Bulbiful!

Thanks to all 15 who came out Easter Friday!
Long overdue, every single of our 11 Green Street boulevards got some TLC and they look better than ever! In just 2 hours we got alot done!

Many hands get things done...                                         Half the work but twice the fun!

The Hail Award goes to Andrea and offspring. While we were sipping civilized beverages pondering if the freak rain torrents would stop, they were early birds who got soaked.
The kids proved that you can garden while on a bicycle :-)

Monday April 16th we are being interviewed for the City of Vancouver's Green Street newsletter.

The bulbs from last year, many hyacinths are up and look great too! We planted dozens, so there are more surprises to come. Thanks to Shera who will divide the burgeoning daffodils from yesteryear parents.

Well done, everyone!!!!!!

Spring Cleaning

Hi all!
Friday April 6th everyone is welcome to help tidy the City of Vancouver Green Streets boulevards!

1pm - Salt Spring Coffee meet and greet - planning what crops with what teachers.  Update on grants.
2pm - on the gardens.  we have 11 individual patches.  With many hands, it could only take an hour.  Bring your kids, we have kid tools, or they can play right below us.  If anyone knows the name of this plant (by the north bench), let me know - they are up now as is the numerous 'rescue' bulbs we planted last year. Answer: woodland anenome - we planted 2 more varieties to complement them!

Bring:
pruners, gloves, rakes, leaf trimmings bin and even a West Coast Seeds Catalogue if you have one!

Thanks to Nicole who has offered delivery services of our new 5 and 10 foot planter boxes to beautify (and make safe) the teachers parking lot.  Location TBD.  Ms Jamieson took the grounds VSB staff around on a tour last week of the school gardens.  These planter boxes were made at Tupper with wood donated by UBC.

 

Like a layer cake...

They call it 'lasagna' gardening.  Instead of hard work digging sod, you can layer your nutrients.   Soil Science tells us that not all 'dirt' is the same.  You need combinations of soil, sand, clay and organic nutrients as well as space for air and bugs and roots in order to grow healthy plants.  Organic gardening does not use any fertilizers or chemicals that are not naturally found.  So in this light we are making a 'layer cake' of compost (Thanks, Lisa), leaves, soil, manure, straw and eventually more soil.  This way, when we are ready to plant, our classes will have good results because what's under the feet of those roots is like a jam-packed storehouse of vitamins and minerals for the plant.  Bit by bit, we add.  Thanks to Salt Spring Coffee for coffee grounds, and to Andrea, Nicole and kidlets for helping collect manure (aged so not wet or stinky) from the organized drive through at VanDusen Gardens and a few pinecones along the way...

Spring is coming...

While the plants are sleeping, the keyboards are active...as has been the Tupper woodshop!


The Garden Committee has been working on a VSB Policy Document.  We have proposals to Evergreen, a local business and Whole Kids Foundation.


The bulbs (daffodils from years ago) are starting to come up on the Green Streets Boulevards.  In addition, dozens of tulip bulbs planted last fall by Shera, May, Andrea, Breanna, Zoe, Logan, Preston will start poking up soon.


On the to-do list;
add more soil to the gardens, continue the lasagna area
free coffee compost from Salt Spring Coffee on Main Street can be picked up
compost bin can be emptied onto the garden by the gym
haircut for many Green Street Boulevard plants


Volunteers always welcome.
In April we will do sunflower sessions in the classrooms - parent helpers welcome.
We plant seeds, read stories and talk about life cycles and soil science.


Spring is around the corner - and so is Tupper - where students are building us some special 'bonus' planters made with free wood (above) from a UBC donation.

Lasagna anyone?!

We braved the weather forecast and did it! 

There is a new technique of reclaiming sod.  Instead of digging (hard work!) grass layers and composting, you can cover lawn with cardboard, soil, compost, leaves to create a new 'lasagna' layered garden bed.  It disturbs the natural soil less (no worms are hurt in the process...!) and is easier work (well, we will find out).  On Sunday January 8th, Lisa Scott, Dana Kemes, Jen Lum, Shera Paterson and Tamara will experiment with this method in the small area west of the gym.  There is a protected area that has a tree and some shrubs.  We will let the area 'sit' in the winter, knowing we will have a good 'crop' space for classrooms to plant in April and May.  We will add more soil when we purchase a load.

With our new planter boxes thanks to Ms Ingrams class going to Tupper, we will have 6 'crop' areas for classrooms to plant something that they can harvest the first week of school.

Lisa shared this - If anyone is curious about what “lasagnaing” (!) is, here’s an example of one website:

http://organicgardening.about.com/od/startinganorganicgarden/a/lasagnagarden.htm

Update;
We will be attaching our Wolfe Garden Plan to this blog.
We have applied for funding to last a few years of enhancement.
Hopefully we can host some Open Houses this year to get teacher, student, family and community feedback.  The swings and rings will come down by 2013 so we need to plan now for a great space to replace it!

Garden Committee is meeting with Ms Jamieson Monday January 9th at 1pm.

Lasagna and salad... we could grow lettuce and have a lasagna & caesar combo.... or wheat... or sunflowers.... just kidding - crop to be determined when we work with the classrooms!
As always, ideas, comments, assistance always welcome.  generalwolfegardens@gmail.com

Garden Math = Hidden Treasure

Sharpen your pencils!

Q:  What do you get when you add 4 parents, 7 students and 2 hours of work?
Then add 4 loads of free bulbs?!
A:  Surprises are buried in the boulevards - about 200 of them!
Last spring, even in the hail, we put in all kinds of bulbs, free through Green Streets notices.  We have planted a variety of bulbs from Queen Elizabeth Park and City Hall.

The City of Vancouver Green Streets Program has about 500 roundabouts and traffic bulges throughout Vancouver now - and they started 'accidentally' when a bird feeder above a traffic calming bulge dropped seeds that sprouted sunflowers!  It started not far from Wolfe in a nearby catchment about 15 years ago - and is studied around the world.  We have a photo book in our library celebrating Green Streets.

Keep your eyes on those gardens for wee shoots of new growth as the days get longer and we head into spring!

The pencils above are in Mr. Russ Evans' classroom at Tupper, where Ms Ingram's Grade 7's have one more day to complete 4 planter boxes that will become 'crop' beds for students here at Wolfe.


Thanks to May Ke, Andrea Schnarr, Lisa Scott, Dana Kemes & Shera Paterson for planting last spring!
We look forward to the hidden treasures (and mystery of what colour was what!) emerging in the coming months as we head into longer days and warmer temperatures!

Planter Box Project Underway!

As mentioned in the school newsletter, Ms Ingram's Grade 6/7 class has been at the Tupper Woodshop.  Smelling like cedar from the outside of the building, they have been hard at work cutting, drilling, hammering, measuring and, of course, making pencil rockets! The VSB Career Programs Coordinator was also onsite taking photos of the good work in progress.  The students are building 'lego blocks' which will be stacked and assembled using metal pieces (lots of math to calculate how many!!)

With wood they say, measure twice, cut once...  some action photos of mentoring.

Turns out some of the Tupper students were the reading buddies when the Grade 7's were in Kindergarten - now there's some value added community crossover!!  

BONUS - extra planter box!
We also received some free wood from UBC - Mr Russ Evans (the woodshop teacher at Tupper responsible for organizing the students) has toured the Wolfe grounds.  The Wolfe PAC Garden Committee wants to build a small planter box on the east facing wall of the teachers parking lot.  Then everyone will be able to see the plants, its a great location for light and heat, and its a 'ball-free' zone which means the plants will survive (not so for the planter boxes opposite the Sparetime door.

Handy People Wanted!
IF anyone (handy dads?) want to help design this extra box, take measurements, or help build it onsite (spring), just email generalwolfegardens@gmail.com