There’s new life in the garden! In early May, seventh grade students in Life Science started moving seedlings into the garden.

In the first week of May, they took plants that were growing inside under grow lights and moved them outside right next to the building. It’s starting to turn warmer, and they felt it was finally warm enough to move the plants outside. However, they were next to the building to get some protection, as the young plants couldn’t risk being suddenly exposed to too many of the elements.

By the second week in May, the plants were finally big enough and hardy enough to move to the garden, making a garden bed home to both lettuce and radish sprouts.

In total, about 64 sprouts were moved into the garden and are starting to take root. The two classes were divided into four groups each, and each had eight plants to put in each square. Half was lettuce and the other half was radish. Along with that, corn seeds were planted along the edges of the squares, which is what is seen in this picture. The students are pushing the corn seeds down into the ground.

Because these are still young plants, a hoop house was erected above the garden bed, which can be seen as the white material in the background. This protects the plants from the elements, like the middle school building did before.

Along with that, the cover crops that the class had planted have started to grow, with both the peas and oats are flourishing. The plants that look like grass are oats, which have long roots, helping to keep the soil healthy. The leaves of the pea plants are round, and the leaves are actually edible, and kind of taste like peas.

Hopefully by the end of the year, we’ll start to see some major growth, as the plants start developing past sprouts.