Gardening

I went to a conference last winter, and the theme was Wellness in Early Childhood.  Many of the speakers advocated starting school gardens and teaching kids about where food really comes from.  I'm sure you can imagine all the benefits of allowing children to take ownership of the garden through its  care and maintenance.  Ever since that conference, I have dreamed of putting in a garden for my students.  

Unfortunately, I am BAD at taking care of plants.  

The only reason any of the plants I have at home stay alive is because my husband waters them. 

I mentioned in my last post that my mom came to visit me this weekend.  Well, apparently she kept all of the green thumb genes for herself because she has always had gardening success. 

So guess what I had her do while she was here? 

The great thing is that I actually already had a large bed, but it looked like this.  

Sad and weedy.

So, after a trip to Home Depot, a bunch of Miracle-Gro (the special kind for lazy people, as my mom put it), and some good old-fashioned elbow grease, we got this:

Hopefully my lazy-people Miracle-Gro will counter-act my lack of green thumb, and things will actually grow.  We planted tomatoes, begonias, dusty millers, and some green beans (they're seeds, so you can't see them). Everything looks teeny tiny right now because it's new, and we covered everything in sawdust to prevent weeds.  

Has anyone else ever had to plant/maintain a school garden? I would be curious to hear thoughts about how these things actually work.