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Garden Update

The vegetable beds are mostly planted, and will sprout within the next two weeks. This year, thanks to generous donations from community partners Teena’s Pride and Tacology, we have over five different varieties of heirloom tomatoes and heirloom squash. Did you know that touching a tomato plant releases a hormone that stimulates growth? Plus, it just smells good. Come by with the kids to see for yourself.

Garden Clubbers have already tasted fruit from the Jamaican Papaya trees. First report: yum! The banana trees are recovering from a bout of whitefly. The new invasive hurt our first crop, but the trees have all been adopted by SPE families and receive weekly TLC. (THANK YOU SPE FAMILIES!) Since then, four more trees have sprouted banana bunches (a.k.a. hands).

Have you ever dreamed of owning a banana tree? This is your lucky year! Our bananas have been so prolific, we’ve run out of space for the baby trees (a.k.a. pups). We’re holding our first ever “holiday banana tree sale” between Thanksgiving and Winter Break. Stay tuned for details.

We’re always asked by families how they can get involved in the gardens. Here’s a short list of big and small ways to help the garden:

-Donate twist ties, twine, bamboo and toilet paper rolls. We use twist ties and twine to demarcate planting areas and to create trellises. Bamboo has a thousand uses in the garden – from delineating planting zones to creating elaborate trellises. Toilet paper rolls are a handy, economical and a green solution for starting seedlings. Please leave any donations by the garden shed.

-Donate time. Ah, harder to come by, we know. But if there are always opportunities to dig and weed. To get on our email distribution list, please email southpointepta@gmail.com!

-Donate money. A little goes a long way, and is always appreciated!

This Weekend - the Edible Garden Festival @ Fairchild - Fun for the Whole Family!

Click here for the event schedule:

http://www.fairchildgarden.org/Events/?date=2010-09&eventID=455

Tree-lemma Dilemma and More

As part of our plan to eradicate whitefly, the gumbo limbo and palm trees around the playground will be treated today, and the banana trees sprayed with a saltwater solution. Then we will take over their treatment using neem oil. Special thanks to Adrian Hunsberger for diagnosing the type of whitefly and to Katie Manhire for coordinating treatment, and to the ten families who agreed to adopt a banana tree! We'll meet today, Friday, at 3:15 pm.

In other garden news, Jaquelina has been planting with many classes - and many of those seeds have grown into seedlings. This week the second after-school garden class welcomed three more students and the first class is at capacity. The children are busy in the garden and the curricula will evolve as the garden evolves. Now that they have prepared the beds and started seedlings, students will transplant, weed, tend to the plants and explore the garden with Jaqui as their guide. This year we plan to teach more about seed saving, through which children will come to understand the lifecycle and reproduction cycle of plants.

In yet more news, we were happy to welcome Roger Horne back to the garden last week. He brought heirloom squash for the kids to plant, and tended to the mulberry, cherry and guava trees his organization donated to the school last year. The kids loved working with Roger again. Thanks, Roger!

Please visit the garden for a sneak peek of what's to bloom. Good things are happening in the garden.

Calling All Families!

The Smoothie Garden needs YOUR help. We’ve met our opponent and its name is whitefly. We’ve sprayed the trees and cut them back, but they need more attention than we and our gardener can give. Since we’re using an organic solution, it will take diligence to rid the garden of this pest. We’re asking you and your family to ADOPT a banana tree. Taking care of your tree will involve watering and spraying the leaves and trunk each week. We’ll provide the sprayers and soap. Four of the trees have new flowers and fruit, but it will take some effort to save them. Please let us know if you have room in your family for a tree! Thank you!

In the news!

The new garden beds are installed, making our garden look more established than experimental. Thank you to the Garden Club, and many parents and students in our community who put them together and filled them with soil. Students will start planting this week; so, in the next few weeks, look for green shoots :)

The banana trees have been sprayed with an organic soap solution, so we hope that the trees recover completely. We lost some bananas, but the new growth is stronger and healthier.

In the news, we had a great showing at the beach clean up this past weekend! A small group of us ran into local weatherman, Jeff Berardelli, south of Fifth Street. See us at http://cbs4.com/video/?id=101389@wfor.dayport.com Thank you Channel 4 for the shout out! Our kids are making a difference!

What's Up, What's Down

We’re so grateful to have an exceptional group at the school working on environmental issues - so fantastic, dedicated and visionary, we’ve changed our name from the Green Committee to the Environmental Action Team (EAT). Here are some upcoming events:

Raising the Beds

Tuesday, 9/21, 2:00-4:00pm @ South Pointe Elementary

Roll up your sleeves to build garden beds! The Garden Club will lead the activity, but all kids and parents are welcome to come...the more hands, the better!

Weekly Weeders

Every Wednesday, 1:00-4:00pm – Smoothie Garden

Our garden needs a little TLC. Please stop by with the kids to pick up a weed or two. It’s still hot out there, so wear covered shoes, bring a hat and something to drink. Thank you!

Miami Coastal Clean Up Day

Saturday, 9/25, 9:00am – all over

The clean up is up and down Miami Dade County; the site in our neighborhood is the South Pointe Jetty Park, sponsored by ECOMB. Please register you and your child today! In the organization slot, fill in South Pointe Elementary.

Visit: http://www.miamidadecoastalcleanup.org to register

If you’ve stopped by the Smoothie Garden you’ve noticed a few downed trees. We hope to resuscitate them. Also , it seems we have an infestation of some sort of pest that leaves white circles all over the trees. Dumbfounded, we have calls into our banana experts, but if you know a banana guru please let us know!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to another school year, and the gardens' 2nd year! Thank you to our garden supporters and volunteers who established the gardens last year! The gardens wouldn’t be here without you! And thank you to our volunteers who tended the gardens over the hot summer months, especially the Elliot, Prescott and Weaver families.

This year SPE is a Fairchild Challenge School. This means the gardens will have comprehensive support from Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden! More information on this collaboration will be forthcoming.

The Smoothie Garden blossomed this summer, literally. Two banana trees sprung forth gorgeous, monstrous red and purple flowers and two ripening groups of bananas. Two papaya trees are flowering, growing and ripening papayas. The short tree is a Jamaican variety, and the taller tree is from store seeds, which we believe were cultivated in Belize. The milkweed plant along the wall ballooned and played host to a family of monarch chrysalises and butterflies.

The trees are towering and so are the weeds. To that end, we're starting a Weekly Weeder program every Wednesday from 1:00-4:00 pm. We'll gather in the Smoothie Garden to weed, whack dead leaves and water. Stay for 3 minutes or 3 hours, come one week or every week: whatever help you can give is very much appreciated by us and the plants! Of course, working in the garden is not limited to Wednesdays; you're welcome to pull up weeds any day of the week and bring a friend because company makes it all the more fun!

Regarding the Organic Edible Garden in front of the school, we’ve hired a fantastic gardening teacher, Jaquelina, who will engage teachers and students in the gardens, tend to them and run the after-school garden club on Tuesdays. In September, we will have ONE volunteer day to get the beds in order, and that will be all!

We look forward to another great green year at South Pointe Elementary!

Preparing for Summer: Some Thanks

Thank you to Liz, Steve, Kim, Lisa (and Max) for working in the garden today! Stubborn weeds in the Smoothie Garden were coerced by shovel, hoe and brute strength, but we can now see the trees from the weeds - and it's looking good! One Jamaican papaya tree flowered and fruited, while another boasts tiny buds. The banana trees are gaining inches in height and have sprouted one to four pups each. Surrounded by dry, sandy soil, the banana trees enjoyed a deep watering this morning only to be topped off by afternoon storms.

While parents worked in the Smoothie Garden, SPE students minded the Organic Edible Garden beds. Thank you to our energetic students and their enthusiastic (and very patient) teachers! Ms. Brisuela and Mr. Londono's classes tilled the vegetable beds, pulled many weeds and turned the soil countless times, while Ms. Hendrickson's class finished the job and checked the almost-ready compost. The compost will be used to fertilize the Smoothie Garden before school breaks for summer (next week!).

Last, but not least, thank you to the hose-and-nozzle-fairy family, the Weavers. It was a great surprise yesterday morning to find two extra-long hoses and two brand-new nozzles by the garden shed! Thank you!

Last Work Day

Please join us this Wednesday, May 26 at 8:45am for a work day! There will be coffee, sweet things to nosh on and lots of laughs.

On our roster: weeding and mulching the smoothie garden; weeding and covering the sunflower bed; building another vege bed; and, turning the soil and planting cover crops in the vege beds.

We may finish some of the smaller jobs between now and then with the help of our garden teacher, Roger, but for the rest we'll need your help! This is the LAST time this year we will ask for your brains and brawn. Please, please, please come! We love you!

May

May is here and the heat is rising. This marks the end of our main growing season in South Florida. This month, we’ll add a few more beds - so more classes can be involved in the garden next year - mulch what’s left and sow a cover crop. Cover crops are mulched right back into the soil, adding vital nutrients which will make the soil more fertile for the next growing season. The cover crop is like a blanket, which we’ll lay down as we put our beds to sleep for summer.

As for the Smoothie Garden, we’ve planted some pineapple heads, a guava tree and Bermuda cherry and some small mulberry trees. (You’ll notice a few mulberries around the vegetable beds as well.) Although all of our trees are native to warm climates, we plan to add some irrigation to the Smoothie Garden soon so our trees survive the summer - and we’ll have a crop of bananas to look forward to in the fall!

Thank you to SPE’s administration, the PTA, Geane Brito, our teachers, students and volunteers for making the gardens’ first year a great one!

March/April Update

Up north crocuses have just popped out of the ground, but down here we’re winding down our main growing season and preparing for summer fruits. Our gardener, Roger, is harvesting veges with the after-school Garden Club and trimming the beds back as we wind down for summer. If you haven’t been to the garden recently, check out all the green tomatoes growing and ripening. In the next few weeks, we expect a good crop of peacevine cherry and yellow pear tomatoes and pickling cucumbers. Our gardening classrooms also harvested this month: greens, herbs, carrots, snow peas, and lettuces were abundant. Mr. Londono’s class tried sautéed Asian greens on a pizza and were surprised about how good greens could be.

Slow Food Miami, a garden benefactor, visited us to check on their Slow garden bed (maintained by Ms. Brisuela and Mr. Bogart’s classes), and share advice and ideas with us for next year. We loved the visit and gleaned a year's worth of information in one hour. (Thank you, Slow Food!) They were impressed with the Organic Edible Garden and Smoothie Garden and our Wellness Committee! They loved how it all ties together: gardens + good nutrition + care for the earth + exercise = wellness = nourished students (and happy teachers and administrators)! And we are grateful for the chance to work with and learn from them!

Our garden will continue to grow next year. Last month we were happy to receive a seed grant from Johnny's Selected Seeds (Thank you, Johnny's Selected Seeds!), so we will have more seeds to plant in our garden and to use in the classrooms! And we were thrilled to learn that we were given a monetary grant from the South Beach Wine and Food Festival's family event, Fun and Fit as a Family! (Thank you, Fun and Fit as a Family!) Among other things, this grant will help us build more garden beds so more classes can have a stake in the garden, expand our Smoothie Garden, provide fresh fruit for the Fresh Fruit Tasting Days and buy blenders so the PTA can sell more smoothies…

And speaking of smoothies, have you seen the Smoothie Garden lately? The banana trees have quadrupled in size!!!! And they will be producing bananas by next school year. The gardens will need a little TLC next month as we need to weed, harvest, till, cover and mulch to prepare for the hot months ahead. Please stay tuned. If you’d like to be a garden volunteer, please email southpointepta@gmail.com. Thank you!

Green Market!

Come to the Green Market, Saturday, 3/20, from 10-2pm at SPE! Bring batteries, cell phones, iPods, GPSs, video games and consoles, laptops, inkjet cartridges, used DVDs, clothes and household items to recycle! Join us for games, green activities, art projects, cooking demonstrations and the chance to buy herbs, seeds, fresh fruits and veges and organic, local products created by folks in our community!

The market is free and open to all!

2010 Update

Our SPE little gardeners have been working hard preparing to sell their plants and seddlings at our SPE GREEN MARKET. If you look at the beds right now you will see the amazing growth of the last month since Mr. Londono, Ms. Brisuela, Ms. Hendrickson and Mr. Bogart sowed their seeds with their students.

The third garden bed has been cared by the Save the Planet Club and the Gardening Club. The Gardening Club is off to a great start too. This past month, they planted pineapples, peppers and took care of the beds.

Depending on future donations and grant support, we plan to add new garden beds so more students and teachers can have a personal stake in the garden. If your class would like to be involved, please send an email to southpointepta@gmail.com.

Welcome to 2010!

If we have one resolution at the garden this year, it is to expand student participation. Over the break, while tomatoes proliferated and banana trees grew to new heights, we planned for a student takeover of the garden. Starting this month, an afterschool gardening class will be offered at SPE for kids from grades K-6th. Jamee Garland - a teacher, green activist and environmentalist - will lead the classes with appearances by guest lecturers. We would also like to welcome our new garden caretakers: the students in Ms. Hendrickson’s, Mr. Bogart’s, Mr. Londoño’s and Ms. Brisuela’s classrooms and Ms. Arsenault’s Save the Planet club. The classes and afterschool clubs will each inherit half a garden bed to cultivate. At the garden we are happy to turn over many new leaves in 2010! Watch us grow.