The fascinating world of the Orca K-8 school garden!

Our great Orca legend Marletta turned 70 years old yesterday and a massive celebration was in order! She has been a teacher at Orca (since before it was Orca) for over 30 years and there is so much love and appreciation for the positivity and teaching that she brings to our school. In honor of her dedication to starting worm composting at Orca, one of the 5 new huge wormbins at Orca was dedicated to her and will rest outside her classroom in the new garden. The wormbin was dedicated to her in her classroom with Principal Ben Ostrom and then again in the staff lounge for an impromptu birthday cake celebration. Marletta t-shirts were worn by many people all around school!

The garden has turned a corner. The smell of fresh flowers and herbs is in the air. The garden is blooming! Seeds are sprouting! The master plan is coming to fruition. We have lift-off! On a sunny March day, many classes came out and helped plant an incredible mint garden, a pizza garden (oregano, thyme, rosemary, etc.), many flowers and bulbs, and a ton of roots that will bloom in the oncoming Spring. The garden is alive!

Thank you so much to Slow Food Seattle for their amazing volunteer support in saturday’s productive work party. We were able to finally finish digging out the center herb spiral of the garden and bring the vitamin rich compost in. This was tough work but Slow Food really came through with enthusiasm and vigor! Thank you to Tiana Colovos who has been fostering this amazing partnership with such an incredible organization. Click here to learn more about Slow Food Seattle.

We also had a work party to finish painting the native flowers that will adorn the fence around the garden. We are putting these in to beautify the fence and increase knowledge of native plants. Thanks to Michaela Miller and Lilly Hotchkiss for their organizing and support.

Finally, we hosted our first community workshop for community members around Orca. We helped people set up home wormbins.  Thanks to the Department of Neighborhoods, we were able to supply all the materials. 15 families came through and left with their own wormbin and knowledge about the benefits of home composting!

20 Rasberries,  19 bluberries, a male & female kiwi, eucalyptus, a dwarf bing cherry, and more were all planted today. Soon we will reap the tasty benefits of all the hard work the students did planting them today. We also finished planting native plants on the north side of the science annex building. Students also got a chance to smell all the mint varietys we just picked up. It’s shaping up to be a bountiful garden in the Spring!