The School Garden

Our school has a small garden behind the classrooms. Every Friday, Class 4 waters the plants and pulls weeds. We grow tomatoes, carrots, and sunflowers. The sunflowers are taller than the teacher now. Last month we picked ten kilos of tomatoes and gave them to the school kitchen. The cook made soup for everyone. We also keep a notebook with drawings of insects we see. Yesterday we found a ladybird and a fat green caterpillar. Gardening teaches us to wait: seeds sleep for weeks before they wake up. In October we collected seeds from the biggest sunflower. We dried them on a tray and put them in paper bags with labels. Our teacher showed us how to test old seeds: put ten on wet cotton and count how many open. Seven grew, so we planted them in small pots on the window sill. We also made compost from fruit skins and dry leaves. It smelled sweet, not bad, because we turned it every week. Next year we want to grow beans up a frame and sell the extra vegetables to buy tools. Gardening also taught us to share: we always give the first tomatoes to the kitchen staff. Next spring we will measure the tallest sunflower every Friday and write the numbers on the classroom wall.