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.