Last year, Jeremy had a great idea for a learning garden, and wrote a grant for it. He got it approved, and he (1st grade), the 2nd grade, and Kindergarten teachers, started planning. They worked with our Shop/Ag teacher, who came up with a layout, and he and his class built a huge raised garden...it is SO amazing!! They really did a great job, everyone is very impressed with their work! At the end of the year, the kids and teachers started planting. The kids really had a good time with it, and are pretty proud of their work :)
Jeremy, and his class are planting some marigolds here. They also started some other plants from seed in the classroom, that we planted later.
The 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Koefod's husband, had the sign engraved at work. It turned out beautiful!
I just took a few different shots, so you could for sure see what was written. This is part of Jeremy's butterfly garden. He loves butterflies, and loves to study them with his kids!
The marigold bushes just exploded, and the rest are perennials that will grow back next spring/summer.
These last 2 were taken later in the summer....see how big and full it has gotten?
This is also a little butterfly area. All of these plants attract butterflies or caterpillars.
The caterpillars grow on these plants, eat a ton, make their chrysalises, then turn into monarch butterflies. It is so much fun to see the changes, and we even had 1 this year...hopefully more next year, when the milkweed is bigger!
Here is the front of the garden, looking straight in...the octagon shaped one is right to the left.
These are some of the flowers that the kids in 1st grade, started from seed. They just grew like crazy, you can't get much more beautiful! There are just a couple different varieties of zinnia's.
So going from left to right now...we are at the first box, with a bench at the end. This is where Jeremy planted a few different kinds of cucumbers. He is going to use them for pickling, now at the beginning of the year. The kids will get to help make those, and taste the different kinds.
Side view of the cucumber box.
I really wanted to get how they were growing, and I didn't do all that well getting the in between stage...but here is a few almost ready to pick!
Mrs. Koefod started the really tall sunflowers out from seed, in her room....they got HUGE!!
Then Jeremy planted a couple other varieties, just to see the difference.
Here is the mammoth ones getting ready to flower
And some of the others are pretty close!
Almost.......
Beautiful! So much fun to see!
These even have a couple different colors, and are a smaller version.
Jeremy also planted and herb box, with a bench on the end. He had spearmint, rosemary, sweet basil, parsley, curry, lemon plant, and cilantro. The kids will be able to do some fun taste testing!
Jeremy also planted some dill, for pickling, and to attract butterflies. The Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Welch, planted some corn.
The shop class also made these cute little picnic tables for the kiddo's. LOVE THEM!
These three sections are Mrs. Welch's zucchini, gourds, and pumpkins. They kinda spilled over in a few places, but I think it looks really cool!
These are kinda middle summer pictures, when the plants were just blooming flowers! They also have some pretty humming bird feeders up.
Now we are getting to the right side of the garden...Mrs. Welch also planted these beautiful flowers, and she put them in an American Flag shape. It looked great!
Here is the zucchini huge, and ready to go!
All kinds of different shaped gourds, which were really fun to watch grow!
And the pumpkins, starting from this little small one.
Getting bigger and green.
Finally turning orange!
Mrs. Koefod planted a salsa garden, here are her peppers, with a bench at the end.
Here are pictures of all the different kinds of peppers. Cool purple ones...
Red and purple.
Some green ones, along with some red longer peppers.
Love the colors on this pic!
Then she has her onions.
And tomatoes, with another bench on the end. A ton of different sizes, shapes, and colors!
Looking out to the front...they have 4 benches in all, lots of room to learn, and explore!
And these last few are just of the outside view...not that big of a deal, but great to document!
I got to help plant, water, and weed (although there weren't that many weeds!). It was a fun summer project, and it will be fun to see what they add next year! The boys loved helping out too, and it was a great learning experience for them, they would just go crazy whenever they saw something new! It was fun to see them get so excited about it! I am pretty impressed with how awesome the 1st year went...way to go Jer, Carol, Cindy and Dustin, you all did a great job!!
