Look What I Found In My Garden

It doesn't get much better than this.

Life

Things are a sproutin'

Succulent Soil

This week was all about the senses. Soil was gathered from every corner of the TBS campus and put into secret paper bags. It was the students' job to smell, touch, listen, and look at the vast amount of different soil textures we have at our lovely school.

After they enjoyed the sensual soil, each student wrote one descriptive word about each type they encountered and placed that word in a marked envelope.

Then things got a little wacky. Groups were formed, envelopes were dispersed, and skits were created using the adjectives the young gardeners had written to describe their soil!

Story time in the Chap House Garden

A resident delighted us with stories from yesteryear.

 We gave the chive plants a little haircut :)

 A little taste perhaps?

Chaparral House Harvesting

Over at the Chaparral House it was time to harvest some of the beautiful summer fruits and veggies. The TBSers took great pride in picking the best of the crop to hand over to residents.

They found a friend exploring the garden as well.

 A vibrant splash of color to brighten up any day.

Welcome to the Garden of Wonder

With TBS's support, Doug the Slug hit the road for Santa Cruz. For two fun-filled days he spent time in the LifeLab at UCSC learning all about the Growing Classroom.

 A really great smelling pile of hot compost!

 We built our own little irrigation system for multicolored cauliflower. 

 Some heirloom beans we shelled that were waiting to dry in the lovely sun.

 And on his way out Doug ran into an old friend, Stefan the Snake.

Rainy Days

On days when it rains, we have to get creative with our gardening practices. On this particularly rainy day, I pulled vegetables from our garden and had our students see if they could identify them by taste only (they were blindfolded!) Following our blind taste test, we had a food challenge to see who was interested in tasting exotic, weird looking fruits and vegetables.

Fall Seed Planting Party

And finally the time had come! After many weeks of studying and prepping our soil, we were ready to plant our seeds and starts. It was a lovely week :)

 A student helps to identify our incoming sprouts by labeling growing areas.

 Gentle hands help our garden grow!

Flowering the Deck

Sweet Briar students spent time last week planting perennials on the MS deck.