Butterfly feeders galore

 Our butterfly garden received a whole bunch of love this past week. With the help of Alessandro O., we constructed homemade butterfly feeders! We also assembled a butterfly feeder that we ordered from Amazon. Orange juice is the sweet, nectar-like substance that we added to our feeders to attract the butterflies. We were a little nervous about the state of our garden after the storm that blew through Pingree Grove, but all was intact! (Perhaps our shepherd's hook was a bit bent, and our tomato plant capsized, but we will able to set everything right again.) Our only plant casualty (despite all of the hot sun and the rabbits) in the garden so far has been the potatoes that we were trying to grow in a burlap sack.  That is one experiment we will need to start anew. 

Having some laughs while building                                           Xavier fills our feeders with o.j.                

(Tony, Mia, Will, Alessandro O., Alessandro C., & Braelynn)             

A multitude of feeders--drink up, butterflies!

We made it through the storm! 💪💚

Braiding a rope to hang our feeders & dangling some worms over our terracotta pots

Faith, the butterfly whisperer, with a Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis)

Reading in the garden on a "cool" day

Will finishes his novel in the peaceful butterfly garden

Lemon seedlings and new fruit

Yesterday we planted oregano and lemon thyme into our very own seedling pots made out of lemon rinds. At home, students can decide if they want to plant their lemon seedlings into a pot or directly into the ground. They can also decide whether to plant the lemon into the soil or to remove the roots of their seedlings from the lemon pot and place them into the soil. As we learned last week, a little bit of acidity is good for most plants. We discovered new lavender blooms and two ripe red tomatoes!

Our gardeners: Will, Amelia, Faith, Kaydence, Erica, and Samuel

Will, Amelia, and Faith plant their seedlings

Amelia and Will label their seedlings: Greek oregano (origanum vulgare) and lemon thyme (thymus citriodorus)

In the butterfly garden, we spotted a loyal monarch perched and then in flight. 

Wake up with lemon, coffee, and . . . WORMS!

On Thursday, we spiced up our garden by adding some acidity in the form of lemon rinds and coffee grounds. The acidity is good for the health of the soil, and the lemon can help to keep pests out of our plants! We also aerated and watered our soil, and once it looked like it should after a decent rain, we dropped in some Canadian Nightcrawlers! They will help to further aerate the soil and allow water to refresh the roots of our plants. Next week, we might try making Lemon Rind Seedling Planters. 

Will, Amelia,  and Tony slip some worms into our terracotta pots. Tony's tried to wriggle away!

Faith gives our plants a little caffeinated pick-me-up as Braelynn searches for bugs

Braelynn caught another cricket in the butterfly garden! We saw another elusive Monarch and two Clouded Sulpher (one fuzzy one in the close-up) butterflies. The Heartleaf is starting to bear some beautiful orange flowers!

The hastas got a little more care and water. We are trying to figure out if the leaves are being nibbled on by rabbits, scorched by the sun, or a little bit of both. Either way, we are on the case! We left the garden with some banana peppers, bell peppers, basil, and lavender in hand. 

Hardy hastas and dazzling designs

As a gardening club, we nurture the plants in our garden, but we also want to spruce up, care for, and beautify the other plants on our campus! On Tuesday, we weeded and watered our hasta plants, hoping to make them bear more luscious green leaves and purple blossoms. 

Thank you for your hard work, hasta crew! (Faith, Amelia, Will, and Kaydence)

We noticed that fortifying our pepper plants with eggshells really did the trick! We should be able to harvest some later this week. Our latest additions to the garden are two purple Aster flowers, representing our school colors! You will also see a new design with the painted rocks spelling out our school name. 

Samuel plants our purple Aster flowers             Kaydence adds more eggshells to our pepper plants

It is a little hard to spot our green letters, but they are easier to see in person, we promise!

Thank you, Erica & Angelina, for painting the rocks!

We have new green bell peppers and banana peppers!

We plucked our basil flowers to keep the herbs fresh.

In the butterfly garden, we spotted a monarch (unfortunately, it was too busy to pose for a picture) and some new lilies. We also worked to rejuvenate our butterfly bush and wild roses. Finally, we decorated the windows with paper butterflies made from the colors that live butterflies are most attracted to! We also threw in a colorful butterfly mobile for good luck. 

Amelia displays her purple butterfly

The wild rose we hope to revive

Butterfly spotting continues!

Yesterday we saw a couple of increases: more gardeners joined our club, more leaves adorned our plants, and we spotted three monarchs! To care for our plants, we used toothpicks to aerate the soil and crushed up eggshells to add calcium to our pepper and tomato plants. We watered and created some more decorations for the border of our garden. 

Our gardeners: Alana, Will, Erica, Kaydence, Samuel, Alessandro, and Xavier

Once we headed over to the butterfly garden, we pulled some weeds, watched the flight of the monarchs, read some books, and brainstormed ideas for a butterfly feeder--our next project. Thank you, gardeners! Your hard work is paying off.  We have several green tomatoes and new peppers ready for harvesting soon!

Can you spot the monarchs?  (2/3 captured in flight)

Thank you, Erica! That was a huge thistle weed.😅

Will represents Gardening Club, and Alessandro sets up a daisy grow pod.  

Thank you, Orquiola family for your donation!

Future scientists? We could see it!

Today was very productive! We welcomed three new members as we watered, replenished, and tended to our plants. We also brainstormed ways to welcome ladybugs and worms to our garden. It is possible that we have some future entomologists in the CLCS Gardening Club! Their knowledge of insects is quite impressive.

Welcome, Tony, Braelynn, and Alessandro!
Thank you to the Bodnar family for their donation of potting soil. 

When we moved over to the butterfly garden to pull weeds, we discovered two monarchs were waiting for us! This made us think that we should come up with a creative plan to build butterfly feeders, Mark Rober style.

"Mony" the Monarch

Braelynn and her cricket

 The students even caught a cricket! If you are considering coming to Reading in the Garden or if you are in need of a book for the summer, check out these recommendations from our gardeners.

These books are available via the bin outside of the Purple Kiva entrance.

Labeling our plants, showing school spirit

Last week we denoted all the Latin species names of our plants and created labels for each one! It sounds fancy, but all of this was done the old-fashioned way, with pencil, notecards, Scotch tape, and toothpicks.

Well done, Faith!

Our featured artists are Angelina and Erica. 

Thank you to the Lia family for their donation of "Ellen" the peppermint plant.

We also painted rocks to spell out CLCS in our Coyote colors. These rocks will decorate the border of our garden. Of course, maintenance of the garden is our first priority. We watered the plants and treated them with diluted fish oil fertilizer and Epsom salts, both to add nutrients to the soil and to ward off pests. So far, our plants seem to be resilient against both insects and rabbits. We only have a few nibbles on our sage plant. We also filled in the topsoil on several of our plants because some of it had washed away after a hard rain. After our work was done, everyone walked away with a sprig of lavender or a flower, as well as a sweet banana pepper. Erica and I then weeded the butterfly garden outside of Purple Kiva.  While doing so, we spotted a monarch butterfly! Hopefully, we will see more soon.