Having never grown garlic before I have been consulting and inquiring as to when best to pull these beauties from the ground.. hard to believe they have been growing since October 2014! Fellow gardening gurus through the power of social media have informed they are nearly done and judging by this picture I think we are 'good to go' ...
Every year since I've lived in NJ I have attempted to grow cauliflower and broccoli and ever year it fails. I also can't tell the difference between which plant is broccoli and which is cauliflower despite relentless google image searching and somehow, EVERY year, the labels go missing or rub off in the rain! Needless to say this year is no exception. I find them so tricky to grow in the NJ climate. It's too cold for too long and then we have a tiny window of time when temps are cooler before full blown summer erupts and they just do not like the heat. Any tips from NJ gardeners here would be very welcome.
I must confess to being a little disappointed when I saw the sunflowers on my return from the West Coast in early July. They looked as though they 'had' been magnificent but I couldn't believe they were looking so sad and so droopy so early! I totally missed them in their full glory! Oh well - I will have to pick my timing carefully to harvest the heads and then keep the seeds for next year's crop. I was hoping to do this with kindergarteners again in September as we did last year but may have to go ahead earlier.
I returned to NJ this week after a few weeks away, to see these pictures of the incredible development of the garden sent in by CDS campers. It has gone into seriously glorious, fecund overdrive! I have been gardening for many years now and it is still as amazing and joyful as ever to me to see the transformation that this stage of the summer brings... The garden is literally bursting with life and produce..... Miss Gulino and Miss Ackerman having fun harvesting !
School finished for the summer on Wednesday June 10th and a mixture of very warm weather and more rain is already providing the garden with its first produce. Yellow zucchini (above) are beginning to sprout already. I absolutely love this tasty Jamie Oliver recipe for stuffing & deep frying the flowers :
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/member-recipes/recipe-detail/2805/#F1df8BPB3yL6eJ1G.97
Fava beans (above) are also looking very healthy and fattening up nicely. As are the peas! Please feel free to comment with recipe ideas / links for both in the boxes below!
QR Readers in the Garden : Modern Techonology combines with ancient practise of growing vegetables6/18/2015 Graduating CDS 8th Grader Brian, (seen here) places one of his QR readers in the garden as part of his Capstone Project : his legacy to Chatham Day School. Here he writes a postcard blog all about his fabulous idea. The Capstone Project for the CDS Learning Garden by Brian This year the Eighth Grade Class was asked to complete a Capstone Project to leave a positive impact and our legacy on CDS. For my capstone project I made a QR Code Trail in the CDS Learning Garden. The aim of my capstone project was to educate the CDS Community more about the CDS Learning Garden and about plants as a whole. I also aimed to find a way to integrate a form of technology into the garden to make a blended learning experience. Prior to completing my project I knew of the CDS Learning Garden but almost nothing about what was in the garden or about the different individual plants. Using the QR Code Trail that I have made anyone is just one scan away from learning all about the garden. People can learn all about each plant while they can physically interact with them. To complete my project I spent more than 20 hours in and outside of school. I learned a lot about the garden, the plants in the garden, and how to make QR Codes and attach them to wooden stakes. Throughout the garden I have placed 7 wooden stakes with a QR Code on each of them. The codes can be scanned with a free QR Code Reader app. After scanning the code you will be brought to a document that talks about the different plants near the QR Code. This trail can be maintained easily by future eighth graders or possibly the CDS Garden Club. I hope the trail continues to educate the CDS community even after I have graduated! After 2 days of constant rain, Garden Club gathered in some very welcome, warm sunshine for the last time this academic year. The children were very excited to see the dramatic growth after all the rain...
Late May can be a strangely quiet time in the garden as we wait for things to simply "grow"! With all our seedlings doing so well there was really only a little bit of weeding and tidying up to do in May 27th's garden club -- what better fun than making a big, sloppy, gloopy, disgusting mud pie instead? Apologies to parents for the messy state these gorgeous kids returned home in but you can see from their faces what a great time they had!
Other fabulous artwork included the below;- observational flower paintings by 2nd grade, vegetable pattern stamping by kindergarteners, contour line drawings of fruits & vegetables by 3rd Grade.
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AuthorPersonal Musing of Eleanor Wroath - Chatham Day School parent and gardening enthusiast. Archives
June 2015
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