Knee High by the 4th of July

We are coming up on the 4th of July weekend. Our garden is growing well! Two weeks ago, we were able to harvest our radishes. The kids got to try them and you can only imagine the results! Some kids loved them while others ran to the bathroom! I wish I would have remembered the camera that day!

As you can tell by the title and our picture, Our corn is just about knee high right now. We are well on our way to a good harvest. Everything is looking great! The kids are really excited about how the garden is turning out.

I will try to update more frequently and remember pictures as the kids are trying the products of their work!

First Week of Summer Club

Well, we just finished our first week of our summer program. We have had a lot of rain this past week! We're probably around the 2 inch mark. This has really helped our garden get growing and has helped me to not have to haul the hydrant meter out to the hydrant too often.

Our plants are growing really well! When we were adding fertilizer today, we notice some peppers are growing and we have cuccumbers growing too! Our radishes are starting to bulge out of the soil. Corn is looking nice and should hopefully be knee high by the 4th of July!

To help support our climbing beans, I bought some 1 in x 1in animal cage wire. I created an arch between two beds and the beans are starting to climb right up! The kids love our little "cave" we've started!

It looks like we are in for some decent storms tonight. I hope the garden can survive!

The big problem solved! For now.

So, if you have read any of my earlier posts, you probably noticed the biggest problem I had was where I would get my water from. Well, my original thought was a rain barrel, but neither the school nor the fire station had external down spouts. We ended up talking to the water and light company to come up with a solution. We were able to rent a hydrant meter to tap off of the fire hydrant. This meter runs us about $13/quarter (three months) and the water cost is about $2.89/748 gallons.

Down falls: the meter is huge! It is quite heavy. The distance from the gardens to the hydrant is about 120'. This is not a good way to sustain the project after grant funding is used up.

Pros: The water will always be there!

We use garden hose to run out to the gardens and fill the watering cans.

Stuff is starting to grow nicely and the kids will be excited!