Despite spring break–and a long break from posting about the garden–we’ve made a lot of progress in the past month. After building and installing the raised beds, we filled them with a vegetable garden soil mix purchased from Cedar Grove. Then we gathered materials for laying wood chips on pathways around the beds: For weed barrier that … More April showers in the garden
We had a productive work party on Sunday, with a dozen students, parents, and teachers building and installing the raised beds in the garden. Here are some photos:
With the able professional services of Karen Kiest, landscape architect, we now have draft design sketches for improvements in the SW corner of our playground. We will be posting these sketches for community viewing and feedback next week: at our PTA meeting on Monday night, 3/13, 6:30-8pm and at our Art Walk/Open House on Thursday, 3/16, 5:30-7pm. Please … More Playground design sketches
The snow still falls, but we remain hopeful that spring will arrive and are ready to build our raised beds for the garden. We built a prototype, two of our awesome teachers helped cut the lumber for the rest of the beds this past weekend, and we’re preparing for a work party to build and install … More Raised garden beds
Good news! We received word yesterday that we won a $5,000 Small Sparks grant from the Department of Neighborhoods to complete design and construction documents for improvements in the southwest corner of our playground. Our generous PTA will be providing additional matching funds to make this happen. The work we do in the next few months will prepare … More Grant for playground design
Eager for spring planting? To raise money for our school garden, we are holding a Seattle Seed Co. online fundraiser for three weeks, from today through March 17. Order organic seeds and/or other garden-related goodies (flyer below) at https://www.seattleseed.com/gatewood-elementary Gatewood receives 50% of proceeds. Spread the word among family, friends and neighbors!
First the snow fell, now the rain pours down, but flowers are starting to bloom and spring is in the air! Right? So it’s high time for a learning garden update: Raised beds. We finalized a basic design for the raised beds and are pricing lumber and other supplies. Teachers Mr. Revello and Mr. Gaynor and I made a first … More February garden update
Happy new year! Water We returned to school after the winter break to see that the hose bib in the garden has been installed, so we have water access again after a couple of years without it. This will be a significant improvement over dragging hoses through classroom windows or from the custodial closet in the basement, or lugging innumerable watering cans … More Water and worms
We will be adding an after-school gardening club to our club line-up in the spring, with classes led by Seattle Tilth (soon to be Tilth Alliance)!
We had over 70 people respond to our school survey about improvements we’d like to see in the southwest corner of the playground (the field). Thanks to everyone who responded! The top five elements desired in the southwest corner of the playground (current field) were ranked by students and adults as follows: Students’ Ranking Adults’ Ranking … More Playground survey results
A green schoolyard for Gatewood Elementary 