Houston High and the Great Seed Grant - Welcome to Hawk Farms!

Sorry it has been so long since you have seen a post on the great things that the kids are doing in the garden at the School - its just that kind of year for me - Ill do better from now on!

This year for the Houston High School Garden we applied for and received a seed grant from Seed Savers Exchange that gave us 100 packets of seeds to plant in our garden.  We were so excited!  Out of the 100 packets of seeds there were very few that wouldn't grow outside in Alaska.  (Okra, eggplant, and a few others).  We didnt get to choose our seed selection but no matter, we had some volunteers to plant some of the hot weather varieties in greenhouses for us to see how we did.  We are also planning a greenhouse for our garden, set to begin construction this fall so next year we will be able to have the seeds that we didnt use this time to grow in the greenhouse!

Above shows the box and some of the seeds!  We got some great radishes that have turned out to be a favorite - they end up looking like a peanut potato - brown skin and all - but they are so tasty! 

  

Helios they are called.

Photo above is Helios Radish - photo from Seed Savers Exchange. These arent ones that we grew but we have harvested some this size already from the garden.

Above photo's show the kids planting into the 4"pots in the classroom.  They each planted pots to leave for the school garden and some to take home as well if they chose!  Grow one, take one!

Here are some of the peas we got and and a couple of the cucumbers.  Our kids ended up planting during the last week of school (about May 15th) and - as you read in a previous blog, it has been the coldest start to spring in 5 years for us so that ended up being a little early for some of the plants - we had to start over with the cukes and most of the tomatoes and the two cukes shown above are ones the Mrs. Reese - another High School employee started for us in her greenhouse.  Thank you Mrs. Reese!

We have a classroom that has these great windowsills in it, it is in our culinary arts classroom but well away from the food prep areas so we were able to put the seed starts that the kids began in the window in their pots and it was nice and warm and had plenty of light too!

Here is another view of the other side of the windowsill and the awesome plants coming up that the kids planted!  The plastic tubs are an upcycle item - they are the tops of the containers that the cakes for graduation came in - they perfectly hold twenty 4" pots.

 Photo on the left is another shot of the kids planting.  They did so many varieties of plants and even some flowers!

Below are three photos of the kids planting in the garden in the raised beds.  They did both seeds and transplants that they had grown in the pots in the classroom.

Once the kids (and staff) went to plant the garden they made this great garden diagram/map sign so anyone who was visiting the garden will know what is planted and where.  This also will help so next year we can make sure we are rotating our crops in the grow bins appropriately.  And such great creativity - I love it!  If you are out at the garden - which you are welcome to do - it is hanging inside the little tool shed area - its open so you can see it we hung it in there so it wouldnt get as wet.

Also included in the seed package was some peanut potato seed - here they are coming up in one of the grow bins.  We all love potatoes here at the school (and at most of our homes too).

Here are those great Helios radishes coming up in the row with the carrots - we got 4 carrot varieties with our pack too!  So happy!