At Interlochen Elementary School,
we really had our work cut out for us when we decided to revitalize several of
the outdoor raised beds to cultivate more vegetables than the indoor hydroponic
garden in the school library could support. Just outside those library windows
where the kale and nasturtiums grow in a nutrient solution under fluorescent
lights, there are ten large raised beds. The beds had been left to their own
devices for about 2 years and as one 2nd grader described it, “It
looked like we were just growing weeds.” Needless to say, there was a lot of
weeding to do!
With the
help of volunteers and students, we successfully weeded five of the ten beds,
removed three, and relocated two. Then we added about 1 inch of compost to each
one. To make weeding easy, one person first loosened the soil using a digging
fork or a broadfork. This broke up the dense root structures below the surface
of the soil. Then, we proceeded to weed using hand tools, strong hands, and
sheer will power. Well, many hands make light work – and within several hours
about 300 square feet of gardening space was made ready for planting!
The one
complication that remains at the Interlochen Elementary School Garden is the
underground system of tree roots that have begun to penetrate the soil in the
raised beds. Let this lesson be learned: Watch out for trees when planning your
school or home garden, as their roots can find their way into your beds and
compete with your plants for soil nutrients and space.
No comments:
Post a Comment