Acwsalcta Gets Growing
Last week saw many young hands eagerly planting various veggies at Acwsalcta’s two school garden plots. My little grade 1 students planted beets, radishes, oriental greens, beans, corn and squash in their new raised bed garden behind the school. Particularly interesting for them was how the corn, beans and squash were planted. Known as “the three sisters”, the three of them were planted together. The bean plant grows up the corn stalk, and the squash plant grows at the base of the corn, keeping moisture in and weeds from growing.
Particularly challenging for dear teacher was how quickly the little dears lost control once we stepped out of the classroom to walk over the our garden beds to plant our lovely little seeds. As soon as we got there, what with all the distractions of dirt and rocks and little trees and weeds and a derelect greenhouse, a few of them just couldn't contain themselves and were gleefully throwing rocks, scooping dirt, jumping on the wooden beams around the beds, running around, digging in the compost pile, and generally having a grand old time. Understand, this all happened within a few seconds of getting them out there. Unfortunately, planting little tiny teensy weensy seeds requires calm and concentration. So after numerous repetitions of 'sit down now' type reminders, which were delivered in an increasingly louder voice by me, they finally calmed down enough to hold out their hands and for me to count out the various seeds for them to plant. And as soon as we had planted one kind of seed and the crazies had to wait a few microseconds for their next turn, they were off again, leaping, digging, throwing........and my voice went up a few more notches on the loudness scale.......and gardening is supposed to be relaxing! Right! Not with a bunch of 6-year olds.
The darlings also planted sunflowers, calendulas and marigolds in a flower garden in front of the Acwsalcta sign at the entrance to the school. The marigolds were grown from seed in the classroom, and are already in bloom so they look rather nice. Of course, before we actually planted anything in the lovely flower garden bed, it was a lovely spot for local doggies to prance around in - ooooh - all that soft, fresh dirt - so the garden now has a lovely leftover length of chain-link-fence protecting it from eager poochies - adds atmosphere for sure. Keen students in grades 5, 6 and 7 planted about 30 kg of potatoes in a field kindly donated and prepared for them by Giles Dionne.
The whole high school was supposed to go on this particular field trip, but they, for whom anything other than walking around plugged into their MP3 players or playing games on the computer is SOOOOOO BORING, all opted out of the gardening experience. "Oh well," says Henny Penny, "I guess they won't be eating potato salad at the fall Welcome Feast!!"
Last week saw many young hands eagerly planting various veggies at Acwsalcta’s two school garden plots. My little grade 1 students planted beets, radishes, oriental greens, beans, corn and squash in their new raised bed garden behind the school. Particularly interesting for them was how the corn, beans and squash were planted. Known as “the three sisters”, the three of them were planted together. The bean plant grows up the corn stalk, and the squash plant grows at the base of the corn, keeping moisture in and weeds from growing.
Particularly challenging for dear teacher was how quickly the little dears lost control once we stepped out of the classroom to walk over the our garden beds to plant our lovely little seeds. As soon as we got there, what with all the distractions of dirt and rocks and little trees and weeds and a derelect greenhouse, a few of them just couldn't contain themselves and were gleefully throwing rocks, scooping dirt, jumping on the wooden beams around the beds, running around, digging in the compost pile, and generally having a grand old time. Understand, this all happened within a few seconds of getting them out there. Unfortunately, planting little tiny teensy weensy seeds requires calm and concentration. So after numerous repetitions of 'sit down now' type reminders, which were delivered in an increasingly louder voice by me, they finally calmed down enough to hold out their hands and for me to count out the various seeds for them to plant. And as soon as we had planted one kind of seed and the crazies had to wait a few microseconds for their next turn, they were off again, leaping, digging, throwing........and my voice went up a few more notches on the loudness scale.......and gardening is supposed to be relaxing! Right! Not with a bunch of 6-year olds.
The darlings also planted sunflowers, calendulas and marigolds in a flower garden in front of the Acwsalcta sign at the entrance to the school. The marigolds were grown from seed in the classroom, and are already in bloom so they look rather nice. Of course, before we actually planted anything in the lovely flower garden bed, it was a lovely spot for local doggies to prance around in - ooooh - all that soft, fresh dirt - so the garden now has a lovely leftover length of chain-link-fence protecting it from eager poochies - adds atmosphere for sure. Keen students in grades 5, 6 and 7 planted about 30 kg of potatoes in a field kindly donated and prepared for them by Giles Dionne.
The whole high school was supposed to go on this particular field trip, but they, for whom anything other than walking around plugged into their MP3 players or playing games on the computer is SOOOOOO BORING, all opted out of the gardening experience. "Oh well," says Henny Penny, "I guess they won't be eating potato salad at the fall Welcome Feast!!"
posted by Beth Jay at 8:50 PM
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