A Delightful Surprise

The BEYOND! t-shirts were a big hit as smocks in Grandma's Garden last week.  So that others could use them, I asked the scholars to take them off before they left. 

Two girls ran away, laughing, with their smocks over their t-shirts.  

I didn't notice that, but the other scholars did.  I looked out over the playgroound for the miscreants, to no avail.  I shrugged it off.  They've been sitting in my garage for 15 years; I have 2 huge boxes still there; the girls were laughing and that's always my goal; and I couldn't remember who they wtere, anyway.

A few minutes later, they came back, slightly abashed.  T  They couldn't return the smocks; they had removed their original t-shirts. Nudity is not encouraged on our campus.  I reminded them that they had misbehaved and that I was not thrilled with them..... but they could keep the BEYOND! shirts.

There were doctors and surgery and more doctors this week, so Thursday was my first day back in the garden.  While I was setting up the day's project, the two naughty third graders suddenly appeared before me.  

We're sorry we took the shirts, Grandma.  We're really sorry.

They came on their own.  They were properly abashed.  Their faces were really sorry, as they met me eye to eye, confident and diffident at the same time.  

I almost cried.  Instead, I told them that I was proud of them.  Everyone makes mistakes and does dumb things and I know that I did  (pause for a painful memory or two to flash across my brain) and the fact that they took responsibility for their actions and came back to repair the damage impressed me a whole lot more than their absconding (yes, I said absconding) with the t-shirts had depressed me.  

No, they didn't want to stay and paint. We shook hands and they went on their way.

It was a good day in Grandma's Garden.

What Is That?

I didn't realize that construction skills would be necessary when I began Grandma's Garden.  

Today I struggled with the waterproof, 100 gallon, storage chest with cushion.  They sent me eight screws; I could only find use for six of them.  This might have concerned me, but they were the last parts in the instructions and after arguing with the clip in plastic sides for about an hour I wasn't interested in continuing the conversation.

I was dealing with attaching the hinge when kindergarten arrived.  I wasn't my usual welcoming self, so most of them stayed on the playground.  There were a lot of first and second graders who tried to help me solve the problem, which was resolved when the third graders entered the picture.

I was sitting on the old bench, admiring my work.  

What's that?

Hmmmmm, thought I.  

What does it look like?

Silence.  Bewildered looks. I started to laugh.  It wasn't disguised.  It was obvbiously a box.  It didn't occur to me that they were really asking how we'd be using it.

I had some fun suggesting that it was a banana peel.... a third grader.... and by then we were all laughing pretty hard, and continued to laugh as others came through the gate and wondered just like they did.  

Each group eventually got around to what would be stored and why were there screws lying on the bottom (cf paragraph 2) and what would we do with the bench that was chained to the fence and what was that cushion all about?

It was all about this:

The Second Half (and more)

The Kansas City Chiefs may not have as deep a bench as the 49'ers' but they do have Patrick Mahomes.

San Francisco kicked a field goal.  KC scored a touchdown.  The last man drafted took is team into overtime, but lost to a once in a generation talent.

It's hard to feel too sad.

*****

Queen T went all out in the decor for their first Super Bowl Party.  There were babies and sports fans and many, many balloons.  And there was this:

.

I'd say she wins for creative presentation.

*****

The sun was shining and the air was crisp and clean after some night time  rain.  There's still snow on the Pusch Ridge, even on the west facing slopes.  Long sleeves keep me warm enough, though sometimes a long cotton scarf needs to wrap around my neck for perfect comfort.

Tomorrow morning, Taos Bubbe and I will be doing yoga outside at Tohono Chul Botanical Garden.

Yes, I'm reveling in being outdoors in February without special equipment.

*****

Grandma's Garden is fecund.

Radishes.  Lettuces.  Scallions.  

We had salad on the fly, harvested from our garden and our buckets and cut with Grandma's garden shears into tiny pieces so everyone could have a taste.

We also introduced those new to the garden to scallions, and their super power - extreme bad breath.

It was a good day.

Harvesting Our Bounty

It's been a long time coming.  

The hard frost in early January

killed our just ready to ripen tomatoes.  I've been pointing out the frozen remains to everyone who wonders where the snacks are hiding.  Frozen too were our basil, both the purple and the sweet; the lemon grass we were used to sucking on; and the bell pepper which was slowly moving from flower to fruit.

But today, after what seemed like forever, all of this happened.

This scholar was very precise in her planting, adhering to the depth and distance recommendations. That is a serious carrot.  That radish is not misshapen.  She was rightfully proud.

Those who were less persnickety about seed placement created this messy root system and laughably unhappy carrots.

Intertwined was not the only physical difference which was (quite excitedly) brought to my attention.  These three carrots, 

from three different hanging buckets, led to inquiries about location, access to sunlight, competition from other seedlings in the same bucket, and precision in following the sowing directions.

Those were their questions, not mine.  They looked to one another for answers before they asked me what I thought.  

They shared their produce, taking a taste even though they knew they didn't like it, but relishing the challenge I posed:  Have you ever tasted a radish you grew yourself, from seed?

It was a wonderful day to be a big kid in Grandma's Garden..... especially to be a 70-something big kid.

The Big Kids in Grandma's Garden

An entirely new set of boys were in the garden today.  They found an empy 5 gallon pot that, apparently, required an immediate infusion of soil from the digging bed.  No one was quite sure what they were going to do once it was full.  They were purposeful and polite.  I let them be. 

We decided to fill the new raised gardens with the remains of last summer's soil delivery.  It was a dirty job (Oh no! You're dirty and you're working in the garden.  What a surprise!) so the boys in the back kept their hands clean for eating garden grown lettuce.  

These three were relentless.  Discovering the most efficient method of transferring the soil from the pallet on the ground to the bed above, breaking the clods in the bed so the roots could move unimpeded, needing no adult presence except when the compliments became too infrequent.  

This scholar was determined to have the surface present an even face to its public.

She approached it from every angle.

Do we think they are having any fun at all?

The Sandbox

There are two garden beds - one filled with veggies and one filled with soil.  After the kindergarten planted their toilet paper tubes filled with soil and nasturium seeds along one edge,  I never got around to creating a plan for the rest of the bed.

It's turned out to be a fortuitous set of circumstances.  Little kids like to dig and I was happy to provide them with trowels and reminders to be careful not to fling soil into one another's eyes.  The digging has been confined to the kindergarten and first graders until today.

The clouds covered the sun when the fourth and fifth grades came out to the garden.  The younger scholars and I shared lettuce

and radishes

and chives today.  The big kids wanted to dig.

There were serious conversations going on.  There were very deep holes being dug.  Grandma stayed far away and let them occupy themselves with a mindless task as they pondered the world.

Surviving a Deep Freeze

It was not a pretty sight.

Up close it was sad.  From a distance, it was disastrous. We waited all semester for the tomatoes to flower then blossom then set the fruit and ripen.  From the gate, it look as if all were lost.

The other side was a bit more promising.

Looking inside the bush revealed that some how, much of it had survived.

The larger tomatoes had a long way to go when we said goodbye in 2023.  But two of them were ripe enough to harvest.

I promised the gardeners that there would be a caprese salad party once the tomatoes were ripe.  I arrived at the garden with sliced mozzarella loaves, a box of Triscuits, a bottle of balsamic vinegar, and a knife.   

Unfortunately, the basil didn't get the memo.

Mozzarella and our own garden grown tomatoes were enough to tempt almost everyone.  

.

Once their appetites were sated, they went on to investigate what further damage the frost had done.

Although the vines appeared to be petrified, and the leaves were icy and transparent, our gigantic squash is still thriving.  I have no idea what it will taste like, nor how long it will cling to life, nourishing itself from whatever nutrients are left in the rest of the plant

The smaller squash will be harvested soon.  

The seeds we planted in the hanging baskets are beginning to turn into vegetables.  The radishes did exceptionally well. 

I'm not sure why no one is smiling.  It was an exciting moment.

We harvested one and watched as she who sowed the seed reaped the rewards - literally and figuratively and thank you for letting me say that.  By nex.t week there should be enough lettuce to join them and the squash and the tomatoes in a salad big enough for everyone to have a bite or two.

There would have been nasturtium flowers to top it off, but they froze to death, bleached of color, lying lifeless at the edge of the first raised bed.  That didn't stop the younger scholars from digging in the rest of it. 

The garden has something for everyone.  Successful propagation from seed is only one of them.

Girls!

There are lots of wonderful girls in my life these days.

One of them is living in my house.  

Notice the very intelligent piggy skulking beneath the high chair.  She knows that Honey Bunny takes great delight in flinging her food after she's had a suck or two on whatever Mommy decided was kid-friendly enough to try.  Lettuce (the rib not the leaves) was a big hit for both of them last night.

But there are bigger girls who bring me joy, too.  

I snuck away for a couple of hours yesterday to visit Grandma's Garden.  The green buckets in our hanging garden are starting to sprout seedlings.  From the delighted cries of Grandma LOOK!  It's growing!!! to our shared wonder at the magic contained in a tiny seed, it was a pretty wonderful morning.

Not everyone was content to admire the seedlings, though.  There was a major redecorating project taking place, centered on the painted stones made by the 4th grade earlier this year.  The stones move around from raised beds to the mandarin orange tree to the buckets on the fence, depending on the whims of the scholars that day.  

The tree stump sits there, haplessly allowing itself to be chalked and water painted and climbed upon.  (I hate Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree; I see no resemblance here at all.)  Yesterday, it was the site of the creation of a Rock Garden (capital letters, please).

There were others involved in its design.  They were too engrossed in shifting the tiny scarecrows and pumpkins from one bucket to another to pose for a picture.  I moved myself to the left and had four scholars who were happy to share themselves and their creation with you.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  it is impossible to be sad when kids are smiling at you.  I highly recommend it as an inexpensive form of therapy.

A Hanging Garden

Students from the UofA's School Garden Workshop, led by My Garden Guru, Moses Thompson,  descended from the heavens last Friday.  Like  angels, they solved a problem and left the world a better place. 

I received the grant from the USDA and found malfunction in possession of an irrigation system and 50 buckets.  The instructions were a mystery to me.  Worse still,  they were a mystery to Not-Kathy,  my go to fix- it person.  A pitiful email or two brought a team of students and mentors to Grandma's Garden. They did the thinking and the planning and the pushing of tiny prongs into equally fine holes

There was measuring and checking and double checking. 

They installed a two tiered drop irrigation system. It took them two hours.  I spent zero hours agonizing over it.  

That afternoon,  the scholars got to work. Fill a watering can with soil. 

Choose a bucket and fill it. 

Plant 2 kinds of seeds: carrots, nasturtiums, beets, lettuce, or quinoa. Everything is edible; it's a requirement of the grant. 

 

Much to the scholars' dismay,  nothing grew overnight.  Their disappointment was palpable.  They didn't help the situation by drowning their buckets in water, despite my reminders that Plants are not fish.  Seeds do not swim. 

We are works in progress.  

Science in Grandma's Garden

One of the fifth grade Garden Leaders wanted something special to do.  She's usually content to spray herself and her friends with the garden's hose, but I forgot to bring the handle to turn it on.

No, I don't leave it available for any miscreant to reach over and turn it on to douse one and all without supervision or permission. The handle comes and goes with me, in the bag I left in my trunk.

She was mildly disappointed, but willing to try the secateurs (The WHAT?? They are scissors.)  I didn't have gloves to protect her hands, but she figured out how to grab the end of the desiccated aloe vera and reach into the depths of the plant to cut.  

I watched for a while, making sure she was safe.  That gave me time to notice the only other scholar in the garden.

A trowel is a feeble weapon when faced with the hard pack that is the ground beneath our feet.  Yet he persisted.  This was no random flinging of soil, he obviously had a purpose, even if it wasn't obvious to me.  My usual rule is No Digging except in the 1st raised bed, but there was something that made me ask why before reminding him that he was old enough to remember the rules.

I walked over.  With a big smile, he informed me that the river and bridge and pool he'd created the day before seemed to have survived the evening.  Even without water, he could tell that the path would still be functional when you remember to bring what we need to test it out.

Who knew that picking up the wrong bag would have such consequences.  A budding civil engineer had to use his imagination.  He wanted to demonstrate in real time that deep water takes a while to evaporate, and it can even move soil on its own, creating its own path, like it did the last time, when I had the water going through the hose.  

The hole he's excavating is not in the main walkway.  Soon, a tree will occupy that space, in a hole dug much deeper than his trowel could manage.  So, for now, I'll let it be.  

The garden always manages to amaze me.  It offers so much to so many in so many different ways.

That's A Squash

Yes, it is.

From the garden center at Lowe's to Grandma's Garden at Prince, carefully planted and nurtured by the upper grades, Tuesday's surprise was waiting when I opened the garden gate.

Kindergarten and first grade were all about the digging and the planting of Toota-Toota-Tube seeds

           one seed per toilet paper tube

to notice it, but that all changed when the big kids arrived.

Several of them were gathered around their raised bed, peering closely at what they planted in September. I walked over as the scholars discussed the squash they had growing at home, in their own grandma's gardens, and how good they are to eat.

Others looked on in amazement. 

That little flower,


those little buds,


will turn into a big squash?

That flower will be a tomato

or a bell pepper?


Yes.  They will all mature and grow and become more delightful and delicious with every passing week.  And then, we will eat them.

Farm to table is getting closer all the time.

So Much Fun

I've given in.  I fought the good fight for nearly a decade.  It's time to throw in the towel (trowel?) and admit defeat.  Wiser minds have prevailed.  Observation confirmed my suspicion.  Though they love to plant seeds and eat what grows, the most fun the scholars have in the garden harkens back to a simpler time in their lives.  

They miss the sandbox.

One raised bed has been planted by "the big kids."  Somehow, the younger scholars have internalized the concept of delay of gratification.  They recognize that good things come to those who wait.  They respect the fact that the 2nd bed is the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade garden.  They look on it with admiration.  They caution one another to keep the digging activities to the 1st raised bed, the one I've decided is their sandbox.

Grandma's Garden has plenty of trowels.  We also have a big box filled with soil.  Every morning, there are new little shoots popping up.  The scholars notice them, wonder what they are (Grandma has no idea), and then proceed to dig them up.

We have almost as many watering cans as we do trowels.  First grade was quite interested in the patterns an overflowing pool can make in soft soil.  There were bridges built.  Imaginary plants drowned in enthusiastic watering, while other scholars, like the two in the back of this photo, water painted with the foam brushes.

Our tree stump was carefully cleaned.  The sap was sticky so I'm cleaning it up so that kids won't get stuck when they sit on the stump.

There's lots to do in Grandma's Garden.  Not all of it involves plants.