January 19, 2012

 
Svea - Lower  Elementary                          

Today at the farm we started with a review of the farm rules.  We measured our garlic growth rate and my job was weather person. We divided into two groups, upper and lower elementary and then we decided as a group who will perform what job. The jobs are scribe, weather person, garlic measurer and calculator. Then we did an experiment to test the soil in our very own garden to see the rate the soil percolates.  We want to make sure that water moves through the soil at a proper rate. We each dug a hole in the bed 12” deep and filled them with water. We waited ten minutes and measured how much water had percolated through the soil. We multiplied the number of inches that percolated in 10 minutes by 6 since there are 60 minutes in an hour and we wanted to know the rate of percolation per hour. My soil percolated at a rate of 32 inches per hour.  

 

The lower elementary got to work in the strawberry garden pulling the overflow of strawberry growth outside the bed.  I did not because I am allergic to strawberries.  I joined the upper elementary group and tested the PH in our bed. We found that the PH was 7. On a scale of 0 to 14 the PH of our soil was balanced at 7 so this means our plants will be able to get the nutrients they need from the soil. Yay!!

January 12, 2012

Carina - upper elementary

Today we went to the farm and gathered in a circle. We always start farm class in a circle. We had a little talk and reviewed the rules. We got on our gloves…and weeded the garlic bed. We measured the constant and the tallest plants. We found that the constant garlic actually shrunk and our tallest garlic plant grew 1”. It was cold outside with the wind blowing. The Lower Elementary got to pick two turnips each. After they picked them they removed the leafy part at the top and composted the leaves. The reason they picked two each was so the Upper Elementary would have one to take home as well. Before that, we talked about tools and went on a tool exploration of the garden. We found lots of tools that serve a purpose and make our jobs easier on the farm.

January 5, 2012

Maddy - lower elementary

Before we went out to the farm today Farmer Edwin came to the classroom to see the outcome of our terrarium experiment. We found that our terrariums  showed that our original hypothesis was correct. Tomatoes need to rot in their own juices to germinate at a higher rate. We took the non-rotten tomato seed to the farm and composted them. Farmer Edwin showed us how to replant our tomato seedlings in pots so we could replant them at home.  He said it would take many months before we saw tomatoes.

Today I especially liked looking around the farm to see what changed while we were on break for two weeks. There were pretty yellow wildflowers growing near the compost. They were beautiful. We spotted deer tracks in the onion bed. Was it a male or female deer or both? On the way back from the farm I saw a mini-car that had a sign on the side that said mini from Birmingham. It was a fun farm day.