We're getting a high tunnel!

As if the title didn't give it all away, we've got some exciting news around here and have spent the last few weeks jumping up and down with excitement. In fact, we can't stop daydreaming of hosting students from Boyd and Pipkin and all the vegetables we can grow year-round in our (yet to arrive) high tunnel. Aside from the produce we'll be able to grow, all of the different ways we can use the garden to accompany what students are learning in class will be endless.

If you're on our volunteer email list, stay tuned. You'll probably be receiving an email invite to help assemble the high tunnel. If you're not on our volunteer list and would like to be, please let us know. It takes a village to raise a, um, high tunnel. Isn't that the saying?

Since it's turned colder and there isn't much growing in the garden, we haven't been able to regularly hold classes at the garden site. It seems the kids are just as eager as we are to get back in the garden. Last week's lesson with the Kindergarten class at Boyd focused on community and culture, a unit they're currently discussing in class. When the kids found out we were only going to be talking and discussing, one student disappointedly remarked that she'd "rather be shoveling compost at the garden," which they'd done a few weeks prior. I'm constantly amazed at how quick these kids are! Give them any task and they can complete it in about half the time you think it'll take. They lined the raised beds with newspaper and helped shovel compost into wheel barrows and then put the compost into the beds. They were able to knock out almost a whole bed--a 48ft. long one at that--in the allotted 25 minutes.

Stay tuned for a post about this weeks Kindergarten lesson: garden journals. This one is going to be so much fun and also useful. We'll be making journals for the kids to write, draw, etc. and reflect on what they've learned after each lesson. I think I'll make one as well. I'm going to need to keep track of all the funny things they say!