Announcements
The Green Chimneys School Garden Teaches as It Blooms
August 17, 2017Summer is always a wonderful time in the school garden. Green Chimneys School students get to see the months of preparation and planting in horticulture class come to fruition. And better yet, they get to taste some of their hard work too!
A newly introduced drip tape irrigation system has created a learning opportunity too, especially for our high school students. This type of irrigation system allows us to discuss water usage at Green Chimneys, which has also led to lessons on water conservation. We save 60% of water just by using drip irrigation! Even though the system is up and running in our school garden, there’s still ample need throughout campus for younger students to do what they love: use watering cans!
Some of summer’s rainy days haven’t stopped horticulture classes either. Days in the greenhouse have enabled us to clean, dry, and shelve herbs to be used in the fall for crafts and tea. Older students helped by labeling and organizing the herb jars. With the high school students, we’ve propagated potatoes and experimented with the different ways to successfully grow them.
Among the treasures in the school garden, students have most recently helped to harvest:
- string beans
- sun-gold cherry tomatoes
- red raspberries
- zucchini
- arugula
- rainbow Swiss chard
- spinach
- culinary herbs
- cucumbers
- and tons of basil
This produce made its way to the dining hall, where it was used for special meals and shared throughout Green Chimneys.
We look forward to a few more harvests before the season is through. Students have mulched the pepper and cantaloupe beds and classes are monitoring the progress of our pumpkins that will hopefully be ready by Halloween! Before you know it, it will be time to ready the garden for a long slumber. But for now, we’re enjoying the hot, sunny days of summer in the garden!
