GREEN THUMB GARDEN CLUB 2014

Although a small group for the spring term, these girls took their chicken wrangling responsibilities very seriously.  Garden Club also enjoyed eating swiss chard on brushetta, guacamole, sweet potato chips and learning about pollinators.

GREEN THUMB GARDEN CLUB 2011

Absolutely beautiful compost dirt harvested by the Green Thumb Garden Club. This compost was made by a years' worth of lunchroom fruit waste....we call it "black gold."

We talked a lot about our pollinators. Here, we displayed and served all the foods that we love that need to be pollinated.

The Green Thumb Garden Club eating pollinated food and reading about our pollinating friends.

Lizzie and Mallory: SUPERSTAR composters and Green Thumb Garden Club members!!

Purple corn in the Montessori Garden.

GARDENS 

The main vegetable garden

First, second and third graders ready to transplant their seedlings

Fifth grader Ava Sherry

GARDENS 2009

Even though this year's growing season was unseasonably cold and wet, we still were able to grow four amazing gardens at our wonderful school.

PLANT OF THE MOMENT

Purple coneflower from our front door Native Illinois container garden. 8/15/09

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Hot peppers and cabbage from our Montessori Garden. 8/15/09

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Purple corn from our Montessori Garden.  8/29/09

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GARDENS 2008

PLANT OF THE MOMENT

A beautiful jalapeno pepper in our Montessori Garden is our first vegetable to appear!  6/21/08

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Cabbage in the morning in the main plot.  7/31/08

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A monarch butterfly comes to visit our double decker coneflower in the Perennial Garden.  7/31/08

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Who doesn't love the look of a little purple eggplant!  7/31/08

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This cauliflower eventually grew to the size of a football.  I grilled on the BBQ and my 6 year old son said that it tasted like popcorn.  10/06/08

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FRONT DOOR CONTAINERS

Oscar Mayer Magnet School 8th graders partnered with DePaul University students studying biodiversity in Illinois.  Together they designed and planted a Native Illinois garden in two containers flanking the front doors of our school.  The following plants were chosen:  nodding wild onion, prairie smoke, false dandelion, wild stonecrop sedum, sweet vanilla grass, meadow anemone, purple coneflower, wild geranium, prairie dropseed, flowing spurge, bellflower, columbine and black-eyed susans.

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MONTESSORI GARDEN

All four of our Early Childhood Montessori classes planted our "salsa garden".  Some classes even started their own seeds in Spring.  Along with tomato, cilantro and jalepano pepper plants, the kids also planted:  oregano, thyme, red and yellow peppers, sweet snap peas, green beans, zucchini squash, lavender, rosemary and marigold plants.

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PERENNIAL GARDEN

In the south corner of our Main Plot we have planted a Perennial Garden.  Plants featured are:  Ligularia "little rocket", Ligularia "britt-marie crawford, Threadleaf Tickseed, Korean Feather Grass, Coneflower "doubledecker", Montbretia Crocosmia "lucifer", Liatris "blazing star", Blue Fescue, Snowdrop Anemone, Coral Bells, Perennial Fountain Grass, Clematis and Daylily.

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GREEN THUMB GARDEN CLUB

Fall 2010 Green Thumb Garden Club members

In the spring of 2009, an after-school gardening program for kindergarten to 3rd grade students was added to the mix and it soon turned into a very popular class!  We hold these classes in the fall and spring quarters of the school year.  Kids plant, tend and harvest plants, they actually eat the produce they have planted (who knew so many kids love sauteed swiss chard on bruscetta??), they learn about pollinators and good eating habits, they dance and draw and enjoy all the benefits of the gardens.  

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COMPOSTING

The club is harvesting our lunchroom compost to put it into our gardens' soil.  As a school, we compost almost 100% of our lunchroom fruits and vegetables.  We have a team of 7th graders that move the waste from the lunchroom daily to the two giant compost tumblers located in the school parking lot.  We then have a team of 6th graders who monitor the compost throughout the year, adding dry matter when needed and turning the compost.

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Moving the compost to the Montessori Garden