May 1st already! Where did the time go?

After all that cold and cold and more cold, I thought May would never get here! But it is here at last and the garden is HAPPY, just like me.

I plan to take some current "After" photos on Saturday during Garden and Grounds day at our school, but for now, I have some great progress shots from March. I was excited when I took these photos- and now the garden is absolutely amazing! I can't wait to show you how it looks today!

Looking a lot better than it did in the winter! See that empty long bed on the right? It isn't empty now! New photo soon!

Yum. Salad. I love how the lettuce bed shows us how many varieties of lettuce there are. What an awesome way to make a salad! With lots of color and flavors! 

The Romaine isn't quite ready for a Cesar Salad, but it is on the way!

Red Leaf adds great color to your plate!

Buttercrunch. 

Black Seeded Simpson. I honestly don't know how it is different from Green Leaf. But the lettuce bed has them both!

Leeks and Onions fill this bed with wonderful flavor and a smell that keeps many pests away. Pardon the weeds. Those are gone now.

The greens bed attracts the very annoying Cabbage Worm, but this shot shows the leaves before the little buggers ate holes in many of the leaves. There is Spinach in the front, then Collards,  then Swiss Chard and finally, Kale.

Add a little Spinach to your leafy salad, or make a salad out of this little guy alone! Also great sautéed with a little of the garlic from another bed.

Collard Greens! That's all I have to say. 'Cause, confession time, I have never eaten them. Don't worry- I will remedy this situation.

The ever-lovely Swiss Chard. Toss a bit in with the sautéed Spinach. You won't regret it.

My new friend Kale. Put some in with the Spinach and Chard and you have yourself a meal! I like mine over quinoa.

Strawberries, Strawberries, Strawberries!!! I planted 4. They grew friends.

The Strawberries get extra glamour shots 'cause I am playing favorites. I love strawberries and have NEVER managed to grow them well before now!

Those blooms are BERRIES in the making. SO MANY BERRIES. Success at last!

Spice up your salad with some Arugula! This Arugula is bolting, or in other words, starting to produce flowers. Sadly, that means it is getting bitter. But I hear the edible flowers are also a fabulous addition to a salad!

Speaking of berries... Check out the Raspberry bush!!! Whoa, right??? I pruned it this year, for the first time. I think it liked it. Who doesn't like getting a little dead wood out of the way?

A lovely Raspberry bush is great and all... but much better with raspberries! See some forming right up there?

Hey little Peas! Keep on climbing up our rope trellis, okay? They are coming along! Remember, this photo is a few weeks old. We have blossoms now! And blossoms mean peas!

Don't forget to come back after the weekend to see the incredible progress all this rain has brought! We are ready for our very first harvest of the season and we have summer plants ready for planting. I will tell you a little about my nemesis- the cabbage worm- and what you want to plant NOW for summer growing.

Rain, Rain Go Away...

I don't.do.cold.rain.

Ew.

Rain collects on the roof of our temporary greenhouse.

Gardeners love rain. We do. Plants love rain. I remember so many blistering hot days of summer in the middle of a good ol' North Carolina drought that I would have loved the sweet smell of rain. I remember crouching in my garden one evening, letting the sprinkler rain over me as I pulled up the weeds from the mud, now loosened by the water. "The neighbors must think I am crazy, but I don't even care" I thought. I was hot and the garden was thirsty. There was no rain in sight.

But this 36 degrees constant rain? The entire day dark like dusk? No thanks. I am sure the onions under ground appreciate it. And the peas. But I want to get some more plants in the ground! And I want the SUN to come out and make them grow! THEN the rain can come back! When it is over 60 degrees, please and thank you very much.

The good news is that the weather this weekend looks fantastic. I am pretty darn excited. And the early days next week look good, too. (And then the rain comes back. But I think it may follow the rules, or at least come back when it is at least 50 degrees.)

So who wants to come out and play in the garden on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday? I have many wee plants and empty beds ready to go. I can hold classes to plant or just to tour and talk. Teachers' choice.

Classes can be anytime between 9:15am and 11:15am or At 3:00 to end of day.

I recommend choosing a pair of plants for planting. (Say that ten times fast...)

Kale and Chard
Brocoli and Cauliflower
Cabbage and Collards
Lettuce and Spinach

These plants like cool, early spring weather. When it gets hot, they bolt. No, they don't run off... They go to seed. They stop making their yummy edible leaves and start making seeds. Lettuce that has bolted gets bitter. Not a yummy salad. Sure, flowering broccoli looks super cool. But it is the compact heads we want for dinner, not the opening flower buds. So let's get these guys in the ground and watch them grow while the weather is what they like! Even if I am hoping for warmer days.

Wish List

Now that we are ready to start our new gardening season, my mind is reeling with ideas for how we can make the school garden better and better. I started a wish list in my mind, but it made a lot more sense to list the needed items here! I have been buying supplies, like fertilizer, shovels, rakes, a new hose, etc. with money provided by our magnet program. But that money has a time line and cannot be used during "seedling season." So I did what any garden enthusiast would do. I bought them myself.

But now that my oldest child is headed off to middle school in the fall and my youngest is now in 3rd grade, 4th next year, I realized it is time to ensure sustainability in the garden. Another parent volunteer may want to take over my spot in two years. So I need to set up that volunteer for success by raising some funds!

Why is this blog called "Pennies for Produce?" Because with a handful of pennies, we can get a handful of seeds. And with a handful of seeds we can grow way more than a handful of produce! Sure, we can raise a garden with seeds, soil, sun and rain. But to make our garden grow to the very best of a garden's ability, we need a little more. Like our greenhouse to keep our plants safe on cold nights. Or new boards to replace the ones worn by time. Or fresh mulch to keep weeds from stealing moisture and nutrients from our precious produce plants.

Would you consider collecting a jar of pennies for our produce? It all adds up!

Or could you help with our wish list?

WISH LIST

A load of compost/soil to replenish our raised beds and create more
A load of triple shredded hardwood mulch to maintain moisture and suppress weeds
Three pronged hand tools for kids to use when maintaining the beds
Kid sized garden gloves
Rolls of weed preventing fabric for the paths between the beds
Espoma Garden Tone organic fertilizer
A portable shade structure to protect our young gardeners from the heat during a garden lesson
Flowering plants to draw beneficial insects to our garden- butterfly bush, roses, flowering bulbs, daises
Untreated 4x6 boards to replace worn boards or build new beds

I will update the list as we work through the season. Come back soon to look for volunteer opportunities and availability for garden lessons for school classes!

Getting Started on the Spring Garden!

I don't know about you... but I am DONE with winter. Maybe for a different reason than what you are thinking. Sure, it is cold. And the snow days! Loved them... until the make up days started to pile up. And I am really looking forward to the sun and the pool and the beach. But right now,  I just want to play with my plants!! You can't do a lot in the dirt when the dirt is frozen.

My family managed to accomplish quite a bit of garden work just before the latest wintry mix showed up here in the usually-temperate-south. And we were ready for a bit of ice! We made our very first greenhouse! My husband and my son, nearly 11 years old, did the manual labor. I happily weeded other garden beds nearby, as did my younger son, 9 years old.

Our top priority tasks for the "holy cow it is 70 degrees" day were to get the spent plants out of the way, begin the weeding to get the beds ready for new plants, get the early spring plants going in their beds and put up the greenhouse for our tender greens. Later, we will use the greenhouse to get started on our summer veggies and fruits, like tomatoes and peppers. I hear rumors that some first graders might be helping with the seed planting soon, so we will be using that greenhouse for summer plants before we know it!

The before picture wasn't so lovely.

But the after shot captured a bit of our progress!

These pitiful frozen Kale plants were... ew. Get 'em outta there.



But, it was nice to see the strawberries growing new life after a cold winter!

And the garlic and onions planted by the students in Mrs. M's third grade class are looking great!
But some of the boards on our raised beds needed some work. This one has been "chewed up" by years of moisture in the soil! And maybe some pests, too.

The damaged boards have been replaced, thanks to my husband and two sons! Best way to get your kids excited about gardening? Let them use power tools. Oh, wait, that's just me? Well, then maybe do it the right way and show them how cool it is to make food with tiny seeds or little seedlings. Notice the weeds have been removed, too. Garlic HATES to share space with weeds! 

One thing you can't see in the after shot is that we now have onions and shallots hidden under the soil of a large bed. They will pop up in this bed with these leeks that you can see here. They should have gone in the ground in the fall with their garlic buddies. But that's ok. They will just be a little smaller. Onions, shallots and garlic need the time in the fall to develop strong roots. The cold won't kill them.

 We also have carrot seeds scattered over a smaller bed. I look forward to showing you the progress of this bed as the seedlings emerge. We had some awesome carrots last year!

And our glorious new temporary green house is ready to protect our lettuce, spinach, chard and other spring plants in case we have more of these crazy 18 degree nights! We repurposed some PVC pipe we had laying in our driveway and some 2x2 boards we found in a pile. I copied this idea from many other gardeners, and I let this project be a father/son activity. I find weeding to be relaxing. My husband? Does not. However, he is a champ at building and happily toiled away on the greenhouse while I did the more gardening-ish aspects of the family gardening day.

See the spring plants hiding in there? The plastic cover lifts off for those extra warm early spring days. (I want more of those, please!) See the Logan's boxes? That is where we take our produce to "Plant a Row for the Hungry." Logan's One Stop Garden Shop (AKA my happy-place) graciously stores what we. and other community gardens, grow in their giant refrigerator so that the Interfaith Food Shuttle can pick it up and distribute it to food banks and soup kitchens in our area. Our produce then feeds those in need in our community. Isn't gardening awesome??? We grow. We learn. Our community enjoys nutritious foods. Win. Win. Win.

The sugar snap pea vines have a place to climb! And there are even more seeds under the ground to complete the square in the bed! Sugar snap peas straight off the vine... mmm... nothing like 'em.

The raspberry branches are just beginning to put our the first signs of new leaves. We will need to give them a little more time before I can capture those leaves on camera.

I can't wait to get started on planting all those goodies hiding out in the greenhouse! And, as I said, I even look forward to finishing the weeding.  Fingers crossed that this silly ol' winter will move along so we can really get our hands dirty!

Coming soon! A blog about the school garden!