I am happy to report that the second grade garden is doing very well! We have harvested tomatoes and basil, and the zucchini are growing like mad. Marigolds, lamb's ears, nasturtiums, peppermint, green beans, peas, onions, gourds and pumpkins are thriving. The children have tried nasturtium leaves and this past Thursday they tried some of the flower petals - I'm proud to report that we aren't spraying with synthetic pesticides or herbicides. We have only sprayed once with a spray that is made from plant extracts from http://www.ourgardenpatch.com/. I have used this in my garden at home and it works very well. All of the plants are in containers -five gallon buckets, a window box and a plastic barrel cut in half. Ours is white and has a thick wall for a barrel, probably close to 1/4 inch. My husband's uncle grows all his vegetables in barrels and they do really well. You can usually find them for free; ours were given to us by a neighbor. Just make sure you wash them really well before you use them and drill drainage holes in the bottom. We used a jigsaw to cut them in half, it worked like a charm. If you have pests in your soil like we do here in Florida, large containers are a great way to grow a vegetable garden.
Every week after we are finished with our outdoor gardening the children write a few sentences and draw pictures for the class garden journal about what we did that day. It is interesting to see what they all do. We are on Spring Break this week, so we won't be gardening. We made waterers from water bottles and two liter soda bottles so the plants won't dry out while we are gone. The rain we are having (unusual for April) can only help too. For Mother's Day, we are going to make seed packets and decorate a clay pot. I think it will be a special gift and the kids are all excited about it. Happy gardening everyone!
