Community Gardening At School!

Oh my heavens, we participated in just the best little event yesterday that gave us fresh air in our lungs, smiles on our faces, and dirt pretty much, well, everywhere. On the most gorgeous, blue-skied, 75-degree weather day. Heaven.

Long and short...towards the end of last school year, six raised vegetable/flower beds were built on the grounds of the elementary school, in this great little area within a larger walking trail that the kiddos have access to during recess.

But being South Texas in the final days before full-on summer heat, the beds weren’t planted at that time. They just sat tight until this Spring rolled around and a staff member of the school who’s a master gardener, organized a gardening event!

I’d made note of the date and event when the newsletter came through, knowing my nuggets would be all over an activity like this. But I was smart enough not to mention it to them until I knew the weather would cooperate and our Spring Break vacay prep would be under control.

But lo and behold, all worked in our favor, I sprung it on the kiddos as a surprise when I picked them up from school, we ran home to snag our boots and gloves and shovels, and reported for awesomesauce duty. :)

To say that they LOVED participating in this would be a wild understatement. They were quite literally in hog heaven...and also, pretty much as dirty as hogs by the time all was said and done, ha.

When we arrived, there were about five or six other parents with a child or two each. So a smallish but eager group. And there was also the great addition of 20 or so older kiddos that participate in an after school-hours program. Those kiddos were only out with us for about half an hour, but all the extra hands and help made it really fun.



We sort of set up camp in this one bed that became our area of focus. We spent about 45 minutes breaking apart the old dirt and removing it from the bed with the wild abandon of just tossing it anywhere and everywhere, ha (those were literally our instructions). Not gonna lie...my purse and hair and person took a few shovels full of dirt. ;)



But my babies were pumped. 









There was one little boy hanging out with us that was from Chica’s class, which was pretty fun, as the other kiddos were first graders, I think. It was fun to have some happy faces around us and new friends.







Best of all, after we’d sufficiently broken up and removed the old dirt, it was time to bring over wheel barrows of fresh dirt, and for that, there was a massive pile off to one side that the kiddos basically used as a mountain and a slide and a playground, all rolled into one, ha.

At the very end of more than 90 minutes of work, we planted some zucchini and squash, and were gifted some carrot and wildflower seeds to bring home and plant for ourselves:

I mean, it was seriously the best. A beautiful day to be outdoors, participating in a fun event, and taking ownership of something the kiddos can look at every day they’re at school, and know that they had a hand in creating. 

This was their reaction when I told them we get to come back again in two weeks and work on the beds again. :) :)





A very, very happy afternoon indeed. Totally worth the extra laundry and boot cleaning and car cleaning and filthy run to the grocery store for travel snacks that we made on our way home.

We were high on life (and exhausted) come bed time.

And now we’re quite literally on the road to kick off our Spring Break adventure, so much more as time allows for some posting.

Woohoo!