Our WAWWE class got started on some observations, cleaning, planting, and generally enjoying each other’s presence and the lovely weather outside. We got a bit dirty, planted peonies, sage and mint, learned tool vocabulary and purposed and got some seeds planted for summer. Oh, and dug up piles of dandelions before they take over the universe.
This team and others have managed to draw the garden back to its former beauty and appeal. After a lot of scratches, nettle stings and general dirty fatigue, this crew incorporated last year’s Meunier dorm compost (thanks!) into the soil and got in some onions, radishes, lettuce and more. Nothing like teamwork to get the job done.
Our school year is drawing to a close and we’re probably having one last dig with the students before everyone leaves on their internships. There was more potato hilling, border repair and onion and rhubarb distribution. We hope to see everyone again in the fall.
And it was a sunny day fo
r it.
I chose this picture that shows a square of dense greenery. I think this illustrates how nature is able to produce a lot by itself. It is an example of what emerges from human inaction. It surely looks like a mess from the outside but is a complex and sustainable ecosystem if we look at it carefully. This might be an interesting thought: from inaction a lot can grow whereas our hands can easily destroy what was alive and well before. Thoughts and photo by Théo.
After a long winter of hardy cooking waste, the Develop’ponts composters are now full. Lorraine has added more straw to dry it out and hopefully finish off the process for us to use the compost by early summer. They will be setting up a new one in the next weeks.
Our Wednesday class decided to get a bit of early planting going before the March rain showers. It’s probably still too cold for the seeds to sprout, but we were excited to be rid of winter and imagine that spring is here. The calendar says so, anyway…
The We Are What We Eat students got our beans, potatoes and artichoke plants in the ground today after recovering the garden from the waist-high weeds. (Thanks ID Vert). It also gave me the occasion to explain the difference between weeds and weed, especially when someone confused the fake strawberry plants for the latter. It appears that no one had any fun at all (or maybe just a little…)
The course Field Trip held its last class yesterday. Trying to finish a series of design projects for the garden: rainwater harvesting, a garden tower, a wind chime… they put on the finishing touches yesterday (as well as cleaning out a couple of plots and planting potatoes and onions…)
yesterday.
To celebrate our prize with the rest of the school, the Jardin decided to invite everyone to a reading and plant fest on a decidedly sunny interlude in an otherwise sad Saintes de Glaces period: Friday May 13. There were readings of Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, Thoreau’s treatise on beans, Apoolinaire, Krishnamurti, Robert Browning, Marie Ursula Bethel and more by teachers, students and researchers. We got down and dirty getting the tomatoes planted as well.
