Planting Our Strawberries

Thursday October 22nd, Ginger and George from Clemson Extension brought us strawberries to plant. George explained to our YAC/4 H committee how to plant up to the crown area. Then they helped this group plant the strawberries in the bed. The children enjoyed learning about the crown of the strawberry plant and how it acted like the lungs of the plant. Since it needs air to breathe they were instructed to plant to the crown. The bed was planted in a grafting pattern. Math and science lessons were intermingled with the fun!

Strawberry Patch

On Wednesday October 21st, Mrs. Wetmore's class mixed the mushroom compost with the top soil and mixed it all in our strawberry bed. I have enclosed pictures of these third graders working so diligently to prepare this bed.

Preparing the Strawberry Bed

Clemson Ext. will be delivering 25 strawberry plants to the school next Thursday October 22nd.
Our new 8x8 raised bed has been put together by the district office. Again we are using the plastic surround. We will be putting a thick layer of top soil and mixing in mushroom compost to have the bed ready for the plants. We will then cover the bed with a bale of loose straw. We will plan on the children planting the strawberries the day they are delivered.

Now that some wonderful parents have cleaned and tilled our large garden area, we will place a layer of annual rye grass over it to keep the weeds out until we are ready to plant our spring crops. Things are coming together.

Fall

It is now October 9th and I have finally gotten the garden area completely cleaned out. What a job. I sure have learned my lesson! With some of our grant money, we have purchased our own tiller, green house, and benches for the children to write in their journals. My husband will teach me how to use the tiller this weekend and then I will be able to till the school garden myself. We are waiting on the maintenance personnel to put the benches and greenhouse together. We will then dig up our banana tree and place in the greenhouse for the winter. We will also store some of our herbs in the greenhouse for the winter as well as use it to start our seedlings for the spring garden. Things are moving slow and I have no patience!

End of the First Year

End of the First Year

Start of a New Year

I have learned a very important lesson! Do not leave at the end of the school year without removing the leftovers from your garden, tilling it, and then covering with some sort of mulch. Otherwise you come back to school with 5 feet tall weeds!!!

My husband and I tried to clean it up with our tiller but the weeds kept clogging the tiller. We are now in the process of weed eating it and then will try tilling it again. Needless to say the ground is hard as a rock again! It will definitely require more lime. I don't believe we will be able to have much of a fall garden. This was a very unpleasant lesson!!!