Marti Lindsey--The Garden Lady: Back To School in the Garden

Marti Lindsey--The Garden Lady

Hello and welcome to Marti Lindsey--The Garden Lady!

I live on a small ranch in unincorporated Los Angeles County with my husband Larry, son Max, puppies Rudy & Valentino and kitties Dixie & Trixie. We have amazing views as far as the eye can see and plenty of room to roam and operate our tractor! I am a certified Master Gardener through University of California Cooperative Extension, Los Angeles County. In the Spring I work at the California State Poppy Reserve where I share my love of nature with visitors from around the world. I also have a passion for living a green lifestyle through RRR-G: reduce-reuse-recycle & growing our own food! I love to share this with kids through my business: Marti Lindsey--The Garden Lady!

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Friday, September 12, 2014

Back To School in the Garden

BACK TO SCHOOL!


Existing raised beds

September is back to school time for many of us. At the preschool, September is when the new sessions of the LA Up begin, so with this group of kids, we are starting from scratch! Ms. Jeana Courson, the Academy Director at La Petite, ordered a new raised bed kit just for these students.

The kit was easy enough for our four year olds to put together with minimum help from the adults in the class. The children put the boards into a square and added the corner supports.

Then stakes were added to the corners to secure the box to the ground and hammered into the ground for added support.

Decorative caps were attached and hammered down for good measure. Each kid got to "tap-tap-tap" three times with the hammer!

The box was then filled up with soil by the students. The pink shovel proved to be very popular with our girls. Luckily we have several.

The teachers determined that the class would like to grow a salad garden, which is perfect for a Fall growing season. The kids planted spinach, baby lettuce, heart lettuce, rainbow lettuce and bambino carrots.

We added marigold plants as a beneficial element. Most pests do not like marigolds and it really helps to have something established in the box to encourage the kids to water. Most preschool aged kids do not understand watering dirt, but can get their head around watering the plants.

So they did. The teachers are really good about making the watering cans available for the students to water, and they LOVE to water. It's a good thing, because out here in the high desert, plants need a lot of water to thrive.

Since I have been working with the younger group of kids since May, we did a different project for these classes....planting flowers!

The kids put the soil into the pots. This is always a favorite activity. Many worms were spotted, sparking a great deal of excitement!

Finally, the impatients were transplanted into the pots. We talked about how some plants like sun and some like shade.

All in all, a great day at school!

Cheers~
Marti Lindsey~The Garden Lady