Salsa Garden Observations by Kurtis, fifth grade

I like the garden. I liked digging the grass up and raking it up out of the dirt. I like the feel of the dirt it is soft, it had a little of clay in it. I think the garden would look like a jungle next year. We can work together and get it done if we work hard. I see all the plots they are cool. The plants are growing fast. The weather is sunny. It is hot and a cool wind. I like the days when we work on the garden.

Ms. Lenard's class is OK interview

This is Ms. Lenard's class interview, Ms. Warke's class asked us questions...
Q: What kind of flowers did you plant?
A: We planted indian blanket, coreopsis, blazing star, sage, salvia, and coneflower.
Q: Is your garden actually coming along with working together?
A: Yes, it is really coming along, and we are working together really good.
Q: What kind of garden do you have and what does it represent?
A: We are making an Oklahoma garden.
Q: What does an Oklahoma garden represent?
A: It represents Oklahoma and the plants that are in Oklahoma. They are naturally in Oklahoma, another word for that is native.
Q: Why did you guys pick Oklahoma?
A: Because when Ms. Oakley came we were thinking of different states and countries and we voted and everybody picked Oklahoma.
Q: Is you garden really the shape of Oklahoma?
A: Yes.
Q: How hard was it to make your garden?
A: It wasn't that hard because we put rocks around to make the shape of Oklahoma and we were working together.
Q: Did you put new soil in yet?
A: Yes. We put the new dirt on top ot the old dirt and then we mixed it up.
Q: Are you planning to do something else with your garden?
A: Yes, we want to make OK in the empty space. We want to use plants but we haven't decided yet. We could put some chairs or something. And we are going to plant an indigo bush outside of our garden because it needs a lot of space. It can grow 9 to 12 feet tall. It attracts butterflies. The butterflies lay eggs on it, its a host plant. Some of our plants are perennial.

Ms. Warnke's class berry best interview

Ms. Warke's and Ms. Lenard's class wrote an interview...
Q: What kind of fruits do you have in your garden?
A: We have strawberries in our garden. And Ms. Oakley ordered golden raspberries, regular raspberries, blackberries, and black raspberries over the internet.
Q: Are they growing yet?
A: The strawberries are growing, and the other berries are on thieir way. We will plant them when they arrive.
Q: Have you eaten any of your fruits yet?
A: Yes, we ate some strawberries. And we ate blueberries, grapes, and blackberries when we had a little tasting party in the garden.
Q: When did you plant the strawberries?
A: We planted them a couple of weeks ago. We did not plant the blackberries yet.
Q: Why are you making a berry garden?
A: Because we are going to be the only class stearing towards a berry garden. Most of the people in our class voted on berries. And we wanted to have a garden that no other class had.
Q: Are you going to plant anything else besides berries?
A: We planted a few sunflowers.
Q: How many different berries did you plant?
A: We have only plnated strawberries.
Q: Were the berries good when you ate them?
A: Yes, they were yummy. They were berry good!

Angel's Report

Our global garden is a success. Our class is doing a berry garden. So far we planted strawberries. After that we did a tast test. We tasted raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries.

Mrs.Warnkes Class Berry Garden goes Flowers!

Some of Mrs.Warnkes students(names unavailable)planted a sunflower seed in their garden to give their garden a little dazzle and their strawberry plants have produced some flowers!Lets hope it doesn't clash!As reporter Tamara said, our neighbors lent us their hose again.Mrs.Oakley is so happy and amazed about how fast our garden is getting on!

Mrs.Warnkes Class Berry Garden,
NIchole

Sharing, by Tamara N. Y., 4th grade

Global Gardens had been talking about how dry the ground was because they don't have a sprinkeler yet. They were so sad that the ground was very dry but then a car shop next to the garden shared their water with them. The teacher, Ms. Oakley was so happy that she asked the kids of they wanted to make thank you cards. We borrowed the water again the next day for Friday community day. The kids were happy to plant.Then a teacher named Mrs. Stacy made a fundraiser to sell suckers for 50 cents on Tuesday and Thursday, and some people gave money with no suckers at all like Diana with a ten dollar bill and Quanah with two dollars. Then some stores like Lowe's shared thingslike picnic tables at a discount, and other stores shared their new soil. Ms. Oakley even invited kids to Global Gardens on Saturday when there was no school. Everyone was grateful for the hoes, shovels, and the wheelbarels. The kids have been planting things like bell peppers, tomatoes, lemon balm, flowers, herbs, peppermint, Mr. Stripey tomatoes, and other various plants. They have already raised close to $40 to buy supplies and other things. The kids will get to paint their picnic tables.
By Global Gardens reporter Tamara N. Y.

Ms. Holt's Class's garden stones

Ms. Holt's class decided to paint border stones for their garden... Each student painted four stones. Look closely and you will see the words play... grow ... learn... and then they painted a flower. They did such a great job!

Clean up

Today we went outside and we weeded our garden a little bit. It is still really muddy, but we still worked. After being outside, we kind felt like we hadn't been out there in a really long time because its been rainning so much. It started thundering so we went back inside. When we got inside Gage, Enrique, Emely, and I cleaned the tools and organized the tools into the wagon. The tools were so muddy, it was a little bit hard to clean them, but we worked as a team and got it done. We took the wagon outside and cleaned it too as good as we could, then we put everything back in it. It looks so much better!
Written by Izelle the Honest Germinator

Ms. Newman's Class's Literary Garden

Ms. Newman's class is planting a literary garden. In the garden, the plants will have something to do with fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and tongue twisters. For example, we are planting beans to go with Jack and the Beanstalk. We are growing pumpkins for "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-eater". We are growing carrots for "Tops and Bottoms". Have you read the book, Holes? If you did, you would know onion are in it. Since it has been raining for two weeks, we have planted some seeds inside and they have started to germinate. Germinate means that the seed has sprouted. Some of our plants that we planted inside are watermelons, radishes, and peppers. When it stops raining, we can put the little plants in our big garden plot. We planted many different kinds of seeds. Even though some plants are big, the seeds are tiny. Our tallest seedling is two thumbs tall. Seedling means a small plant that has just sprouted. After our plants are no longer seedlings, they will look beautiful. Just like Ms. Newman's class! We hope you like our literary garden.

Ms Warnke's Berry Garden

Our class has been doing research on berries because we are making a berry garden in the back of our school. Our garden is going to have all kinds of berries. So far we have chosen blackberries, raspberries, boysenberries, strawberries, porcelain vine, beauty berry, amelanchier berries, soapberry, youngberry, logan berry, grapes, and olallie berry. You might wonder why we have not chosen blueberry, we found out that it takes six years for the plant to produce berries. We have been doing poems about our berries, and we have learned that our county can produce a high rate of berries. We learned that blackberries can stain your skin. Strawberries have at least 200 seeds on every berry, and they are the only fruit that has seeds on the outside! Strawberries are a symbol of love because they are heart shaped. Strawberries, and many other berries, are a member of the rose family. We are very excited to get started because we have never tasted most of these berries! We are going to experiment on berries that we have never tasted before. We will not eat the beauty berry, because some of its parts are poisonous. We are deciding if we should plant poisonous berries, because we do not want little children to pick them and eat them.
Soon our dream of making a berry garden is going to come true! We may still be pulling the grass out this week, but by the time this berry garden is finished, it will be a beautiful fabulous success!
Would you like to help us make this garden?
Have a berry good day!

Global Gardens Report by Tamera and Mileena

We are the Global Garden reporters and we are here to talk to you about what we have been doing since January. First, we brainstormed about our dream for Global Gardens. We dreamed for a maze, a tree house, a bird house, pathways with our names engraved, educational signs for each plant, a pond with lily flowers, fruit baskets for people in the military, and many more ideas! Next, since it was still winter we started experimenting with plants indoors. Then we finally had Tractor Thursday when Farmers Joe came and tilled our soil. Then we planned out where everyone's plot was going to be. Everybody was responsible for getting the rest of the weeds out of their plots. Global Gardens after school kids has also created and started jobs such as treasurer, reporter, and more. It has been raining for two weeks. Finally it has stopped and we are excited to plant!

Ms. Lenard's Class Garden

We are in Ms. Lenard's fourth grade class and we are doing a global garden at school. Our class is making an Oklahoma garden. We started by choosing flowers that are native to Oklahoma and we definely want Indian Blanket. We are planting plants that native americans used and we are doing research on the Oklahoma plants. We have plants that attract birds, butterflies, and bees, they will even attract songbirds and humminngbirds! The animals will help our plants grow, they give pollen to the flowers. our plants are different sizes, from one to four feet tall. The black eyes susan will grow to two feet wide. We are planting plants that in the wintertime you might think they are dead, but they are not, they are just resting and will come back in the spring. These plants are called perennials. Our garden is 15 feet long and five feet wide. Our garden is shaped like the state of Oklahoma. We are having so much fun! If you would like to come to the garden, you can come and see how it looks. It might be small now, but by the time we finish it will be BIG! Theank you for reading this! We hope to see you soon! The end.
Sincerely,
Ms. Lenard's class

May 19 Community Planting Saturday

We are having a community planting day at Eugene Field on Saturday May 19th, 2007 from 9:00 in the morning to 12:00 noon. Please come and help us in our garden. It would be helpful if you could bring tools, plants, and a lot of energy! It will be a lot of fun and we hope to see you there!

Honest Germinators

Today we checked out our seeds. Our seeds are starting to grow. We planted corn, watermelon, cucumbers, cantalope, hollyhocks, zinnas, and sunflowers. Because the weather has been so rainy, we haven't been going outside to work in our garden, so we decided to plant some seeds inside.
We are so happy that our seeds are growing.
written by Emely and Izelle

Spring 2007

Global Gardens has been operating since January 2007 at Eugene Field Elementary School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We have a community garden with 31 student, family, and teacher garden plots. We have a daily afterschool program with students who have their own individual and shared family garden plots, where students design and plant their own garden, and manage the overall community garden space. We have had so much rain this spring, but we are hopeful for a good growing season and have been learning so much and having so much fun in the garden. Gardening is hard work, but it is worth it!

Thank you so much to our funders!

Global Gardens is supported by grants and donations. Thanks to all the generous donations our garden can grow!

A BIG thank you to:
The Hille Foundation
George Kaiser Family Foundation
Tulsa Community Foundation
Southwood Nursery and Joe Shulte

Individaul donors:
Shelby Oakley
Pat Kimbrel
Richard Dixon
Sharon Davis
Jan and Dwight Creveling
Lisa and DeRoy White
Elizabeth Wallis/Petal Pushers
Lowanda Johnson
Wayne and Judy Neal
Larry and Marilyn Hall
Debbie Consedine
Gerry and Jody Miller
Michael and Shirley Mills
Stephanie and Bruce Riddle
Patrice Lott
Don Wiechmann
Brian Phillips
Sug and Lee Selby
Pat and Dale Maxwell
Shirely Bruce
Ann Paris
Leslie Day
Quanah Yackeschi