ONLY 10 MORE SLEEPS UNTIL....

... The Plant Sale!!!!!  Tell your friends.  Tell your family.  Tell  your friends' families!

 

The above artwork are collages of Puntledge Grade 6 students' poster contributions for the plant sale.  These original pieces will help advertise the sale in and around our fair valley.  Keep an eye out for them.

"Why, Hello There! Have You Heard the Gnews...."

SATURDAY APRIL 30 10AM TO 2PM:  SEED, SEEDLING AND PLANT SALE

DID YOU KNOW the humble Garden Gnome, originating in Germany, has a long history of bringing luck to gardens and good fortune to our homes?  Then why do so many live neglected, weather worn, stripped of paint in our yards?  Have we no gratitude for these jolly little statues?

I'm hoping we can collect enough garden gnomes so some students can repaint them to resell at the Seed, Seedling and Plant Sale.  Kids have a creative way with colours, and I have a feeling these gnomes will be more than "garden variety."  They will be a lively and whimsical addition to all our gardens.  And they stand for a good cause: our school.

Every gnome needs a home.  Don't let your garden go gnomeless.

If you have any unwanted kitschy creatures dwelling in your yard please let me gnow... I mean, know.  Perhaps there is a creative project in the works!

Also, we are still in need of donations and volunteers to help make this sale a giant success!

• containers
• plants, indoors and out
• garden books and garden magazines
• garden paraphenalia and contraptions of all sorts
• entertaiment

Remember, your school garden counts now more than ever!

Green Thumbs Growing Kids

Living Sculpture

Could you imagine having this "living castle" to play in in your back yard?

While looking for other things internet, I got caught up in looking for unrelated things which happens oh so frequently.

I came across "living sculpture," where artists use plants (sod, flowers) to create three dimensional sculptures in the landscape.  The "living" comes from the fact that the medium/media the artists use is/are living organisms, such as plants.  I thought--to a smaller scale than some of these examples I am about to show you here--a sleeping giant in a child's garden would provide fantasy, whimsy, and the comfort of having a genial giant in your back yard to rest upon!

Jeff Koons' "Puppy"  A fave of my son's and me

I love the use of more "natural" plants in this one: ferns, moss.  

It truly is like a giant fell asleep here many years ago...

Do you think aliens made this particular crop circle?

And now for a living sculpture we are all familiar with: 

Ch-ch-ch-Chia!

Kids to Kids Project Connecting Kids in India and the Comox Valley

Local photographer and community builder Sarah Kerr is working with school age students in Assam, India,.  Along with teaching them photography, Sarah and the kids are working together on environmental and sustainable gardening projects.

With the Kids to Kids Project, Sarah would love to twin with Comox Valley students--and hopefully Puntledge ones!--to share their gardening and environmental projects through photographs, letters and other creative mediums to get to know one another and learn from each other.  Ideas are in the works!

Here is a bit about what Sarah and the Assamese students are doing, from her blog "Cameras, Chai and Spices."

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Overveiw of the Kids to Kids as I see it now.

The Kids to Kids project is working toward bring kids in Assam and kids in Comox Valley into a friendship.  This will be achieved through sharing stories and photos about their lives and their practices in environmentalism.  The need for education about how we can help our environment and how to grow our own food healthily is a universal issue and this along with sharing culture is a great connection to be made between the two communities. 

I have started teaching in Jorhat, Assam now and plan to go to 4 or 5 schools, most being classes 9/10 but also some younger too.  The kids are eager to learn about the camera and how to use it, most have not used a camera before and so this is a fun experience for them.  They are very coures about the other children that they will be connecting with.  Most of the children are very shy, but in the schools were English is the main language the questions are coming.  The schools are located out side of the town so they seem similar to Mervile or really to Arden rd area.  We will be going out to some schools that are much more rural and are really interesting. 

The program that I am asking the kids to do is to create a few collages that can be bought back to Canada.  We are doing three classes with each group, first is just understanding how to use the camera, simple things like how to turn it on and use the shutter are more challenging then expected do to translation and most children have never used a camera before.  The second day we are learning more about how to do some creative things and how to keep the photo looking good, this day we go around the school and show what it looks like and the plants and animals that are around. 
The third day is a field day were we all go to one village near by the school were some of the children live and take photos of their homes, families gardens and cultural things.  At this village we will also be planting a tree for each of the children, were these children are responsible for keeping that tree growing, so we will have images of this activity too.  

For more about Kids to Kids, see the full story here.

The Garden Wants You To Get Your Hands Dirty!

 

We held the first official school garden meeting last week in the courtyard to plan for the most excellent growing season yet!  But we can't do it without all of you, Puntledge staff, students, friends and families.

We already have a committed core of parent volunteers, but the more hands on deck, the better our garden can be!

What We Need

• You!
• Ideas
• Seeds and plants (vegetables, strawberry plants, flowers, perennials???)
• Compost and other organic soil amendments
• Mason bee homes
• People committed to helping water the garden over the summer on a rotating schedule so we can GROW MORE THINGS SUCCESSFULLY!  If we have enough volunteers, you might only have to come in once over the summer break!

What We Can Start Growing Right Now  

We can start early spring vegetables, such as radish, spinach, some salad greens, and even peas!  It has been my experience that if we start plants indoors instead of directly seeding them into the garden, the children see things growing and usually make efforts to not to step on them.  If things are directly seeded, the children may not be aware that something green is starting to peak above the surface and squash them unknowingly.  It is the students' garden after all!

Are you a keen gardener currently starting tomatoes or peppers?  Could you save a plant or two for the school garden?

Thanks a bunch and let's get growing!  The season is upon us, woo-hoo!

Next Garden Meeting: Tuesday, February 22 in the courtyard (weather dependent) 1:30 until bell.

 

Back to School Special: Why Kids and Bugs Love Fennel

One thing the school garden is not short of: fennel.  Dill's sweeter twin, the kids love it.  Kids who enjoy the taste of black licorice, that is.  I'm sure if I could create an herb that tasted like Nibs, it's popularity may surpass fennel's with the school-age set.
 
When I took on the school garden challenge, one of the first things I thought was, "better pull out some of this fennel."  Fennel has a tendency to take over the garden, making itself a tasty little nuisance.  But I have yet to have a day in the school garden when a student did not come up to me, proudly identify the plant to me, pick off a feathery leaf, and pop it into the mouth like candy.

The fennel stayed.

Stayed for most of the school year, that is.  The other day, just a few days before school's start, I was in the garden, giving it a little water and weed to spruce it up for the returning staff and students.  The fennel was prolific, and proudly blooming its umbel flower heads.  There was enough fennel for a fennel feast, and who was taking advantage of this feast but the wasps.  At least ten wasps per flower head, I began to get nervous about the impending return of the students and potential stings, and worse, allergic reactions.

So I pulled out a lot of the fennel.  Don't worry, enough fennel remains to satisfy snacking students and to make more plants in the future.  But why are so many of mother earths' creatures fascinated by fennel?

People and Fennel 

-Botanical name: Foeniculum vulgare
-Fennel is in the same plant family as carrots (Apiaceae) 
-Mediterranean in origin, fennel is grown around the world and is found in many tradition ethnic dishes: from Greek plates, to English, to Indian (aka "cumin"), fennel has been flavoring deserts, fish dishes, medicines and teas for millennia.
-Fennel is medicinal: Used as a digestive aid (particularly helpful with flatulence), snake bite remedy, eye wash; has anti-microbial properties (nature's hand sanitizer), and is used to promote lactation in nursing mothers.
-Great help in the garden: attracts beneficial insects, butterflies (see Bugs and Fennel below)


Bugs and Fennel

-Every one's favorite beetle, the Ladybug, loves loves loves fennel (most of them, anyway)!  Adults use it as a place to eat pollen and nectar, and often lay their eggs on them.  Ladybug larvae are voracious aphid eaters (adults eat aphids, but not as much as the larvae).
-Syrphid flies (aka Hover Flies) look like tiny wasps but are harmless; indeed they are beneficial for the garden.  Once again, their babies eat aphids and other sap-sucking plant pests, while the adults assist in pollination.  You may see one hovering (of course) around a fennel umbel, having a nectar moment.
-Wasps also love to eat fennel, and despite the fear they inflict in most of us, they too, can eat garden-pests.
-Swallowtail butterflies: the caterpillars love fennel and the butterflies often lay their eggs on the plant.

Anise Swallowtail Caterpillar on Fennel

Anise Swallowtail Butterfly

Who doesn't like fennel?  Other plants!  In a companion planted garden, fennel is friendless (save for dill).  But it does so much other good, save a place for fennel in our gardens and in our hearts!