2013 Summer Vegetable Garden

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Once our vegetable beds were built on April 6, 2013, we went to work planting our fruits, vegetables and herbs. We planted tomatoes, potatoes, corn, watermelons, cantaloupes, pumpkins, a variety of peppers, 2 kinds of okra, cucumbers and strawberries. Basil, sage, chives, oregano and 5 kinds of mint were also planted.

Students helped to water and weed the garden for the 2 months before school was out. They monitored the growth of the plants and were able to taste some of the tomatoes. They were excited to taste the fresh tomatoes, enjoyed every last bite and wished for more. 

During the summer, all the plants were watered and tended to by Ms. Southwick. Students stopped by now and then to see how the vegetables were growing. We continued to have a few tomatoes, but not as many as we would have liked. The strawberry plants yielded a few tasty strawberries. Our pumpkin vine gave us 2 pumpkins and there are still 4-5 pumpkins that are just starting to grow as of October 5th. The watermelon patch has yielded 12 watermelons, and students were able to taste one of the largest watermelons during their lunch period on Monday, September 23rd.  We still have 8 watermelons on the vine that we are hoping to pick soon for another tasting.

Many of the peppers, jalapeno, tabasco, green bell peppers, and serrrano were picked and given to students and teachers.

Unfortunately, the cucumbers had a virus that gave us white to light green cucumbers. Some were very big and others short. They provided us with a good lesson about bad bugs and other things that can go wrong in a vegetable garden.We decided this would make a good mystery story to write about: The Mysterious Cucumbers in Kramer's Garden.

For a first harvest, we all felt proud of what our garden yielded. Students learned a lot about seasonal vegetable and fruit plants, how to plant the plants, good and bad bugs in the garden and how much better fresh fruits and vegetable taste.