Lots more progress on the Wheeler Community Garden these past two weeks and a few setbacks as well.  The rain caused two classes to cancel their transplanting events.  Most disappointing was that the Nursery class had to cancel their garden visit on Friday.  They had been taking good care of their bean plants and had been looking forward to transplanting them.  Speaking of beans, we discovered this week that bean seed fly larvae have wreaked havoc on our bean seeds, killing them off before they’ve even had a chance to sprout!  Luckily, our transplants are doing okay, but the plants we started directly from seed are goners!  Despite these setbacks, we’ve still made progress. Most of the 8 faculty family plots have now been planted, the fourth graders transplanted their tomatoes and marigolds and we’ve also put in pumpkins and peppers.  We also began working on a perennial border along the stone wall that edges 2 sides of the garden area.  The clean edge of the soil and compost is already  a visual improvement over the pricker plants and weeds that were growing there, and we have yet to put in any plants!  Finally, our 6th grade students are piloting a composting program, bringing the coffee grounds and filters from our school cafe out to the garden and adding them to our compost bin every morning.

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