March/April In December

O.k., that is where my head is at after a day of planting bulbs along Cardenas Ave. I am already looking forward to the daffodils and crocus poking their heads through the last grips of winter.

Boy, another few days of rain, just what we need! I know it will pay dividends later, but yes I am still complaining.

The leaves and manure are settling in nice, so maybe we will get the clover and hairy vetch in this week - we'll see what happens. Maybe if we are lucky it'll rain this week;)

Backbone Mountain Food Farm

This past week-end two of our 5th graders visited and explored Backbone Mountain Food Farm in southern Garrett County which is an organic farm farmed largely by antique equipment and draft horse. The boys explored with the owners children on foot and by cross-country skis.

We adults were also fortunate enough to get to see their hoop houses, high-tunnel garden, mushroom operation, and many of the antique tools and draft horses. We are hoping to develop a relationship that will allow our students exposure to an organic farm that has a shorter growing season, at a higher elevation that uses many of our gardening practices such as: crop rotation, cover-crops, neighborhood plantings, and uses compost and manure.

It was fun to see a farm at nearly 2,000 ft above sea level covered in 6-8 inches of snow that was still producing greens, radishes, and carrots in their high-tunnel.

The farm is also a cross-country ski destination that also offers ski packages and lessons at affordable rates.

Thank you Backbone Mountain Food Farm for your time and inspiration.

A dry window

Mike and Mrs. Hope (Chris), with the help of Mrs. Primm and the 5th grade class, FINALLY were able to get the manure and leaves into our gardens yesterday. Chris and I cleaned out the beds of old plant material and the 5th graders harvested the remaining beets, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, and fennel seeds (as well as one last scraggly ear of popcorn).

We then topped the beds with well composted horse manure and about 6"+/- of shredded leaves. We marveled at the amount of worm life in the beds and in the composted manure. We are curious to see how this combination of materials affects our pH and nitrogen levels.

We still have cool weather crops flourishing in our gardens and our onion and garlic sets are going crazy. We are planning on planting our spring bulbs next week along Cardenas Ave and planting our crimson clover and hairy vetch once the leaves get a good soaking (of snow?) this week-end.

Rain, rain go away?

O.k. enough rain for a while! The leaves are mulched, the manure is on site, many plants have been pulled, but the soil is so wet - soggy, soupy... we don't want any run off or soil loss. I know next summer I will be wanting every bit of this deluge, but for now enough already. Let things dry up just a bit.

Once it does dry up a bit we will be able to finish working on the rest of the garden and getting all of those goodies into the soil.

A time for thanksgiving

While pondering all we are thankful for November represents the beginning of our new gardening season. Soil health and viability is the key to any garden success. We look forward to all of the decomposition that will be happening in our beds over the next 6+ months adding nutrients and improving soil structure for next year's plants.

Gobble, Gobble. We hear at Green wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

Soil structure improvement

Much of the leaf compost that was included in our soil delivery in the spring has decomposed and the soil left in place has a fairly high clay content. Our plan over the winter is to improve the soil structure by building up humus by mixing in a copious amount of mulched leaves and some well composted manure.

We expect the leaves to fix nitrogen as they decompose and hope the manure will provide more available nitrogen for plants this spring. We are also planting crimson clover and hairy fetch for cover crops and a spring nitrogen source.

We are going to take soil samples for analysis now, in the winter and spring. We will make final nutrient ph corrections prior to planting in late May/June.

We are excited about this phase of soil structure improvement and the subsequent soil-based experiments and we look forward to collecting these data points.

Carrots, beets, fennel, sunflower seeds, and horse manure

Wow, what an abundance of sunflowers seeds! The 5th graders did a magnificent job harvesting, sorting, soaking, roasting and sharing their seeds with the school and community! We just harvested the beets, carrots, and more fennels seeds. Our greens are growing like crazy as are our onions and garlic. Boy, we may have started our fall crop late but this wet warm weather is helping a lot.

We just finished picking up a large load of 18 month old horse manure. The stall bedding at this farm is newspaper. This is wonderful, completely composted manure and it is full of worms and other beneficial critters. Parents are bringing bags of leaves that we will mulch, add to the manure then add to our beds.

The students will take soil samples for analysis before we add the compost and leaves and cover crops. Then they will take soils samples in the winter and mid-spring for comparison.

More rain, signs and seeds

Wow! another inch plus of rain this past week-end - what a year. More fennel was harvested, sunflower seeds are in final stages of roasting production, and basil made its way toward fresh pizza with homemade mozzarella during Mangia Monday- yum.

We have posted new signs in the gardens made from recycled crab bushel basket bottoms (say that three times fast). The signs will support our passive educational ideals for bay-friendly organic gardening. We are experimenting with sign set-up and durabilty - so bear with us if things are askew from time to time!

A very rainy week-end, aren't the plants happy!

Well, add 2.5" to our rain totals! Wow what a soggy week-end. Since we last posted, all of our planted seeds, onion and garlic sets are up and growing. The sunflowers seeds have been separated from the heads and will be roasted sooner than later. I can't wait to get a scale to weigh what is being produced!

We planted a few more onion and garlic sets today as well as pansies. I helped a neighbor across the street clean-up their containers from old summer flower growth and then we planted pansies and onions.

5th grade will be doing some more harvesting later in the week. Our beets are ready, the rest of the carrots, cantaloupe. and tomatoes will be taken. Looks like we will have some green tomatoes to ripen inside or save for pickling or frying. Boy, those grape tomatoes are still as tasty as ever! Some of our fennel seed is dry and ready to be harvested too!

It looks like we have some slug or catapillar activity on some of the greens planted in one of the raised beds. We'll set a board out and see if we catch any slugs napping.

Another large harvest

Last Friday the entire 5th grade class spent time harvesting the last of the Indian corn as well as peppers, cantaloupe, tomatoes, carrots, beans, dill, basil, eggplants, popcorn and sunflower. Two raised beds were stripped of their summer crops and prepped then lettuce and cabbage were planted.

All of the corn stalks were cut and are drying to be used as decorations and later will be composted. The sunflower stalks were also cut down and set aside for composting. Pansies were added to the long perimeter bed along Kentucky Ave. for fall beauty and over-wintering.

The class is very excited about roasting the sunflower seeds and popping the popcorn. The produce was divided up amongst the class and taken home by the students.

The garlic, onions, kale, swiss chard, mustard, radishes, and collard greens are all growing well in the canoe garden.

Great Kids go to Great Kids Farm

Great Kids Farm is being recognized for their work by the Baltimore City Office of Sustainability and our 5th graders are going to the farm for an urban farm experience, to help them celebrate, and to pick-up some fall transplants for their garden.

The canoe garden is showing all kinds of signs of life with the recent seed plantings and our swiss chard and chinese cabbage transplants are really taking off.

Tomorrow it is fall and we wish we had a tractor...

Swiss chard, radish, chinese cabbage, mustard greens, white onions, yellow onions, garlic, shallots, hairy vetch, and crimson clover. That is the current list of what is planted or waiting to be planted for the fall. We are very excited about our fall and winter garden, and at least this year it will be more cover crops and soil improvement than food production. We are mindful of the health of our local watershed and the Chesapeake Bay as well as our ability to produce healthful food into the winter and starting again in early spring.

We are adding a new signs to the gardens which will read - "You will see signs of the Chesapeake Bay in our gardens, but you won't see signs of our gardens in the Chesapeake Bay." So, whether it is soil run-off or nutrient run-off our eye will always be toward protecting the health of the bay and water quality within Herring Run in working our organic teaching garden.

We recover items from the Bay like the bottoms of crab bushel baskets, crab pot buoys, and watercraft and turn them into educational elements for our gardens. Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Herring Run watershed Association would be so proud of us (actually they are!).

Just an aside - actually a wish list aside - we are looking for an old tractor for our property for experiential education. Preferably more of a shell of a tractor, not running, etc. Bigger than a lawn tractor, much smaller than a combine. Call Mrs. Primm if you might have something workable - 410.485.2102. We are a 501c3 and your donation may be tax deductible.

The Garden Club in the garden

Tomatoes, peppers (hot and sweet varieties), Indian corn, cabbage, string beans, cucumber, and basil are what came out of the garden today, harvested by our 5th graders. Pretty much the same list was harvested on Monday.

The Garden Club spent the morning weeding, exploring, planting, and watering. We planted Swiss chard, cauliflower, and Chinese cabbage as transplants. We also planted by seed a few small rows of kale, mustard greens, and a heirloom radish dating back to pre-1865. The radish is supposed to be ready in about 29 days – we will let you know what happens. We used some coffee grounds with our transplants and seeds and we are curious to see how that may affect the plants. All of our plants today went into the canoe garden.

I visited the fine folks at Meyers Seed Company today. I picked up some crimson clover seed and hairy vetch seed that we plan to use as our cover crops this year. I love the idea of a winter rye or winter wheat, but I get carried away and let them go to seed which would be counter-productive for our small raised beds. I also picked up garlic and white and yellow onion sets to over winter. Yum.

Rain in Baltimore, Sun at Monticello

Mrs. Buckley's son Brandon and I left the rains in Baltimore on Friday morning and traveled to the 3rd annual Heritage Harvest Festival at Thomas Jefferson's homestead in Charlottesville, Virginia. Organic gardening, sustainable living, hierloom seed saving and sales, and hierloom tomato tastings were some of the highlights of the day. We made sure to buy some cool weather crop seeds from the Southern Seed Exchange booth that we will make sure the 5th grade gets to add to their fall and spring garden.

I also purchased a book "100 vegetables and where they came from" by William woys Weaver that I will pass on to the school once I finish reading it.

Brandon and I also spent time down in Lynchburg, Virginia (about 60 miles south of Charlottesville) and went to their town farmers market. The farmers market had many great fruits and vegetables from local farmers for sale. We bought and ate the biggest and tastiest Honey Crisp apples we have ever had. I wish I would have bought more than I did! I met a wonderful woman here in Lynchburg that is going to send pictures of her garden to our 5th graders and read our blog.

Look up the festival to see the many exciting presenters and vendors present who also make their products available online.

I've heard another harvest has occurred in GSB's Organic Teaching Garden and I can't wait to hear about it!

What a week!

The 5th grade harvested with Mr. Michaels and Mrs. Primm on Friday. Tomatoes, basil, beans, cantaloupe - that is right cantaloupe!! It has been dry the last few days so I stopped by to water today and discovered our timer for our drip irrigation system had been broken off at the spigot. I had to re-rig the system and water by hand. I have to order a new timer and we will hand water until a new timer comes in.

There are so many new tomatoes to harvest, as well as peppers (as big as my fist), cucumber, and cayenne peppers. Everything is just so beautiful and plentiful right now. I found a white sweet pepper today and another cantaloupe or two.

I have Swiss chard for the canoe garden and cauliflower - which we need to get in sooner than later.

How's the Weather?

If you look at the bottom of the page, you will find a new feature...our weather station. You may also notice that it gives the weather for the New York area. You can use this station to find Baltimore weather by clicking on "edit" and entering your zip code. We want to know it you feel that this is a worthy addition to our site, so please take the time to play around with it, and then let us know with your comments if it should stay or go.

Another Garden Harvest with students

We had a great group of students from across the grades come by and harvest yesterday as their parents were in their own school orientation and conferences. They were very excited to see the fruits of their labor as many have not seen the garden since mid-June.

We picked tomatoes - all kinds, cucumber, beans, and peppers. It appears we have pumpkins forming, and everything is thriving. We've been a bit dry the last few days so I supplemented the timed watering with a good manual soak.

The pollinators have truly discovered the pollinator garden and we even had a monarch yesterday. The bumblebees are loving the sunflowers too! Go GSB!

Another inch of Rain

We had another inch of rain this week-end. The peppers are really starting to perk up and the eggplant has many blossoms. Of course some of the weeds are enjoying the rain too. The kids come back to school next week and we are looking forward to them seeing the garden. We are planning to start to work with them to start thinking about our cover crops as well as what we want to plant for the upcoming cool weather.

Harvest Day in the garden

It was a hot and muggy harvest this morning! Jabray, Jamary and their grandad helped. I took pictures of the harvest and emptied the rain gauges. I will probably do some weeding and removal of dead branches and leaves from plants tomorrow. A couple of the heirloom tomatoes that I thought have fusurium are bouncing back a bit, while another is all but done.

I will post a picture or two later today from today's harvest. I shared the harvest with Jabray and Jamary's family and neighbors across the street on Kentucky. Even Toronta took some tomatoes today! Have I said how excited I am about the corn?! And the sunflowers are big and beautiful too.

And me without a basket

We stopped by the garden this evening and it was full of ready to pick produce. Tomatoes, beans, cucumber, squash, strawberry, peppers... It caught me by surprise, this is the first big harvest. We got a bunch of rain last night from that thunderstorm, the rain gauge said about one-half inch. We will go back properly prepared to harvest tomorrow. I will take some pictures.

Also, I am very excited that the indian corn is forming ears, and it appears the popcorn is not far behind - I really hope they do well. I think the kids will be so excited.

Our Vegetable Garden

The GSB Organic Teaching Garden was designed by our parent-run Garden Club. Our 5th graders will become organic gardening experts by studying the success and failure of this garden and designing their own garden to give to the next 5th grade class.

We have 5 raised-beds for food production that are planted in companion-style neighborhoods and are on a 4 year crop rotation. Our perimeter beds were designed by our kindergarteners to attract and support pollinators. The perimeter beds also include native plants, food crops, and fun crops like indian corn.

In addition to supporting and enhancing classroom education, the garden will support our Mangia Mondays which are facilitated by our Wellness Coordinator. The seasonal crops we produce are explored every Monday and shared in our dining room during lunch time.