learned about sand, silt and clay, and did tests to determine the texture of their soil samples.

Grow, Grow, Grow Your Beans

Lot's of activity in the garden this morning. More weeding, watering and mulching today. We looked for squash bugs and cucumber beetles; found and squished some.

Tosh's squash has a beautiful blossom.

After gardening the gardeners went to the classroom where they set up scientific experiments. they stated the know fact - plants need these four things to grow - water, nutrients, air and light. Then each team of two young gardeners and an adult came up with a hypothesis based altering one of those requirements. They'll test their hypothesis on bean seeds over the next two weeks. Can't wait to see the results! Check back!

Coddle Those Cotyls - Germination

We started Monday working in the garden. The young gardeners read the rain gauge in the community garden at 2.75" so watering was not necessary. The rain brought more weeds though, so some time was spent weeding. The weeds were easy to pull because of all the rain. Wish we had a picture of those muddy hands!

Cucumber beetles were still a problem with the squash family, and bean beetles had been busy, although we could not find any. The lasagna garden has gone down some more. The gardeners measured it at 9 inches, down from 12 inches.

Miss Cass taught the lesson on seeds. The gardeners munched on roasted peanuts while they learned the different types of seeds found in the garden and grocery store. Some seeds they learned about are avocados, peanuts, beans and popcorn. Everyone dissected bean seeds to learn the 5 parts of a seed and how they grow into different plant parts.

The young gardeners made "seed bombs" with clay, compost and seeds. This is a native American technique, and is still used today in some parts of the world. It's also a beautification method used in inner cities by Guerrilla gardeners.

A snack of popcorn and watermelon was meant to further the lesson about seeds. Unfortunately a "seedless" watermelon was purchased by accident! It was delicious regardless!

Weed or Seed

We started Thursday weeding and since there hadn't been any rain we gave the garden plots a good watering. We've noticed some crop failure in a couple of the plots - the peppers aren't growing. We also found squash bugs and cucumber beetles. These are organic gardens, so we picked off the bad bugs we found and squished them.

Here is a picture of a cucumber beetle and one of a squash bug.

Miss Chris taught the young gardeners all about weeds. They learned that a weed is a plant growing in the wrong place, and that weeds compete with crops for water, sunshine and nutrients. Weeds also can attract pests and disease. The gardeners identified some common weeds: dandelions, crabgrass, clover, bindweed, common ragweed, and others.

The group divided into teams of two students and one adult, and had a scavenger hunt to identify 10 weeds. Two teams tied for the win with seven weeds identified. The winners got to plant the banner on the lasagna garden. Here are the winners - Anna and Caitlyn, Garrett and Trevor.

Three Sisters - Beans, Corn and Squash

Since there hasn't been much rain, we started the day weeding and watering, while dodging raindrops! As expected, that rain didn't amount to much.

Miss Cass explained the ancient Indian technique of growing corn, beans and squash called "Three Sisters". The Master Gardeners constructed bamboo tepees, and the young gardeners did the planting. Squash went in the middle of the tepee and corn and beans around the periphery. We completed Three Sisters project by watering well.

A mysterious scarecrow in a Garden 'n' Grow tee shirt moved into the garden over the weekend. He is quiet and needed a noisy friend. The young gardeners made a noisy scarecrow out of recycled cans and buckets, and signed their names on his belly. When the wind blows his arms and legs, he'll make lots of noise and hopefully scare away the rabbit that has been nibbling on Anna's squash.

Miss Chris showed the students how to make and calibrate a rain gauge out of one litre bottles and marbles. The rain gauges were uniquely decorated by the gardeners.

Lasagna Gardening

Today Miss Chris gave us a recipe for lasagna gardening. Just like lasagna is made up of many repeating layers, a garden plot can be created with layers of brown (carbon) and green (nitrogen) organic material. We created our lasagna garden with lots of layers of newspaper, grass clippings, coir (from the coconut shell), leaves, yard soil, fish emulsion and more. The resulting garden was about 15 inches high. We'll watch it decompose over the summer. Here's a picture -



The young gardeners made banners to personalize their gardens, while munching on treats brought by Garrett and Ethan. We've got some creative youngsters in this group! Here are a couple of the banners.

Planting 1, 2, 3

Miss Cass explained the steps for planting, then everyone braved the heat and out to the gardens we went! We planted our beans, okra, tomatos, basil, and a whole lot more for the salsa, relish tray, sunshine, holiday and weird gardens. a good watering followed. Since it's so hot and dry, the adult volunteers said they will water the gardens between sessions.

Miss Cass distributed donut seed packets. The young gardeners couldn't wait to plant them and ate the seeds!

Growing Together

Welcome to Garden N Grow 2011 - Gladstone! We appreciate the generosity of the good people at Fairview Christian Church in Gladstone, Mo. for the use of the garden plots and classroom space!

Today we got to know each other and learned some rules of the garden - be safe, have fun, don't disturb pollinators in the garden, bring a hat, water bottle and sunscreen.

After a get acquainted ball toss game we got to see the garden. The students picked their plots, then we went into the classroom where the lesson was "Why is there hunger?" A crossword puzzle illustrated some reasons that some people go hungry.

The young gardeners picked the type of garden they are going to plant. Choices were sunshine garden, holiday garden, salsa garden, weird garden and relish tray garden. Can you guess what plants are in each? Check back as the season progresses!


Here are pictures of the students and adult volunteers.