Friday in the Garden 05.17.2013

Did you know it was our last day in the garden (Kate)? First we started our observations like usual (Kara & Lily). One thing we noticed was our tree that we voted on is growing leaves (Sierra). Another new observation was the pumpkins we buried now have new pumpkins (Bhavya). We also saw a tree that didn't have any leaves and it looked like it was dying. The most exciting change we saw was a GIANT zucchini (Abby)! It came from the seeds we planted (Herath)! Wow! It was so big (Price)! 

After that we made a nature web by answering questions about nature and holding a part of string if we got the question right (Rex). The nature web stands for interdependence (Kayla). 

After that our teacher got to harvest the humongous zucchini (Vilina). 

Ms. Bonnie cut it up and we got to eat a piece with yummy pesto (Max). It tasted AMAZING (Courtney)!

 Good bye, Garden! We'll see you next year (Caroline)! 

Monarch waystation

At the Titan Garden we are proud to be a certified Monarch Waystation through Monarch Watch. Being a waystation means that we have made a commitment to grow certain plants that support the monarch migration, plants that allow monarchs to stop on their long, multi-generational migration and feed and reproduce to continue the journey. One of the critical plants for the migration is milkweed. There are many types of milkweed, but we have chosen two for our garden, planted them only 18 months ago, and have been watching every since.
Last week we were rewarded when there was an initial sighting of one monarch caterpillar.

We were ecstatic but within days, our sighting of one caterpillar was eclipsed by our sighting of dozens of monarch caterpillars- up to 25 in a single day!
So please enjoy some pictures from our monarch party in the Titan Garden. We feel honored to have assisted with such an amazing journey

Safe travels, little guys!

Nature connections

As we get toward the end of our school year and our garden classes, we are bringing a lot of environmental concepts together with our student gardeners. What do the following have in common?















Our students are learning this week that they are all members of the same food chain. And they are also learning that the numbers of each of these animals that exist in nature is critical to the food chain not collapsing.

But why do we care about a food chain that doesn't involve us? Because every action that we take in nature, good and bad, can have consequences on animals that we have never even seen. And in the same way, actions taken on the other side of the world can have consequences on our very own food chain.

Our Titan Gardeners have been amazing this year and we are so proud of them for approaching each topic we discuss with such good thoughts. And we hope that our discussion of food chains encourages them to think beyond themselves when they take actions big and small that might affect other living things .

WOW (Lily)! We just studied cardinal directions yesterday and BOOM, right when we went outside we saw a compass rose on the path in the herb wheel (Will)! 

On the path the directions marked were northwest, southwest, northeast, and southeast (Bhavya). An Eagle Scout carved the compass and it was so cool seeing it on the path and there are so many other things we saw (Price, Kayla). The Eagle Scout also carved us an ABC path in the native garden (Herath). Some of us followed the path in alphabetical order (Sierra). 

We saw Monarch caterpillars and we hope to see them when they turn into butterflies (Abby). 

Pumpkins are sprouting from the ground (Max). They came from seeds from an old pumpkin we buried last year (Kara). The weather was nice but it was so foggy, we thought our eyes were blurry (Nathan). 

Today our assignment was to find different plant parts and rename them according to what their job is for the plant. We renamed roots to Sucker-Ground-Grabbers (Bridget). 

Stems were renamed to Cylinder Suckers (Vilina). Pretty Pollen Producers was the new name for flowers (Elliot) and finally leaves were renamed to Sun Grabbers. 

It was fun looking closely at the plant parts in our groups because we could compare them. For example some of the leaves were bumpy, some were soft and smooth, and some were poky and pointy (Kara, Vilina). 

We learned that every plant part has a job that makes the plant live just like us!  

Bugs everywhere we look

There are bugs all around us, especially in the garden, but we often don’t see them because they are tiny and are masters of hiding.  And there are around 5500 species of mammals discovered, there are 1,000,000 species of insects discovered.  Check out the chart below. 

Think about it, 1,000,000 species of insects and we estimate that we have only discovered 20%, which means there could be around 5,000,000 species of insects.  And 600,000 species of arachnids (only 17% discovered) are estimated.  Amazing and helps us put into perspective our place in the garden.  We talk to the kids a lot about how they are just visitors in the garden and being respectful of those living things that make their home in the garden. 

Well, we had a wonderful chance to get up close and personal with bugs a few weeks ago when Wizzie Brown, Texas A&M AgriLife entomologist, came to talk with the Titan garden classes. 

Wizzie discussed and displayed many types of arhtropods including insects, and arachnids.  We discussed what kinds of habitats they live in, why they might use venom and how they do the cool things they do (like walk up a wall of stand on the ceiling).  The kids got to look up close at things they might never see again, like Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches (above) and Emperor Scorpions. They saw the molted skin of a Goliath Bid-Eating Tarantula and a lcal Texas Brown Tarantula. They also saw examples of two notorious local spiders, the Brown Recluse and the Black Widow, and we discussed how to identify these dangerous spiders and what to do if you see one. 

Yes, some “ew”s and “gross” comments but the kids had wonderful questions about bug behavior.  1st grade and Kindergarten even got to try out walking like a bug which different students acting as the different body parts.  Not an easy task!

Thanks to Wizzie Brown for visiting with our Titan Gardeners and broadening their horizons.

Friday in the Garden 03.08.2013

It was really cold and kind of misty, but when we got to the garden we didn’t care about the weather.

First we listened to Ms. Bonnie tell us we would be planting summer seeds. She told us we would be removing the winter plants because the winter plants won’t be good in the summer.

Next we picked up shovels and pulled out the winter plants. After that we put coffee grounds and compost in the soil and mixed it with our shovels like mixing cake batter.

Then we got into small groups. Some of us planted plants that somebody had already started for us. Another group of us planted seeds. You have to make a mound of dirt and poke 3 holes about an inch long. After we poked the holes we put in our squash seeds and covered them with dirt.

Last, we put up our shovels and Ms. Bonnie showed us where pumpkin seeds had started growing.

We’re excited to see our plants grow. Even though the weather was gloomy we still had fun at garden.  

Is it really still February?

Classes have started back again in the Titan Garden and as I look around I have to wonder, is it really still February?  We just did a lesson with the kids on dormancy and as I look around, I see signs of plants breaking their dormancy all over.  The flame acanthus has tiny green buds on it, the batface cuphea is sprouting shoots from the base and the salvia are already thickening in the middle, crying out to be pruned around the woodier taller stems so they can be soft and fluffy.  

And then I looked across our wildflower field, where the kids did their seed dances last fall as we played the dance music loud for them.  Cups and cups and cups of sand and seed mixture were spread across this area.  I think the kids expected them to sprout right then and there- so we had to talk more about how some things take time but they would show themselves after a winter of settling in. 

 But now I see them , poking up and showing their colors.  Indian blanket, bluebonnets, mexican hat, primrose and more.  Sure, these are the early ones, over achievers in our wildflower field that are showing themselves in February.  And the kids are noticing them as well, telling me they see something different when they do their observation, asking what these flowers are that have suddenly shown themselves.  So we start talking about the names and colors, how to recognize that a bluebonnet has been pollinated, and reminding them how they all got here. 

It is wonderful to think that the students themselves brought these beautiful flowers to our school, with their jumping and dancing and laughing as they spread the seeds out.  The field which will be enjoyed by anyone who drives or walks by our garden for the next few months,  The kids will run through it during their garden classes, seeing bees and butterflies having just as good a time.  We will talk about native species, pollination, drought tolerance and more. 

The kids have grown their own garden lesson which will bring us joy as well as education for months.  And then we will watch as the flowers turn to seedheads and we will have yet another lesson placed in front of us about the cycle of life and how that tiny flower produces more seeds so we can have yet another season of wildflowers next year.