Cotton Wood Valley Charter School -
Gardening Page
Cottonwood Valley Charter School Gardening Committee:
Debra Shepherd
- contact Debra (dshepher(at)aoc.nrao.edu) if
you want to join our team or have suggestions for what we can do to
make our school grounds beautiful.
Dale Frail
Cindy Madrid
Tommie McSherry
Tracy Steele
Jan Thomas
Cathi van Fleet
Leila Whelan
Gardening at the charter school:
Listed below is our schedule of who is working and what we have done
to-date:
26/27 June
The next CVCS group gardening, picnic & committee meeting.
19/20 June
Leila Whelan & Cindy Madrid (Debra out of town 13-27 June) -
13 June
Jan Thomas -
5/6 June
Tommie McSherry -
30 May
CVCS group gardening, picnic & committee meeting. Leila & Cathi
organized this one, providing snacks and water for all. Cindy Madrid
was able to attend also. The highest priority is to get the watering
lines fixed over the summer. Michael Hanauer & Jim Shepherd will
fix the lines.
Water
Schedule: In addition to the weekend schedule in place, we
decided to cover the week day needs in teams. Leila and Cindy will
cover the Wednesday / Friday watering and Jan Thomas and I will cover
the Monday watering, and we will try to get reminders out to the
weekend people scheduled.
Drip lines: Some work has begun on this. A hole is dug. I
talked to Karin and she thinks the problem is regulating the
pressure. I am not sure where this stands. Until we get
confirmation from Karin that the system is a go, we will continue
our hand watering.
When the drip system is working, we would like to switch over
to soaker hoses in the beds. The current drip equipment seems fragile
and high maintenance.
Leila was going to talk to Karen about getting the Y connection
for the hose so we could more easily stay on top of the water
needs.
Other items:
Weeding: On going and a great task while soaking a bed.
Shade: Leila and Cathi moved the table under the tree by the
veggie beds. This is a nice place to meet as a gardening
committee. The tree will need some sappers pruned.
Plantings: The carrots are barely holding on. We might want to
consider reseeding these. We have a number of squash blossoms,
peppers and a few tomatoes started. The herb garden is thriving!
22/23 May
Leila Whelan & Cindy Madrid - rained out - no need for watering.
Debra did some light weeding in the herb garden and pulled bind-weed
from around the trees (near the pumpkin patch). The new pumpkins are
coming up - beautiful!
16 May
Jan Thomas -
Debra Shepherd - 2 hours. Bought & planted jack-o-lantern pumpkin
seeds in the remaining 3 hills that were prepared for
planting. She also weeded the bind-weed out from around the
trees and from the flower garden near the pumpkin patches.
She weeded the herb garden near the boxes - removing many
goat head plants and volunteer tomatoes from the compost.
The red petunias and red/yellow snap dragons are looking
good next to the pink-flowering rose bushes and purple
flowering sage. Garlic, oregano and rosemary are all doing
beautifully.
8/9 May
Cathi van Fleet - 6 hours. Watering and light weeding - the charter
school was closed down due to the swine flu scare. Cathi
went to the school every day during the week to water the
boxes and new plantings. Great job!
1/2 May
Cathi van Fleet - 1 hour. Watering and light weeding
25 Apr
CVCS group gardening, picnic & committee meeting. Participants:
Michael Hanauer, Tommie McSherry, Tracy Steele, Cathi van
Fleet, Debra Shepherd, Jim Shepherd, Leila Whelan. (3 hours
x 4 people) Minutes below:
Karin Williams discussed our gardening plans with the
teachers and they gave her feedback on what kind of plants
they wanted to plant in the boxes. Cherry tomatoes, peppers,
zuchini & yellow squash, cucumber & pumpkins were the highest
priorities.
Debra & Jim Shepherd bought plants (tomatoes & peppers) and
seeds (squash, pumpkins) from the last of the money available
from the Home Depot gift card and also from Walmart. Note:
we lost several seed packages because a monster dust storm
blew through the gardens when we were working. So the
pumpkins were lost along with the basil and some others.
Such is life.
Michael Hanauer (Karin's husband) got a load of composted
horse maneur and he and Jim Shepherd helped to spread it into
the beds. Michael and Leila dug a second pumpkin bed and
filled it with compost and soil, ready for planting.
Tommie, Cathi, Leila & Debra cleaned out all the boxes,
harvesting what ever was possible (mostly greens). A monster
dust devil swept through the area and blew away 1/2 of the
seed packages. What was left, we planted. All boxes got a
tomato and/or pepper plant (except the volunteer's box - we
didn't have enough plants). Everyone got some garlic that we
transplanted from the bed Karin had planted earlier. We also
planted various seeds, different ones in different beds:
zuchini, yellow squash, cucumber, carrots, chard, Lakota
pumpkin squash. We lost the jack-o-lantern pumpkin seeds,
basil, and several other seed packages to the dust devil.
All seed areas were labeled with a stick that had the name of
the plants that would come up. The boxes were watered well
at the end.
Leila planted Lakota pumpkin squash in one of the new pumpkin
beds next to the waste bin. Lakota is a large, pumpkin-like
squash that will be orange with green stripes, dark orange
flesh, sweet to eat. Debra weeded the trees and flower bed
next to the pumpkin area and watered everything well.
We all then had a picnic. Debra brought drinks, chips and an
apple-apricot-pear crisp. Kids played, adults rested in the
shade and enjoyed the early afternoon.
Karin arranged to have the afterschool group of kids and
their teachers water the gardens after school Mon - Fri.
18 Apr
Debra Shepherd - ~ 1 hr. Watered the herb/flower garden, compost
bins and planter boxes. Weeded the planter boxes (lots of grass from
the straw mulch was mixed in with the garlic). Weeded the area
around the boxes a bit.
11 Apr
Debra Shepherd - ~ 3 hrs. Weeded the herb garden, watered herbs,
compost bins and planter boxes. Jim Shepherd bought flowers and
compost. Debra planted petunias, snap dragons &
pansies in clear spots in the herb garden and dropped the compost
off for Leila Whelan's pumpkin patch.
27 Mar
Leila Whelan - ~ 3 hrs. Pumpkin patch preparation.
Watered trees, herb garden and boxes.
27 Mar
Leila Whelan - ~ 3 hrs. Pumpkin patch preparation.
Watered trees, herb garden and boxes.
21 Mar
Jan Thomas - Watered all the gardens and made sure everything looked
OK.
20 Mar
Leila Whelan - ~ 3 hrs. Pumpkin patch preparation.
Watered trees, herb garden and boxes.
13 Mar
Leila Whelan - ~ 3 hrs. Worked on the area next to the dumpster.
Continued to clean up, started to dig up area for a pumpkin patch.
Watered the trees here and the herb garden and boxes.
27 Feb
Leila Whelan - 3 hours. Worked for about 3 hrs on the area next to the
dumpster. Cleaning up the area and getting it ready to start
building a pumpkin patch against the back hill. Also watered the
garden boxes and herb garden next to the boxes.
14 Feb
Leila Whelan, Mary Nutt, Debra Shepherd - 3 hrs gardening, 1 hr
committee meeting.
