The second quick win

In the previous post you can see the lovely forest path hard working volunteers created in the fall of 2011.  Since that time it has been used by classes, recess, and some of the community.

The second quick win I wanted the school to experience was their garden.  Now fall is not an ideal time to start gardening but then again, our school years are not ideally set up for gardening.  So, in order to extend their gardening season I built some cold frames. 

Realitvely cheap they do the job. Made from pieces of 3' rebar, pvc pipe and 5mil plastic, held down with ground staples.

There are a few issues with this design.  The ground staples do not like to stay in place.  Infact, I underestimated the wind coming off of the wide sweep of playgrounds; which would take off with the plastic and staples several times that winter.

The other issue is snow.  If it gets heay it weighs down the plastic, causing it to buckle.  Maybe more pvc is needed? Yet, the 4th graders were still able to harvest some lettuce before they headed off for winter break!

sprouts

 

yummy!
 

Other classes harvested carrots the PTA had planted that year



 

 What an easy way to start the school off in using their school garden and forest in their classes.  Now to get everyone involved and this current school year is solidly headed that way!

Our Trail

And so we begin with the path.  When I first met with the teachers at Gearity Elementary School to talk about what they wanted to see happen in the garden everyone of them mentioned the woods.  That they have these woods back there, but no one uses it and wouldn't it be nice to have a path thru those woods there.

 

 

I left this initial meeting with a light heart and thousands of ideas in my head.  But first, to create a couple of quick wins for the school.  A way to jump start their interest in what is going on outside.  One of these quick wins was to create this forest path.  With that in mind, we asked the district for mulch.  I quickly tagged a path, measured it, and requested mulch.  Little did I know what was instore for us.

 

The week before our workday I learn that we have mulch coming.  Lots of mulch coming...

WOW

 

 

The weekend before the mountain of mulch arrives I bribed my then 4yr old to go with me out to the woods.  We marked a path with tape, raked that path up and lined it with downed branches. 

In the photo you can barely see the orange flagging and kinda see the raked path lined with branches but I promis you, it is there.

This is the begining of the path from the Shag Bark Hickory begining.  You can see the pile of mulch we still had off to the right of the photo.  But what a beautiful path.



 This is the view coming off the baseball field.  Although not a huge fan of the black mulch I will say that it does make a striking visual through the woods.