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Gardening by the Moon

Gardening this year is going to be so wonderful. I am super excited about growing food! I have purchased many seeds, and begun tilling the dirt. The garden was overgrown with grass and weeds, so before I could till I had to get a lawn mower! Being that we moved in December, we had no need to purchase a riding lawn mower for our 1.5 acres. But now it is spring and the grass was growing fast!

Gardening

We were fortunate to find a 48” Husqvarna riding lawn mower on Facebook marketplace. It just reached 600 hours, which I learned is how you tell how long your lawn mower is expected to last! The average is 1500 hours. It is so much fun mowing my grass!

Now that the grass is mowed over the garden I am able to begin tilling the rest! The garden is at least 23ft. x 15ft, and I have only tilled a small portion.

The garden had turnips growing wild and taking over, along with strawberries! So I have transplanted some of the strawberries, and have let the rest to grow where they are for now.

On the spring equinox my friend Rachel and I planted 12 packs of seeds, there were three packs that did not grow at all, the rest are ready to be transplanted to larger containers! I was thinking maybe I could put them right into the ground, however it might be too cold just yet.

My Peach trees are blooming so beautifully… the green leaves are coming out. But I noticed that the bark has some mold looking fungus growing on it… some of the lower branches do not have any leaves at all. The bark also looks like its been shredded a little. Copper fungicide is supposed to work for the lechins which is what I think it is.

Another one of our trees that I have yet to identify, it is graphed…. has mites. So I purchased fruit tree spray. I hope that helps.

Gardening By the Moon

I have always been interested and fascinated by the idea of planning my garden around the cycles of the moon! Recently I came across the website Gardening by the Moon! They have wonderful digital resources that assist with what to plant and when! I am excited to be using these resources to help me plant!

I love learning as I go, being in the experience and figuring things out. Connecting with my network to hear stories of the way others have experienced life. Gardening is such a beautiful thing to build community around.

We have an idea, to invite our friends to share our garden with us. To plant food and share in the tending as they can. We would over see the garden daily. Then to come together for a community harvest dinner!!

I am looking forward to watching the garden and my community grow in peace, love, joy and unity. <3

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Caring for our Watershed

This year my green club students wrote proposals for a contest called Caring for our Watershed,

Turning ideas into environmental solutions!

The CARING FOR OUR WATERSHEDS program asks students to submit a proposal that answers the question, “What can you do to improve your watershed?” Students must research their local watershed, identify an environmental concern and draft a written proposal containing one realistic solution. Community judges select the top entries to compete at a final, verbal competition for cash prizes.

There were three proposals written and submitted, each part of a large project to turn our old ‘glen” area into an inviting and restorative outdoor classroom.  The Glen area is a large wooded area that is surrounded by our school and looks out over our athletic fields.  This area has 8 benches that are worn down and torn apart. My students see that there is so much potential in this beautiful space.

They created a proposal that restored our bluebird boxes and benches, build a pathway and secured trash cans in specific locations along the path, and created a rain garden near a storm drain at the bottom of the hill. These three proposals are completely feasible, it’s just a matter of funding and permission from the county school board.

We heard back from the company this week and we were not a finalist, however we did win $500 towards our ideas! This is so exciting because the projects are coming together on their own. Ridgely’s awesome assistant principal Matt Rosati has volunteered to build our bluebird boxes, and a couple salad tables, and now we have money towards starting our next step to completing our projects!

In addition to receiving $500 for our student project, we were invited to the Student Environmental Action Showcase on April 23rd, 2019 at George Mason University Center for the Arts from 10AM-2PM to participate in their poster presentation, network with peers, and participate in activities throughout the showcase.

There is also an opportunity to have funds matched for projects up to $1000!

I am so excited to see what we accomplish in the coming year!

<3