The children are back in school! And we continue to enjoy the harvest of our summer garden. We are letting the beans go to seed, so that we might store and plant them next year.
We began our new garden curriculum this week with fourth and fifth grade....including "garden math," "journaling" and much more in addition to growing, harvesting and composting.
We also learned that we are finalists in the Sustainable Contra Costa Leadership Awards and will be going to their annual gala to find out what that means!! It's so nice to be included in these community events and share our "bounty" with others...."bounty" in terms of energy, commitment, and joy in being together in the garden.
We are also hosting a composting workshop on October 19th for the CCSW organization, and Robin and Jerry will be the presenters. that's at 3:45.
And last BUT NOT LEAST.... A BIG WORK PARTY IS BEING PLANNED FOR SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 FROM 9:30 TO noon. the purpose is to prepare the circles for the winter crops. We anticipate receiving a truckload of manure from Todd and there will be lots of work for all. We plan on sending an invitation to the whole school. Hope you can be there.
Reuel continues to bake and sell zucchini bread in room 10.....sold before it's out of the oven! And soon we'll have another batch of Home Town Honey from Mike Stephanos! And, as we did last year, we plan on picking persimmons from the Roemer's orchard so that we can sell those as well.
We would like to continue making our produce available to the local homeless shelter. The children really enjoyed chopping vegetables for the big pot of soup that we delivered a few weeks ago.

Late summer afternoon

Susan, those photos are beautiful!! What a perfect week it's been in the garden. Reuel's zucchini bread is being consumed in record amounts. And when the squash is no longer producing, he'll start baking pumpkin bread. Should be delicious!

Sunday morning

A perfect sunny day...

LOTS of bean picking

Fertilizing the fruit trees with our own compost

Cora bringing the hose up the hill for her dad

The corn will be ready to harvest soon

and the pumpkins, too

End of July update

Here is an email that Ellen sent to garden folks last week:

The beauty of the garden is overwhelming!  So many birds, butterflies and bees all hovering around the lovely squash blossoms and other flowers!  lots of wildlife, including (unfortunately) the inevitable gophers. think "go away" thoughts.  We are trying many things to discourage their continued residency.  Fortunately, the resilience of our plants will win out.

We have had many new snack options for the children including zucchini bread, stuffed squash, squash pancakes, squash chips, and squash quesadillas.  We've also served cucumber, lettuce, and carrots! Reuel has been baking and selling fabulous zucchini bread, which is sold by the time it gets out of the oven!  We have also been able to begin supplying the preschool snack program with fresh yellow squash.
Our pumpkins are impressive!!  Carol has the children search for them since they can be hidden beneath the enormous leaves.
The corn has silks...how beautiful it's been to watch it grow and develop. Our many, many beans are flowering and we are looking forward to that harvest.


And here are a few photos taken by Susan this morning:

beans, beans, beans

and pumpkins

Lets look at using flat stepping stones for our paths. Also let's add herbs somewhere .