"Growth in a garden is like growth in a student: they both learn and secretly have fun"  Garden of Awesomeness

Welcome to Randy Smith Middle School's virtual garden.

In 2009 We started a garden in partnership with Calypso Farms as part of their schoolyard garden initiative. 2012 will see us in our second year of food production. keep reading to see how our students used the garden and our plans for next spring.

(Click here to learn about the Calypso Farms Schoolyard Garden Initiative)

CSA's for the 2012 summer growing season are now available. Please contact Calypso farm for more information

Garden Bazaar 2012

This year's spring bazaar will be on April 21 from 10-4. Once again we will be limiting our vendors to those selling hand crafted or modified items. Why? Spring venues for these artisans are somewhat limited and we want to offer our shoppers unique items they can't find just anywhere.

Also new this year we will have a student art and poetry show. We have many very talented students, some of whom have even used our garden as their inspiration. you can download a copy of the vendor form here. vendor form 2012.pdf

Click on the link below to view the video from 2011.

bazaar.m4v

Up date: as the school year got back underway many classes took advantage of our new garden space and spent time there learning and working. The carrots were a huge hit and kids happily munched on them like candy whenever they had the opportunity. We also used our vegetables to make dinner for the parents and families that came to our open house. Vegetable soup and fresh garden salad were on the menu. We also worked some of our produce into the school lunch line. adding fresh purple cauliflower, broccoli, peas and more to salads and veggie trays.

And students have been harvesting cooking the last of the goodies in a connections class. They get to share these goodies with their school mates at lunch the next day when samples are given out and feed back forms are filled in. Our creations have included: Kohlrabi coleslaw, Beet chocolate cake, crispy kale chips in three flavors, and potato gnocchi.

Coming this spring:

Building benches. Students along with the assistance of Mr Addington will construct benches. Materials for these came from a grant.

Connections classes to start plants and to help with the spring fundraiser

New resource from DNR. http://dnr.alaska.gov/ag/FarmToSchool/SGfoodsafetyguide.pdf

How to become a donor.

Looking for good Karma? Want to help your local youth with hands-on learning resources?? Want to encourage the production of local food crops?

These are all fabulous reason to consider donating to our local school garden.

Many ways to give:

Donate items

     check out our tool list and see if you have a spare tool laying around.

     Special events like our Garden Bazaar in April need silent auction donations

Donate Time

     Fund raising activities and workdays are times when We can always use a hand

Donate Money

     Any cash donation go directly to support our garden. Large or small every dime helps us reach our goal of having the best school       garden

WISH LIST

last summer we borrowed tools form Calypso, but we want a set of our own.

Wheelbarrow

Digging forks

Hoes

broad fork

rakes

Pitch fork

Grow towers for starting seeds

Rubber matting for around the raised beds

Garden Shed:

Hutchison High School Woodworking class built a great shed for us. Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!!!

Raised beds:

Up date: our raised beds did well this year. One house carrots and a monster tomato plant. The other saw lots of herbs and a rotation of greens

   If you look at the diagram below you can see what a cross section of the finished bed looks like.  We are collected the daily food waste from the lunch room and the kitchen and put it in the two beds. when they reached a level that will allowed 10 inches of soil we topped them off ready for planting. It has been amazing to see how much waste even one box holds. We started the waste collection in mid September and had just reached the levels needed by our spring fill date.

Future plans for these includes rubber matting around the raised beds to allow easier access.

  We want to do many things to make our garden usable and unique. Some of these things will take volunteer efforts and some will take money and donations of materials.

Summer work days

Gigantic thanks to the 20 people who helped get this fence up. We had staff, and their families and friends who lent a hand to the project.Also thanks to Spenard's and Rockwell Engineering for expediting the delivery of lumber and gravel for this project. 

garden bazaar 2010

 photos can be found here Garden Bazaar)

 Our generous parents can continue to donate tools to our program as well as cash.

Links: Organizations that help us with event advertising, partnerships and major donations

http://www.festivals-and-shows.com/home-shows.html

http://www.calypsofarm.org/

http://rissegreenhouse.com/

Building a legacy

Materials and donations

Gardening notes

Committee Meetings

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