Tuesday, August 20, 2019

The Wonderful things that kids can do! A Houston School Garden post.

This has been an amazing year in the garden at the school!  With the coming together of the Middle and the High Schools into one big Community, we have been able to muster help from all age groups out to the garden this summer and get stuff done!  We have needed the extra hands this summer as I have torn a ligament in my neck so am needing to take easier days, and extra precaution to not further injure the darn thing!

We have had a couple of times this summer where13+ people showed up!  It was EPIC!



The McRoberts Clan (my cousin Alicia above) brought their whole family plus extras and they know how to work!

When the portable classrooms were brought to the school after the earthquake November 30th, it was the middle of winter and the contractors and staff had to get stuff done and get some walkways and stairs and porches built on the short!  So this summer they had to tear off some of that work so they could rearrange the portables and fit more in and so they could level them and make our evacuations more safe for us and the kids.

It ended up being a boon for the garden expansion plans as some of the materials they tore off they were not able to re-use for the portable project and instead of trashing them, they dropped them in the garden for us to use!



We were able to build 4 more raised beds, and we have the materials set aside for at least three more that will be 12" deep!
Above shows one of the new beds being put into position and the other filled and ready to go for next year!  We are hoping to get some good composted soil to do some soil amendment in the garden as well.  Stay tuned for that!

Watering has always been an issue in the garden as the hose bib is 400' away from the garden and it takes a special key to get the water turned on!  So we would fill any ole bin we could with water while we had the hose out so that others could water if they were on site and not have to have the water key.  It also has not been helpful that Alaska has had a real drought year this summer.  We have had temperatures in the 90's on multiple days in a row here in Big Lake, and we started working in the garden only until about 1:00 pm due to the heat and the danger for us and the kids!  We are not used to the heat and our plants arent either!
Buckets, bushels, and garbage cans work well to hold extra water for the project!  I was also bringing water from home in 5 gallon containers so that I didn't have to yard out that darn heavy 450' hose every time.  My neck couldn't take it!
Fortunately, we are blessed with some awesome community members who donated this gardening wetering system for us!  The Bredbergs donated it, brought it over and set it up for us IN the garden!  So there is no garden space now that is more than about 100' from the water source!

It is a gravity fed, no electric and no key required system!  It can hold upwards of 500 gallons of water, and we can have two hoses going at a time!  It is a work in progress and as of this writing we are waiting for some parts so we can use both sides, but one side is full and accessible for watering!  Such a relief! 

We had a garden full of wonders this year - 4 types of potato;  purple viking, daisy gold, magic myrna, and one other variety whose name escapes me right now - they are labelled in the garden however!

Above are the Magic Myrna's - they have a beautiful light purple flower on them!  


The strawberry patch did wonderfully at the beginning of the summer and we got a few quarts of berries.  Once the heat really kicked in and we went 44 days with no rain, and we weren't able to keep up watering everything everywhere they have tapered off.  We are still getting a few on the patch but we could really use a good rain!



Some of the folks weeding the potatoes above and below taking weeds to the exit pile - as in exit out of the garden!



Below - a couple of the football players who came with Mr Hughes to the garden party below, weeding some raspberry hills.



And yes....we have a nice old dog who comes too sometimes!


You can see above that we still have a bit of shade in the garden for this photo of most of the work crew for this day!  Temperature in Big Lake ended up being 98* that day - thankfully after we were done in the garden!


Above - our first little cucumber from the garden!  Even though the wind blew and the conditions were dry, dry, dry, this little plant produced!


Here are some cole crops with a tomato thrown in for good measure!  This is one of the raised beds that was built last year and we have a little bit of everything in it.  In our tires this year we have tomatoes and an assortment of herbs.


Here are our tiny squash plants!  We have one Grey Griller and one Zuchinni - Black Beauty here and since this picture was taken we have gotten one squash from each plant!  These are in an area that gets the heat all day and dries out really fast.  We have not been able to keep enough water on them this year, but its been better since the water system was added and we are hopeful that we will get some more produce off them!

We have some other tomatoes that are producing a ton of tomatoes on them - especially a Bush Early Girl that has about 10 pounds of tomatoes on it!  Stay tuned for pictures of those and for our great potato harvest coming soon!

I hope no matter what your temperature or how many hands you have joining you that you have a garden worth crowing about!




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