Kelly and Christina from UWT!

Today our amazing friends from the University of Washington Giving Garden and Greenhouse
http://depts.washington.edu/uwtsust/isce/garden.html came and helped us divided up seeds and plan out our planting plots.

They also brought us personal gloves for everyone. We are so lucky!

Kelly with Sascha, Adrianna and Megan (who decided to replan their garden altogether)

Look at all those seeds! UWT GIVING GARDEN ROCKS!

Spinach?

Jonathan, Deshawn, Miguel and Ejijah trying to find the seed they need.
They are like kids in a...well...seed store.

Creating Our Group Beds



Today we braved the 44 degree (F) temperatures to lay down some gridlines for our giving gardens. We took soil temperature readings yesterday and today and the temp is only up to 36-37 degrees (F). The soil got colder the higher up the hill you went (about 2 degrees).We need the soil to get up to 45 degrees (F) to get our cold crops in!

this is what it looks like to be a sprout







we added some wood chips to the rain garden barrier too!

Relaxing Friday in the Library doing research

Planning a herb garden.

Garden Maintenance is Drawing to a close

As we finish weeding beds and turning over soil, our outdoor maintanence jobs are getting fewer and fewer. Now its time for ADVERTISING!

We will be going on field trips to local businesses  and spreading posters, flyers and info cards next week.

Job Bid QUIZ.

Today Mr. Iverson had to do an interview thingy and we were left to ourselves to do our jobs without major supervision. Not only did we do well at staying on tasks, the adults that asked us about our jobs were impressed with our AUTONOMY.

Devil boy on the loose with a wheel barrow look out!

"I'd shovel wood chips better if I could actually see the wood chips"

What a "rotten" job...hehehe

We are starting to finish up some of our job bids and will need to bid new jobs as well as start our Construction and Advertising Campaigns.

Adrianna attended the Pacific Ave Business District Board meeting and let them know that our beds are available for renting.

Rained Out! But like our 4 ducks we let it roll off our backs

Today we walked outside to do our jobs and it was really really nasty outside. So we came back in and started to work on our advertising campaign. We learned that in a couple of different blocks nearby we had approximately 150 possible houses to contact for bed rental without walking too far.

Some people started making flyers and info cards, some people did research to see about our internet coverage on websites such as:

http://www.cityoftacoma.org/Page.aspx?nid=927

city of tacoma community garden info page

http://www.growlocaltacoma.com/

Our raingarden filled to capacity!

Tabby's handmade flyer rough draft

list of gardens and are garden

We also talked about how to approach staff members that want to rent beds but might not want to work them.

ashley & jaliyah transplanting strawberrys to pot's to possibly give away to new garden members



Jonathan lugging a load of new wood chips for soggy areas.



megan digging up weed's

Deshawn dumping wood chips on a soggy area



Moses and the Scwanger Constructuion team Building a door for
our new garden shed, can't wait!



B DAY ROCKS THE HOUSE ON THEIR FIRST DAY OUT!

Man oh man. Rain, Hail, Snow nothing can keep B Day Kids from working. Positive attitudes, smiles, and a lot of work got done. What a great start to the outdoor season!

Amaya Says: "This is not how to use a shovel"

"PLEASE STOP LITTERING" says Jeremy

"Can you tell Mr. Iverson made me take the photo?" says Dalante

Tabby says "We did hard work."

Justin Says: "Today I saved 12 Strawberry Transplants!"

Wyatt  and the gang says: "When you're outside working in the garden its a good way to be active
and get out in the sunlight.
SO GET OUTSIDE AND GARDEN!"

A/B Day Teams Contract Maintanence Jobs

All kids have written job bids for their new maintanance jobs. Stage one of Spring Semester is complete. We have beds planned out and are awaiting better weather to plant. Now its time to get the garden up to snuff so that we can start advertising and filling up beds as well as building new infrastructure to snazzie the place up a bit.

Garden Maintanence photos soon to come!

B Days Rock the Giving Garden Plot Plans



We had an awesome day of garden planning and we are almost ready to go.

For fun we watched this cool TED talk about why gardening is so rad.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/roger_doiron_my_subversive_garden_plot.html

This group shared a bed with another team so that everyone could design their own!

Look at this awesome seed/start list. We can't wait to get the supplies and plant!

"What kind of lettuce do we want to grow?"

Finalizing our Garden Plans

 Today in garden class we have four groups of students planning their potential garden spaces.
We did this in order to plan out before we start planting.

jaliyah , Cassicly & Ashleys plans for there garden bed

Cody , Jaiden , Jullian
garden plan

Sasha , Adrianna ,  & Megan colorful garden plan

Researching Plants for our upcoming Giving Gardens

Today we started planning out what we will grow for donation to homeless shelters in the spring and fall.

So we have to do research because growing food in the Northwest can be tricky. It is colder here, our growing season is shorter, and sometimes it gets warm and then has a frosty snap.

Cody and Jaiden doing some research

Here are some helpful websites we've found

Good Information on PNW gardening

http://www.pacificnorthwestgardening.com/beets.htm

  

supper good website with all the info you'd need

http://www.northwest-gardening.com/vegetables/

http://www.northwest-gardening.com/planting-calendar.asp

helpful tips on when to plant

http://westsidegardener.com/quick/timetable.html

http://selfreliantcommunity.wordpress.com/additional-resource-info/homemaking/northwest-planting-guide/

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/calendar

Jaliyah and Cassidy

Julien

Sasha and Adrianna

Next step is we will start making a planting plan for our Giving Garden Beds.