School's out for the summer but the Garden still grows on!

Friday, May 7th was the official dedication of our drought tolerant "California friendly garden". It was also a night to celebrate receiving the Title One High Achieving School Award. We are very proud of both of these accomplishments so it was great to see friends and family come out to party! Thank you to all of you who came to celebrate! The sage is in full bloom and smells so fragrant. Our garden club student, Abby, noticed the first Matilija poppy in bloom. They remind Mrs. Sorvetti of a fried egg! Balloons adorned the school and flower pots were decorating the new tables and benches that have been installed, thanks to generous donations of time, effort and money from our students and staff. A delicious chicken dinner was available to those who wanted to eat at the dedication event. We had surprise visitors from the Inland Empire Utility Agency and the Chino Basin Water Conservation District who were very kind and honored us with beautiful plaques commemerating the garden. We also had a representative from Paul Biane's office to present us with a wonderful certificate and the Daily Bulletin was there to document the event in our local newspaper. The evening's festivities were enhanced with music supplied by a very entertaining DJ who kept all the kids up and hula-hooping and moving to her wonderful selections! Bert and Rocky's Ice cream even came and sold their ice cream favorites to anyone who wanted to finish off the evening on an even sweeter note! It was a nice evening for all of us.

The garden club is coming to an end for this year and we planted a few experimental seeds just to see what might happen. Mrs. Sorvetti will send updates during the summer and let everyone know if the garbanzo bean plants that we are growing produce any beans. We also stuck in some peanuts for fun, as well as amaranth seeds and quinoa hoping to see if the grains will grow as well as the wheat did. Tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, carrots, onions, and beets are all growing. The red curly leaf and freckles lettuce as well as the spinach were all a hit. The kids made salad roll-ups and hummus spread for pita bread from some of the fruits and veges we are learning about. It seemed that most of them really liked to make the recipes and then enjoy sharing and eating what they made. YUM!

For all who may be interested, the two chickens are grown up now but have yet to begin producing any eggs. I'll give them another month. The students were wonderful about watching and listening on the day they came to school to "visit" kindergarten and 1st grade. Afterwards the kids had lots of questions for me about how chickens grow. Lastly, they enjoyed feeding them their chick food out on the lawn. The chickens love to eat the dandelion weeds too, which helps with weed control. Mrs. Sorvetti added a new member to her family. Little Molly is a brown and white Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix that we adopted from a shelter in Lucerne, she came to live with us in April. The students have been great "puppy sitters" while I tend to the needs of running the garden club. I'm sure that she will be in many of the garden pictures in the future. The photography club has been spotted taking pictures in and around the garden and we hope to post some of their pictures soon for all to see. The garden club students are also becoming very artistic in their watercolor renderings of native flowers that they have chosen to portray. Check back soon for updates and have a cool and wonderful summer. Happy gardening!

Thanks again to the 2010 5th graders for collecting recycling every week and donating the proceeds to our garden! The money we saved bought one more table and bench set.