May 28th meeting

Not all of our gardeners are fair- weathered! Before braving the elements to do some gardening we looked at mass flow in plants by putting some flowers and celery into colored water. (here is the group showing the colorful plant results)
Outside, we saw evidence of transpiration by doing this: www.shoalwater.nsw.gov.au/education/transpiration_experiment.htm
Then we transplanted the corn, peppers, onions, pumpkin, and basil; and planted the onion sets.

The potato project is going well! Here is the link to the potato council that sent us the potatoes: http://www.potatoesforschools.org.uk/?PageLev1=1&PageLev2=0&PageLev3=0
our Potatoes are currently 56 cm high! In another month we will be able to dig them up and compare them to other gardening groups' potatoes! Some one remind me to get a picture of the potatoes next time!!
we dug up one of the 'accidental' potato plants growing in the compost heap and we saw the little tiny white balls at the end of the roots that will grow into potatoes.

April meeting

Well, quite a bit of time has passed since the last post, but the gardening has been continuing! There have been 3 gardening club meetings since March. We mainly have planted seeds, transplanted some of the seedlings, and done some 'experimenting'.
On this rather dreary Wednesday, we dug holes, evenly dispersed worm compost (with the worms) into each hole added dirt and planted the seeds: sweet peas, morning glories, and nasturtiums. These are the plants that will climb up the teepee. We had a talk by our resident worm expert (seen in the pink coat - you can't see it, but she is holding a big, fat worm!).
We talked a little about soil, and compared soil from the ground to compost by timing and measuring water that passed though each soil. Unfortunately for the experiment, there wasn't any difference, but maybe that means that we have great soil for growing things! We also measured the pH of the soil - neutral (again, good for the soil, but not very interesting for us experimenters) - and what pH means (don't forget! the 'power of hydrogen').