What lived... and what did not

This past holiday weekend, I was unable to get in our school to water the baby plants that our kids have been rearing. These are the second succession of plants, the ones that are supposed to be bringing us in food later in the season (like, Sept./Oct.-ish). I am very disappointed, mostly in myself (since I should have anticipated difficulties on a holiday weekend) but also a bit in the people that I rely on to access the building after 'normal' weekday hours. Normally I have access to the building Saturday morning, but this was not the case. Nor was I able to coordinate with building admin (the people who have the 'keys') to get in on Sunday or Monday. Sigh...

So, I came in early this AM, which was as soon as possible (with our building, that is ~6 AM). I watered plants that looked hopelessly parched. I will estimate that we lost ~75% of what we had been growing. Here are some (admittedly depressing) pictures:

I will be coming back to the school later today, to see if anything that looked completely gone is actually coming back. The kids and I can try regrowing some of this stuff, but its definitely setting us back 3-4 weeks time. Will report back to you all later...

On a POSITIVE note, are you all looking forward to the first pickin's from the garden? =) I know I am. Keep in mind that the kids and I are not planning to have a box ready for you June 3rd (its not technically the 'first week in June' !). June 10th you should be getting your first box of produce. Remember that you can either pick up the box at the site (3733 S. Giles) on Sunday morning, from 11-2 PM, or you can pick it up at Arrigo Park at 3:30 PM.

The day of rest... (sort of)

While I got a few small things done at the garden this past Sunday, a nice gentleman by the name of Morris King walked up and introduced himself. He had a camera in his hand and was taking pictures of our rain catcher... which initially had me worried. Turns out he is responsible for keeping the brambles on the north edge of the lot down, as someone actually owns that parcel (it was news to me!). Fortunately, he said it was OK with his boss that we had located some of our stuff there (including our rain tanks). Whew...

He then proceeded to be so kind as to help knock down the weeds that had grown up along the road on the west side of the lots (I thought the city was responsible for this sort of thing! Well, we can't wait for the city to do everything, can we???). Here is how overrun it looked before we got to work:

Overall, he was very positive about it all, saying that we had to 'work together' to make the community better. He gave me a trash bag and I helped by picking up the trash that accumulated on that side, too.

I ended up with a lot of interesting rubbish, including a tire iron, a bottom of a boot, and an old phone book:

[ Now that's what I call the 'Real Yellow Pages.' Heh ;) ]     And here's what we made that area look like in the end:

Before he left, I told him about our garden's web blog, and he agreed to let me take a photo of him. He told me to plan to see him again on Friday, and that he'd help a little with keeping up the area surrounding our plot every time he came around. Thanks again, Mr. King!!!

growing tomatoes

Today we planted new tomatoes and we had to plant them deep because they have a speciel stem.We had to move the pumpkin plants that were growing in composted soil we put by the strawberries....we moved them into their own patch. We had to move the pea and bean plants that sprouted into an area where they are together. We watered everything that looked wilted or watered. Here are some pictures we took today. In the pictures you will see my 2 sisters. They wanted to help out so i let them, and at the end i asked them how was it and they said it was fun. They wanted to come back again.

See You next time when i blog again...

how it works!!!!

Today, was a short day because of course we had a short school day. We were able to plant for like 2 hours but it was still fun. I still had fun. We planted things like peppers and other things, i really didnt know what we planted. But, first we had to get the big rocks and the roots from out of the soil. One of our members pulled out the biggest rock ever!!!! I was surprised because it was so big. It seems like everything was funny because i was just laughing at everything and everyone. It seems that all the plants are growing well and they are getting taller by the minute. We enjoyed the little time we had today. We got a chance to see Mr. mulkulski's baby and his mother again. I also brought along my two little sisters, and they helped us as well. I taught them how to put the plants inside of the soil, and after they watered it.

Until, next time i will see you then....

[Mr. Mikulski adds: "I thought that these last two photos needed some explanation, so I'll add to Jasmine's post. The below picture is of the newly reinforced rain catchment. I think it will stand up to a heavy wind now, and we look forward to the next heavy rain..."]

["As for this last photo... alas, the rototiller is again under the knife. It needs one or more of the main shaft oil seals replaced. As you can see in the pic, it loses significant amounts of oil over the course of just 1-2 days of being parked inside."]

["Keeping it refilled is an expensive habit, and its making an awful mess in the nook we store it in. When we bought the machine, there was almost NO oil in this reservoir -- suggesting that the seals were leaking long before we purchased the machine. Wish us luck with the repair!"]

jasmine's wonderful adventure

Hi, my name is jasmine fields and i am a 16 year old sophomore attending wendell phillips and this is my first time ever growing anything in a garden. This is my very first adventure. It was very fun and i enjoyed it. I had a chance to see my friends from school and i got a chance to meet new people. We socialized and cracked jokes about each other but in a funny way. Planting is a fun thing to  do now especially when you have a reason. I am the new mediator and i enjoy taking pictures and showing them to people. I am a fun loving person that is very social and like to get to meet people.I am also quiet. My career choice is to become a forensic scientist and i want to be very successful.

Today, we planted new food. We planted lettuce, cucumbers,etc. Neighborhood kids came out to help us, it was like a very big community helping us out. I always wanted to try out different things and i finally got a chance. We had a lot of food to plant and it was fun. We played in the soil for a little bit and then we went around and watered the food that we already grew. Even though i couldnt earn my service learning hours by joining the club, but i did want to be apart of the club just to help out the garden club. I was recommended by a student that i should join the club because its very fun. We had to get the old plants form the soil and big rocks so that the new plants will grow in a good environment. I felt like i was the baby girl today because i was the only sophomore girl in the club!!!!! WoW!!!!!

1/3 planted!

Today, with the help of both a new high school member (Jasmine) and our two best elementary school helpers (Melvin and Torrence) we got all of our plants that are ready for going outside into the soil. That makes about 33% of our total area planted... looking good, looking good :)

[pictures unavailable for download]

Sorry that the pics are not working -- it seems that the SD card on my phone is on the fritz... just imagine six people working at the garden on a beautiful spring day :) On the plus side, it looks like a new addition to the club might be interested in posting to our garden blog after each meeting. Cross your fingers and hope it's true, and we'll see on Thursday eve if it pans out...

Also, our rain catching system is about 80% functional; we caught about 100 gallons of rain during the sprinkling on Monday.

Please continue to keep in touch with us as the vegetation grows to impressive proportions! And, if you have any time, we are open to community volunteers on Tues. and Thursday, from 3:30 to 5:00 PM. 3733 S. Giles. Come on out, and get your hands dirty :) Remember, the first week of June is our first produce date...

all the best,
Mr. Mikulski

Focus on the good... of which there is plenty

Doro's advice to me... so I will only mention (and not bemoan about) how our plan to get some heirloom tomato seedlings fell through.

Over the last week or so, we were fortunate to get some support from two farms offering food shares to the city -- Nichol's Farm and Angelic Organics. Both were extremely generous in helping us obtain more seedlings to supplement what we already had (special thanks to Chris and Todd). Our garden by Wendell Phillips H.S. is looking more and more like a food plot! We've got most of Todd's seedlings in the ground, and we still have several flats left of the orphan seedlings donated by Chris's workplace to put outside.

Here are some pics from last week Friday, the day that I tried to finish the last changes to the rain catchment to make it FINALLY functional:

And some more from yesterday (Saturday): (NOTE: these look nicer since it was brighter outside, plus the guest photo shooter probably had a better lens in his phone/camera, and it looks like he added some fun effects, too)

You may be asking, who are all these young-uns? Well, our club might have its first elementary school members ever; these young people volunteered to help out on both days, and were extremely polite, generous and well-listening helpers. They live and go to school steps away from the garden, sure, but to openly offer help and companionship for several hours at a time... and for days in a row? They even brought us all out some pink lemonade after we had been working for a couple of hours on Saturday... how swell was that?

Not captured in the photos were the two adult helpers that joined us -- special thanks to Ms. Smith from down the street and Alexei, my friend who took a break from his med school studies to move some dirt around!

Although things did get accomplished (mostly, the compost has AT LONG LAST all been spread), I was disappointed that we couldn't get into my school. There are many more seedlings to set out, and I have much earth-turning still to do with the newly fixed rototiller. Alas, I will limit my recounting of disappointment to two sentences, and two sentences only!

Until next time, ya'll  =)

P.S. -- we hope to be getting back our student blog poster, Ms. Coleman, soon... so look for her postings in the coming weeks!