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

In still continuing with the awesomeness of Orca camp- we did a crazy amount of cool activities today. We made flower collages with real petals and glue, collected 3 kinds of sage to make Native American smudge sticks, & we extracted our lavender oil that has been soaking for 3 days.

Lavender oil extraction

We also had a very special guest Beth who taught us a lot about medicinal plants. We tasted a bunch of tinctures, then took a walk through the neighborhood to see if we could find medicinal plants in peoples yards and on the sidewalks- there were a lot!

Tasting tinctures

Its been so much fun here. The smiles and laughs are coupled with a lot of learning about haikus & medicinal plants. Heidi came in to teach us about haikus, so we walked down to the p-patch doing a sensory walk.  Then we did some fun writing there. After that, we came back and added watercolors to the haikus while drinking fresh mint tea.

They found quiet spots in the p-patch and made some great observations.

Then after, we made plant/flower/herb crowns. Sweet!

Summer camp rules!

We had the utmost honor of having art teacher Lily come by and do some incredible projects with us. We did some drawings & scientifically artistic Painting w/ flower pedals.

painting w/ flowers

We also planted a whole bed of lettuce, radishes, and chives. we picked our very own carrots too. Yum!

Pick it

Hello?! Hello!?

The abundant smiles & harvest today were awesome. We are having a 16 student summer camp all this week that is packed with garden-tastic activities, tastings, art, and massive fun. Today we made pies with Kelli (thank you!), harvested giant squashes, picked and shelled scarlet runner beans, did leaf rubbings, walked to the p-patch, harvested lavender for lavender oil, and so much more.

Cucumber Fun!

It’s great to have students in the garden during the summer, which is the ultimate challenge of garden education. It’s a great group who are really excited to be here. We have so many special guests this week doing art, poetry, and medicinal plants. This is gonna be a special week for sure. Stay tuned!

Sunflowers

There’s nothing like summer in the garden. There’s bees hovering around blooming flowers, crops growing, smell of mints & sages in the air- The Orca Garden has it all goin’ on. There are gonna be tons of tomatoes, potatoes, beans, squashes, greens, cucumbers & more in the fall. For now, we water and wait- soaking in the quietness before the beautiful storm of kids come stomping through here tasting, smelling, and havin’ a blast.