A Bountiful Spring Harvest!

by Zyanya Otal

April showers bring May flowers… and a bounty of greens at the Clark Elementary School Garden!

For the past few weeks, students have been hard at work pulling weeds, prepping the garden beds with compost, planting, and watering the garden. Eager hands gently tended to each garden bed and words of encouragement were shared with growing seedlings. In a few short weeks, our young gardener’s efforts paid off. The salad garden, consisting of kale, bok choy, and various lettuces has provided students with their first harvest of the year! Miss Z, as well as volunteers from the Piedmont Master Gardeners were impressed with the student’s gardening efforts! Students from the CLASS Garden Club were able to take home a head of romaine lettuce to share the results of their efforts with their families.

Johnson Garden Spring 2019
by Rick Harden

The Johnson Garden is thriving. While all of us may not appreciate the abundant rain this Spring has brought, the starters from Buford’s hoop house seem to appreciate the weather and are growing rapidly under the onslaught. And, along with the plants, lots of other life is thriving.
 
We welcomed spring with blue bird babies! At least 4 were born and have left the nest. One day as I arrived I heard the chicks chirp for their mom and dad to bring them food. Teachers and students alike enjoyed watching the bright blue father and camouflaged mother stand guard as we had our classes.
 
We have planted more sunflowers than ever before, at least 50 in the lower Garden. We are hoping they will bring both a pop of color and provide some summer sustenance for local bee and our bird populations. Perhaps, the sunflowers will also help soak up any extra moisture this summer?
 
As nature has gotten busy, so has our community. We’ve had lots of projects brewing. Using branches instead of string, students helped me build a new trellis for our sugar snap peas. The branches gathered from the woods in front of the school are perfect for the pea tendrils to grab onto.  Our salvaged wood trellis encourages students to use what is available and improvise, and it will be compostable when the season is over.