One might think that gardening is simple. Sure, you get some dirt, water, seeds or plants, mostly sunny location--Hello, Edible Garden!...think again. That's the easy part, now picture this: soil (ph level appropriate). What does that even mean? Actually, I do know what "Ph level" means, but I said that because I thought it would show emphasis on my "who cares about ph levels of soil kind of attitude." Yes, I am an educator. Yes, I believe that we, as I speak for all my teacher counterparts, shouldn't keep any of the critical information from the students. That is the point of learning through enrichment. Seriously though, ph levels of soil? Fine, I'll do it. I will teach the kids how to find the ph levels. They will LOOOOOVE it then thank me later on in their lives for being able to find the appropriate level of ph in soil. Did you know that having slightly acidic soil creates a nutrition friendly garden? Eggshells help the ph go up and coffee grounds make it go down. OK, so we didn't actually test the ph of the school's soil, but we read that we have the most nutritionally rich soil in the Dallas Metroplex! We learned about most of our "Ph balancing" during our compost bin lesson. Don't even get me started on trash.
Ok, well, it did inspire me to start my own compost bin at home. Only did I begin that compost bin (a birthday gift, might I add) when I realized that I couldn't keep our evening visitors at the school from using it as an actual trash can. Bringing the bin into the school only allowed bugs to join our classrooms and leaving it outside allowed Wendy's and Whataburger to rot in it. It was a true lose-lose situation. Ugh. So, I made the executive decision, since people were actually throwing trash away opposed to the constant littering then we ended up, somehow WINNING! Sheen fans, feel free to add voice intonation to that last word. Actually, our cilantro plant (think Salsa) died and we weren't quite sure what to do with it. I'd recently seen a beautiful compost bin creation at my friend's, Shelley, home in Boston, MA. She is my gardening hero, as well as, my composting hero. This is probably one of many of her shout out moments. Be prepared. Her husband, Matt, built a huge compost bin with an attached handle to turn the soil. AMAZING! Well, here at SRE, that kind of compost bin might not work and we are on a tight budget so we settled for an actual bin with holes for aerating. Done. Oh, we even had a soil expert, Associate Professor of Soil Science from Texas AgriLife Extension Center at Dallas (extension of Texas A&M that is) help us build our compost bin. We needed an expert. His assistant was more than friendly! I told her all I needed was someone to talk to the kids about soil and answer a few of their questions. No slideshows. Just relaxed conversations about soil. Dr. Sloan rocked! The kids drilled the holes and added the trash in correct order. We rolled it around; it was fun.
In the meantime, there was lots of watering and cleaning up our attempt at an indoor garden. Did I mention that we built our first garden indoors using storage bins? I love how my craftiness comes out. Random, but it worked. The tomatoes and bell pepper grew just fine. You already heard about the cilantro's burial plot. Either way, this was quite a learning experience for all involved. I learned, indoor edible gardens are too much work for a full-time teacher, just kidding, I learned a lot more than that negative comment. I should put that in the realization category...so let me rephrase. I realized that indoor edible gardens are a lot to handle and teach at the same time. I learned how fascinated kids are with the whole process of gardens. They are their own little worker ants and definitely know how to put me in my place about what is good for our garden. This brings me to my next topic. Since, the indoor garden completely drained me, it was time for our garden enrichment cluster to move to bigger and better options. Well, there are only two (according to the kids): indoor or outdoor. You guessed it. We are in the process of building the outdoor garden, turning our enrichment cluster into an actual club with an account (for fundraising purposes) and ongoing meeting times. So far the kids have measured and planned how the garden will be built. We added the 3rd dimension to make it realistic and to measure the amount of soil (ph balanced) we will need. Voila, the blue prints to a perfectly located outdoor garden with a pizza topping theme. The majority rules decision to grow vegetables that add to the deliciousness of pizza. This only, after there was a quick teachable moment over how we cannot grow cows or chickens or pigs in our edible garden. Just when you think something is common sense, children are always there to bring you back to the reality that is, if you want them to learn, you have to teach it to them. You can imagine my facial expression when not one of them were quite sure what a pepperoni, sausage, or ham plant looked like. Is it a tree? Is it a vine? Is it the flower or the root? Hmmm...now you understand what a teachable moment is.
So, onto my final topic for this particular blog post. Money. Money makes the world go round is a good phrase and I feel is a good choice to describe our situation. I am not complaining with my $50 budget provided through the school budget. I wish it were more because gardening is an expensive hobby. I think there was an old game show where the contestants ran around a grocery store under a certain time limit with an amount of money that was almost impossible to spend. Yes, kind of like that, haha. I felt this way at Home Depot, Lowe's, and more recently Bruce Miller's Nursery. Thank you infinite number to both of these stores for donating to my cluster. Donations came in the form of wholesale prices and gardening knowledge. I will see you again very soon. This will be no surprise to them because I did warn them with a wink and a smile on my way out with my full basket. So, you know that teachers are probably the best at playing what we call "the teacher card." People either feel sorry for us or they imagine us educating America's youth thus give into our plees for free or hugely discounted materials. The grateful teachers do appreciate those more than they might ever know. I don't prefer to use my card a lot, but I will pull it out in a time of need. Hence, my statements about Home Depot, Lowe's and Bruce Miller's Nursery. RISD's Associate Director of Grounds, Phil Lozano, who I suspect might think I am not qualified for this task I have taken on, has been another huge aid. I finally, after much built up tension, asked him how we planned to pay for the gardens. He simply stated, I even believe with some elegance, "I have vendors. I ask them." Yep, that's right, and he did just that. We received enough Kiddie Timbers (plastic borders most commonly used for playgrounds) to build 4 raised beds (16 sq.' each). And, just in case, you cannot draw conclusions or make inferences...all for free! Pause for applause.
One more shout out before I put an end to this first blog. Mr. Tom Savay. You are amazing. I enjoy our non-planting conversations while we wait for your wife and grandson to find us. And maybe, one day, you will convince me to camp. Build a garden and I will come. Corny, Field of Dreams references, I know. The official community member for our Garden Club is your job, if you will have it.
So this is the beginning of our gardening adventure here at SRE. It's been longer and the plans are to make it even longer. I will post pictures soon; as soon as I make sure all the kids have permission to be posted on the internet. You know me, looking out for my little friends.
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