2013
What a Lick of Paint does
November 10, Forever indebted to the constant line of volunteers that come through our garden and fix it up to the way it is today.
This sunday we had 2 groups: the UVA Boy Scouts and UVA's Green Grounds Group. Teaming up, the volunteers painted and chatted their way through the afternoon. The fence and benches have been given a coating of protective stain: Olympic - semi transparent exterior Stain, color: ............. If you are interested? |
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Loofah
October, 2013
So who thought Loofah came from the sea? You can be forgiven from doing so as most people do. Sponges, actually do grow on the sea bed, but Loofah are growing here right in our own vegetable garden. Related to squash and gourds, you can see the likeness. It grows on a huge rampant vine and produces long green cucumber type fruits. When the fruits are ready, you can tear off the skins and wash and knock out the pulp and seeds (save and dry the seeds for future plants). The fibrous insides are then left to dry and bleach in the sun, ready for the bathroom.
So who thought Loofah came from the sea? You can be forgiven from doing so as most people do. Sponges, actually do grow on the sea bed, but Loofah are growing here right in our own vegetable garden. Related to squash and gourds, you can see the likeness. It grows on a huge rampant vine and produces long green cucumber type fruits. When the fruits are ready, you can tear off the skins and wash and knock out the pulp and seeds (save and dry the seeds for future plants). The fibrous insides are then left to dry and bleach in the sun, ready for the bathroom.
Luscious Lettuce!
What a team!
The praying mantis gets a new home
September 7, 2013
Venable families displayed their strength on saturday, showing their muscles they pushed, pulled, hacked, chain-sawed, raked, drilled, seeded and watered our gardens into fantastic shape for the fall.
Lettuce and grapes were planted; beans, chard and beet were sown. A huge old stump was exposed and an elegant trellis was erected for our future apple trees.
All we need do now is sit back and watch it grow (only kidding).
A huge thank you to all those who showed up - large and small!
Sorry we didn't get to photograph all of you - if you have pics you'd like uploaded send them to Sara
Venable families displayed their strength on saturday, showing their muscles they pushed, pulled, hacked, chain-sawed, raked, drilled, seeded and watered our gardens into fantastic shape for the fall.
Lettuce and grapes were planted; beans, chard and beet were sown. A huge old stump was exposed and an elegant trellis was erected for our future apple trees.
All we need do now is sit back and watch it grow (only kidding).
A huge thank you to all those who showed up - large and small!
Sorry we didn't get to photograph all of you - if you have pics you'd like uploaded send them to Sara
Summer in the Garden 2013
UVA's Batten Builds
August 26, 2013
Thank you so much to Emily, Emily, Paige, Mary, Brian and Alison, who got into the groove on Monday and spent the afternoon clearing and sprucing up our gardens. A huge difference! We can finally see our way forward.
Thank you so much to Emily, Emily, Paige, Mary, Brian and Alison, who got into the groove on Monday and spent the afternoon clearing and sprucing up our gardens. A huge difference! We can finally see our way forward.
Black Bear's Black Gold - Thank you Escafe!
August 22, 2013
Confused by the connection? Black Bear composting will collect all your food scraps and compostables, turn them into garden compost and deliver it back to you. This it the arrangement they have with Escafe. Escafe in turn, donated the compost to us!
Thank you Todd Howard at Escafe and Eric Walter at Black Bear Composting |
Look at this huge pile of rich, dark organic "Black Gold" - this was all created from food scraps.
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Summer 2013
Fruits .... of our labor
Roots
Flowers
The variety of Nasturtium flowers planted as seeds by Ms Hunter's class in the spring.
The changing stages of the Artichoke flower. It is time to cut it and steam it when it is a tight bud (left photo) but then you never get to see the beautiful flower that the bees enjoy (right photograph) - what a dilema!
Leaves
The results are in.....
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Compost Bins x 3May 2013
One saturday morning this spring a group of great hearted citizens and friends of CSG worked hard in the garden of Burnley Moran and made Venable, from scratch this impressive compost bin. Never having thought of compost bins as attractive before - We think you should agree this one is very pretty! Why 3 sections: While section 1 is being filled, Section 2 is resting (composting), and section 3 is being emptied into the garden. Rotate each year. We are extremely grateful! For more information on composting go to our resources page. |
Favorite gardening quote.
"One year's seeds is seven years weeds". If you let your weeds go to seed, you will be weeding them up for the next 7 years!
Flowers
May 2013
The warm May weather has encouraged some flowers out. The prelude to the fruits ( and seeds) we will be harvesting later in the summer. 4th Grade have been learning about the parts of the flower and dissecting them. Can you see different flower types here?
The warm May weather has encouraged some flowers out. The prelude to the fruits ( and seeds) we will be harvesting later in the summer. 4th Grade have been learning about the parts of the flower and dissecting them. Can you see different flower types here?
Favorite gardening quote.
"Ne'er cast a clout till the May be out". This is an old English saying. Clout being clothing (winter clothing) and May, is the May flower, AKA Hawthorn (Crataegsus) - commonly found in all the hedgerows. Named for the month that it usually flowers in.
Leaves
April 2013
All vegetables have leaves - we just don't eat them all. The warm wet month of April has given us lush growth in our garden. Check out the different leaves - which ones do we like to eat?
All vegetables have leaves - we just don't eat them all. The warm wet month of April has given us lush growth in our garden. Check out the different leaves - which ones do we like to eat?
Our Green GreenhouseAs you know the 4th grade science children have been busy this semester! UVA's Global Sustainability
course students have been visiting Venable regularly and teaching the science students far more than the 3 R's: They have learnt all about plastics and their appropriate uses, how to recycle them and in our case how to reuse them. (See projects page for more ideas). We all have collected water bottles and the culmination has been building a greenhouse for Venable's Vegetable Garden. The children learnt all about how a greenhouse works, how that relates to the greenhouse effect and how the materials and orientation of a building can play a key roll in reducing the amount of energy required to maintain the environment you want. This was rolled into Ms. O'Brien's science curriculum on climate and weather. All this from a plastic greenhouse! The PTO have made a generous financial gift to facilitate this project and we hope the relationship between the two schools can continue into the future. |
Learning |
Building
Spring Fair Madness
Not as crazy as we were all bracing ourselves for. The garden group hid themselves in the crafts room, leaving the garden to fend for itself with signs and the moon bounce! The spring fair was a little too early for the cabbage growing contest and a little too chilly for snail races or wildlife trecks, but we had fun potting on Lavender and Sweet Peas, decorating pots, and making herb bouquets and seed packets for our own home produced seeds.
Where to begin? - with a really huge THANK YOU!
Look at how we've grown. What a fantastic effort on saturday March 16th, and we were this close .. to canceling with the threat of rain. The weather turned out to be great for working in the garden and the volunteers turned out to be stella as well. EVERYTHING we wanted to do we got done! The new Jeff/Jeb fence, new garden beds, moved shed and the birds have new bird boxes!
More than we had hoped for! We have doubled our growing space and we can not wait to fill it - WATCH THIS SPACE as they say!
For those of you checking back........
More than we had hoped for! We have doubled our growing space and we can not wait to fill it - WATCH THIS SPACE as they say!
For those of you checking back........
The Great Pea Race
So many races in our future! This one is a pea growing contest. Organized by City Schoolyard Garden and fashioned on the antics of Thomas Jefferson and his neighbors. The 3rd Grade at Venable will be sowing peas on the first of March and compete with all the other City Elementary School' 3rd Graders, to see who can produce the first pea pod of the season. Put your green thumbs on - third grade!!
The story of the gourd.
Winter Garden - January 2013
Not the most exciting time of the year to be out - but if you are there is activity and things are on the move - albeit slowly!
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