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

We got to work out here, post- plant sale, to finally get a lot of plants planted. Some sections of the garden needed some restructuring and reorganization. We got some corn in the ground and will be doing some three sisters gardening.

Mini corn field

We planted some corn around our super cool bean pole teepee.

Bean pole & corn teepee

Then we did a quick mini- lesson on how plants flower and go to seed. We took this info and ripped out chard plants that had seeded. But first we harvested the leaves for our buddies at the Rainier Valley Food Bank.

Group effort for sure

We also built the skeleton of our hoop houses, so our tomatoes can get super hot and super delicious.

A line? wow.

It was the best plant sale yet in my 4 years here. Thanks to all the students who worked so hard to grow these plants. The greenhouse still has tons of plants left over- which is a really great thing. We donate plants to so many non-profits & schools- they rely on us to help them get a super jump start on growing food for those in need. Social enterprise at it’s finest- people buy organic starter plants for their gardens, and we can in turn help out a  lot of other people who need our help. Yay!

Special thanks to all the UW volunteers- they really helped for many weeks before tagging, transplanting, and making it all happen. Thank you Emily, Sarah, Jasmine,  & Jesse.

the day before….thanks to UW volunteer Emily!

Also- much thanks to all the parent volunteers who really helped make this a community effort like no other.  Hannah- our garden committee QUEEN- she has been down in the trenches since day one- THANKS! Thank you to Kelli for our fabulous baked goods. Laura & Tom for all their extra plant support and labor. Tamara- our cashier and master money person. Big thanks to Lily & Jaala for putting together their fabulous Makery craft area for all the kids at the sale. So many people to thank- Orca couldn’t exist without all of our community support.