Saturday, September 29, 2012

Spread the News! Spread the Mulch!

Compost Mulch Work Party!

October 12
October 13
October 14

Bring your shovels!
Bring your wheelbarrows!
Bring your muscles!

We will be having a wheely good time helping the gardens.

What is compost mulch?
Compost mulch is the broken down organic matter from your yard waste bins 
that the City of Vancouver has turned into nourishment for your garden.


This will help provide shade for roots, amend the soil so that more microorganisms can find a home there, which in turn will make more nutrients available to plants.  It also makes the soil have good texture and water retention.  Adding compost mulch to the 10 City of Vancouver Green Street Boulevards will help during dry summers as the soil is quite sandy.

In the back area, the naturalized playspace sits on hardpan - if you have ever tried to put a shovel in the back field, it is super super hard.  By adding a layer (it should be done every few years and we did it in Spring 2010) it will help keep the soil healthy for the plants.

IF you dig it, email generalwolfegardens@gmail.com and we'll let you know what time of day most people are going to meet - it's much more fun working as a group.

Thanks to Julia Stewart and Dawn Dunkerley who will be our representatives at the annual Green Streets Celebration on October 14th at VanDusen Botanical Garden.  Plant swap, prizes, its a city wide celebration of over 500 gardens that we are a part of.  There is a book in our library celebrating this gardening initiative that has been studied as an international success story!  You go girls :-)

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Persistent Plants! (and people :-)


Look for the Teddy Bear Sunflower - only 12 inches high in the planter boxes by the teachers parking lot... fuzzy and soft, this plant is a hit with the youngest students, who planted the seeds in their classroom last spring.

Also - a Velvet Queen Sunflower - burgundy in colour - has wound its way around to bloom in the annex garden area by the sidewalk - despite having its roots under the overhang (= no rain water!)

And the hollyhocks are going to seed... we grew these from seed 2 years ago and they had stalks over 6 feet tall!  We now have enough seed to plant 100's more.

THANK YOU to all the Watering Families this summer - a special gift will find its way to you to thank you for helping the gardens grow.  Without you, there would be no BEEs visiting our schoolgrounds and no flowers to welcome the students, teachers and staff back.  Many Thanks.  By everyone doing a few days or a week or a little bit, we managed to take care of the gardens all summer long.  Bravo!

"helping hands get things done; half the work and twice the fun"

Purple Potatoes - Locally Grown!

Harvest Time!
Ms Pegg's Grade 1's (now Grade 2's!) dug up 5 varieites of potatoes to take home.  They can eat purple mashed potatoes, russian fingerling roasted potatoes, baked yukon gold potatoes or even potato chips or french fries depending on how creative the family cook is!
We even gave Ms Jamieson and Ms Thomas (our new Vice Principal) a sample of our harvest.

Now that's locally grown :-)

Thanks to Libby and Julia and Lisa who made this happen for the students!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Welcome Back!


Look Up!  Look way up....!
The lovely mobile hanging in the front stair hallway in front of the doors facing Ontario Street say Welcome in many languages...  Be sure to join us for the Welcome Back BBQ in the annex courtyard. Thursday September 6th 5-7pm  :-)


Wasp Architects Be Gone!

One Brave Dad at Dusk took on a hive discovered the day before school started in the boulevard bushes.  Yes, the bushes!  Nestled in between perennial branches was a treefort of a wasp hive!
Spotted by Garden Committee members in the day we decided to remove it before school started.
It's dormant now, nobody home if you wanted to peek - its at the South-East corner of the school property along 27th near Ontario parallel to the teachers parking lot.  Wasps dig clay from the ground to make this paper mache wonder.  It's about the size of a soccer ball, suspended in the foliage.