Blog, She Wrote: The Garden Party

On Thursday we went on another field trip into our little village. The library was co-sponsoring a Garden Party with the Cooperative Extension. I only found out about it a few days ahead of time, but I'm so glad we went. It was a spectacular day for this time of the spring in NY and we had a great walk down to the firehall where the party was to be held. Take a look at some of the fun things we did.

There was a mural for the kids to draw on. I-6 is drawing his version of a flower.

All the kids go to plant lots of veggies...

J3 could NOT get enough of planting the seeds.

I-6 and R8 went to the sprout table before the others- they got a good look at bunches of seeds when they put together their sprout kits.

The Sprouts. This is about a four day growth. The kids are anxious to try this out. Question: Will they really eat them?

E10 and J3 put a sprout kit together as a team. J3 has a thing for radish seeds. Yes, the sprouts are spicy too!

Another mural- this time they got to make a collage from seed catalogs.

The Haul. I had prepared to take home a few potted plants in a dishpan. We ended up with a whole flat of plants!! What you have to picture is me carrying this flat up a hill for a 1.5 mile walk back to our house! Along with the backpack on my back carrying a my Canon Digital Rebel and the library books.

In addition to the fun pictured above, the kids got to make several more garden crafts AND the Cooperative Extension did a presentation for the parents. I was able to bring home a big packet of information on gardening which I think will helpful to me just starting out.

What did we plant?

radishes
pumpkins- lots of pumpkins
carrots
sunflowers- yes more...
tomatoes- several varieties
marigolds
sweet peas

Plus we brought home mixed lettuce seed and more marigold seeds to plant. If all of our seedlings make it until Memorial Day, then I don't think we'll buy much more. I did pick up some lupine seeds, cucumber seeds, big tomato seeds, and some pepper seeds that we haven't planted yet.

We just split the flat up and watered them today using a spray bottle with J3 thinks is the coolest. They are in our basement (which is actually very sunny). Wish us luck!!

5 comments:

Kendra said...: Heather, plant the pepper seeds ASAP. They take FOREVER to sprout, and they are SLOW growing. We planted them this year for the first time, after saving seeds from a red pepper we bought at the shop. I was about to throw my flat of seedlings away because I had no greenery after several weeks. The next day they'd all popped up. I'm talking SERIOUSLY SLOW growers, unless it's some weird Tassie thing. ;) I'd start them now so you can actually have them ready in time. We ended up with gobs of plants which I gave away and kept six plants for us. I've been waiting in 3 tiny peppers to GROW UP. lol; April 22, 2009 at 2:11 PM
Heather said...: Wow! Thanks for the heads up Kendra.

Actually I'm wondering if we'll really be able to do this seed thing.

I've always been a seedling buying person...; April 22, 2009 at 2:13 PM
Amy said...: Hi Heather! This is Amy from Heart of the Matter. Can you email me at amy@heartofthemattermagazine.com?; April 22, 2009 at 6:58 PM
Anonymous said...: Who needs a science kit when you have a library with an activity like this? Way cool.

Heather, you can grow from seeds. You can! Think about it. People have be doing this for thousands of years and really the seeds do all the work. You just water and wait.

Good luck!

Jana; April 25, 2009 at 8:13 AM
Heather said...: Thanks Jana...we've been watering. The radishes are going crazy pants on us!

This week we are starting on a root viewing garden.

I'll keep you posted on the seeds!; April 26, 2009 at 8:29 AM