Giving Thanks

At the garden, we have many reasons to be thankful:

Thank you to everyone who worked in the Banana Grove last month. It was exhausting, but the cloud cover, bagels, coffee, muffins and camaraderie made it all bearable. Thank you to Jonathan who delivered and unloaded a truckload of mulch, to Steve who tilled the Smoothie Garden and to Neal, Liz, Leslie, Rasheeda, Katie, Victoria, Kimberly and Peter who pulled up roots, unloaded bags of mulch and spread it around. Thank you to baby Jack who sat quietly while his mum, Katie, worked!

Thank you to Peter who put the new bed together and to Kimberly and Catherine who spread tarp underneath it and to Neal who filled it with good soil, peat moss and vermiculite.

Thank you to Steve who tilled the sunflower bed, to Neal and Andy who brought up the soil and to Victoria who spread the soil. It was a communal effort - and we are fortunate to have so many parents on board who aren't afraid to get dirty ;-).

In the next few months, we’re transitioning garden plots to classroom teachers who have shown interest. We have identified the teachers and will work closely with them in the upcoming months. We are thankful for their adventurous spirit and enthusiasm for the gardens!

Thank you to Adam Mopsick, who is working on irrigating the gardens.

Special thank you to Jason Russell, Andy Augusta and Andy Prescott for putting the shed together! Once it's secured, we'll have a place to store all the garden supplies! And, thank you to Eric and Victoria Elliott for bringing hundreds of pounds of bricks to the Banana Grove, which will act as a border to keep the mulch in. Thank you to the random volunteer who helped me lay some of the bricks.

We've also begun a butterfly garden by the school store in memory of Betty Arsenault's father who passed away last month. Thank you to Jason Russell for transplanting the Porte Weed and Small Milkweed plants and to our children who cleaned out the Sunflower bed and sowed seeds.

Thank you to the Criscitos and the Benzels for their generous donations to the garden. With their donations we’ll be able to purchase more butterfly-attracting plants to the gardens and seeds for the teachers to sow in the new year.

Thank you to Geane and to the school administration, which continues to support our efforts as the garden grows! New grass on the great lawn compliments our green efforts.

Thank you to the plants which grow and proper almost in spite of us – our green cherry tomatoes are now turning red, the heirlooms are rounding out and the broccoli plants have just sprouted tiny heads.

Thank you to chef Cindy Hill who uses the produce from the garden in her cooking class!

Thank you to all the green garden volunteers for all their work – their minds and their muscle! Without them, none of this would be possible.

Harvest/Update

Thanks to a grant from Slow Food Miami, our garden will continue to grow! This weekend at Fairchild's Edible Garden Festival, SPE's Organic Edible Garden was given a garden bed and a check for supplies on behalf of Slow Food Miami! We are grateful to Slow Food Miami for supporting the garden. The third garden bed will be installed in November!

We are also grateful for a grant from Les Dames D'Escoffier International, which will enable us to buy a much-needed shed and other supplies for the garden!

A little over 6 weeks after the garden was seeded and planted, we now have Genovese basil, lime basil, chard, mesclun, collards, yellow squash and cucumbers! Ms. Brisuela's 2nd grade class harvested basil and made pesto (which 28 out of 30 children ate happily!), and Chef Cindy Hill will incorporate some of our bounty into her cooking class this week. To spread the love, organic veggie style, some produce will be bagged and sold on the cheap at the PTA's Pumpkin Patch this week.

While the garden is prospering, it hasn't been all roses: we lost one papaya tree to the school groundskeeper's lawnmower, and a few sunflower seedlings to the same lawnmower, and a caterpillar infestation ate most of the beans. But, we're learning quickly from our mistakes: The caterpillars we found eating the beans were relocated into habitats, which were distributed among teachers. And the Smoothie Garden and Sunflower garden will undergo changes in November, which will eradicate the need for lawnmowers to graze nearby.

Our garden signs are also a work in progress. They were re-varnished last week and will be slowly incorporated back into the beds.

On the compost side of things, Ms. Brisuela’s class has begun adding lunch scraps to our outdoor composters and Ms. Arsenault’s class is hosting a 5-tier worm hut. Lanette Sobel, from Fertile Earth, donated some worm tea to the garden, which has kept our plants (if not our volunteers) very happy.

Students continue to circle the garden before and after school and at recess. After witnessing the cucumbers this morning, my first grader said, “I can’t believe we’re actually growing things!”

Coming up next: Save the Date for more digging on 11/12, sheds r us, fence/don't fence it in.

Bamboo

Bamboo guru and artist, Brad Hallock, came to the garden today to install cool bamboo teepees and temple-entrance-like trellises for our vines to climb and heavier plants to grow against. Where art meets function, please stop by the garden to see this latest installation. (See slideshow for more pics.) Also, if you look under some leaves, you’ll find baby squash and baby cucs – just as cute as anything. Watch the stems though, they’re prickly – and we’re reminded that Mother Nature is at once a fierce protector and provider.

Signs and Worms!

Please stop by the garden to see the signs created by SPE students. They add color, life and the children's touch to our growing garden! Mr. Balzano's class also began a sunflower garden by the school store this week. Please stop by to wish it well.

Also, please join us for a WORM WORKSHOP, presented by the SPE PTA and the Save the Planet Club: this THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8TH AT 3PM AT SPE MEDIA CENTER: Led by Lannete Sobel from the Fertile Earth Foundation, SPE children will learn about the importance of worms and worm composting in the garden. In the hands‐on workshop, Ms. Sobel will help the children build a worm box for the SPE Organic Edible Garden. Children will be able to ask all their questions about these incredible forgotten little creatures that are so important for us all! FREE! ALL GRADES AND AGES WELCOME!

Going Bananas and New Growth!

Please see the updated slideshow for pictures of our garden's growth taken this morning by Sophia Elliott, a 4th grader at SPE.

The garden beds now boast 5" tall tomato plants, bursting mesclun, tall beans, climbing cucumbers and squat squash leaves. Herbs are slowly sprouting: the basil plants are the first to show their small green heads.

The voracious pumpkin plant was moved to an area by the school fence where it will have plenty of room to climb and conquer.

The Banana Grove, one part of the smoothie garden, has been planted on the East side of the school. The transplanting went smoothly with only a few trees going into temporary shock. Now even the starkest banana trees have new growth! In addition to the banana trees, two baby papayas trees were also planted.

Garden signs are being created – as we speak - by the afterschool Art enrichment classes. Our garden logo and art guru, Liz Atlan, painted a beautiful prototype for the children to use as a guide.

There is much to look forward to in the coming months. If you haven’t seen what we’ve been up to, stop by the garden, add a bit of water, pull up a weed and give our plants love.

Stay tuned for compost and rain barrels...

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden's Edible Garden Festival

Fun for the whole family!

The Edible Garden Festival
Featuring the Scarecrow Contest

Saturday and Sunday, October 24-25
9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Fairchild's Edible Garden Festival will show you how to create a fruit and vegetable garden in your backyard or as a container garden for you porch. Informative lectures, cooking demonstrations, delicious foods, plant vendors and demonstrations will also be available. Come and sample local products, learn from renowned chefs, enjoy kid's activities and cast your vote in the first South Florida scarecrow contest.

In the News...

Our garden is in the Neighbors section of The Miami Herald today: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/communities/story/1222366.html !!!!

Seeding the Garden

We're working in the garden this Thursday from about 7:30 am till noon. What's to be done: building a composter, watering coconut palms and banana trees, preparing seedling pots (gifts for SPE students), measuring the garden beds into square feet and - finally - seeding the garden! Students and their teachers will join on a volunteer basis from 9:00 on, and we'll need extra hands in the soil. Hope to see you there!

On Growing Tropical Plants

Found a great link to tropical plant growing, which includes very detailed instructions for for growing pineapples from storebought fruit: http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com

Scenes from Installation Day

For more pictures, click on the slideshow in the sidebar.

On Garden Installation Day...

Our Hero, Dennis Finneran from Miami Victory Gardens, arrived at school at the somewhat ungodly hour of 7:30 a.m. yesterday. He pulled up in his white (and orange) stallion, a fully loaded U-Haul weighted down with gorgeous cedar planks and bags of black gold, stunning organic soil in a gazillion twisty-tied bags.

Unfortunately, despite her calm and charming attempts, Catherine, could not persuade our otherwise fabulous school maintenance man, Jorge to open the gates so the truck could pull up to our site.

So, instead, the guys—with almost no perceptible mumbling--pitched in to lug the 100 or so bags by hand from the loading dock, down the hall, down the stairs and into the beds.

That is, once those suckers got bolted together. Note for next time: bring extra drills, bits, and a power cord!! Okay, so, some of our holes were not exactly lined up. But, thanks to Ms. Fishman’s and Terry’s keen eyes and persistence, our beds were.

The Neighbors reporter and photographer, Paradis and Daniel were so very wonderful to have with us. Thanks, guys!

We had a real buzz going. And, yes, Catherine and I freaked out a bit. But with the help of a truly staunch crew of parent volunteers we recovered. Please take a bow: Terry, Neal, Teresa, Clara, Liz, Okan, Tiffany, Geane, Chino, Helen, Leslie, Kristin, Giancarlo, Steve, Helen, Adam, Andy, Leslie, Jaleh, Eric and Carmen!!

We managed to get the beds in just around 9:30 –only about half an hour past our deadline, which is actually very early if using a Miami watch.

The best part was that from the minute we got there, yesterday and today, kids swarmed like buzzing bees. "Can I help?", "I want to plant", "How can I join?"

And help they did. Each of the 508 South Pointe students shoveled dirt into the beds and few fifth graders planted our marigolds to help discourage bugs. They held their new and quite gorgeous royal blue SPE flags with new real pride.

Others settled in at the picnic tables to come up with their personal garden wish list. Daniella said “I want berries, just berries.”

Berries may take a while, but at least now we do have beds.

And I am sure, we will all sleep well tonight knowing what hard work we did to get our garden growing.

Next up: worms, seeds and bananas.

Garden Installation Day

The garden will be installed by Miami Victory Gardens and PTA parent volunteers this Thursday, September 3rd beginning at 7:30am. Please bring shovels, rakes and strength and join the effort!

On another note, we are still collecting donations for the garden: Shovels, trowels, kid-size gardening tools, watering cans, empty milk jugs and detergent containers, wood and cash are welcome and very much appreciated!

Thank you!

Welcome to the Garden!

Welcome to SPE's Organic Edible Garden blogspot! Here we'll keep track of the garden's growth. Please check often for pictures and updates.