Helping Hands Day 2013

Many thanks to the kindergarteners from Mrs. Scheer / Ms. Knox's class!

Helping Hands Day was an amazing start for the new 5 Senses Garden, designed to enhance kindergarten curriculum and to create a beautiful entrance to the school garden. Our hard-working crew planted, watered and moved soil and should feel very proud of all they accomplished. 

A huge than you, too, to Ms. Goguen for her help with design, plant selection and for plant donations from her own garden, to Clipper Landscape for preparing the ground for planting, and to the volunteers who pitched in and helped make Helping Hands Day a real success in our school garden.

Our Three Sisters

Massachusetts 3rd graders study this native american agricultural technique in Social Studies. The Three Sisters are a combination of corn, beans and squash that grow nicely together, each offering something to help out the others. The beans grow up the corn stalk and the squash provides ground cover to hold back weeds. This year Mullen-Hall 3rd graders are doing more than reading about the Three Sisters; they are planting them in their school garden as well. 

Yesterday and today all five 3rd grade classes made it out to the garden to start planting the corn.  With the help of our wonderful Gardens Alive volunteers, 36 popcorn seeds went into the soil. 

In another couple of weeks, when the corn is a few inches high, the students will come back to plant the beans and squash. Third grade families will help water and care for the plantings over the summer and these same students, as fourth graders, will harvest and save the seeds for the next round of plantings. It's a way for them to experience the whole cycle of the plant. 

While the corn planters were busy, other gardeners worked on moving 7 yards of fresh loam into the newly constructed perennial strawberry beds. 

It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it, right?