Putting the Gardens to Sleep
Krity Gurung, Development & Communications Coordinator
While our gardens thrive during the summer (huge thank you to our summer volunteers for watering our beds!), I'm sure you’re wondering what happens to our outdoor learning spaces when the days get shorter and the temperature starts to fall. In order to get a full report on the summer to winter transition of our garden classrooms, I took a day to shadow (and help) Garden Educator Alyssah close up one of her school gardens. Together, we cleaned, cleared, stored, and covered the CitySprouts garden beds at Russell Elementary School and wished them a goodnight until next spring.
Next step: setting up the hoop house.
The first step was tackling our beautiful shed. All garden tools, supplies, lesson materials, etc. are organized and stored in the shed so that they are in good condition and ready to be used for next spring. All perishables like seeds, paint, fish emulsion, and anything that will freeze in the winter are taken into our indoor storage and placed in a warmer climate. Yard waste (excluding piles of dried up leaves), rubbish, and any debris behind the shed or in the corner of the garden are taken to the dumpster. The piles of leaves collected throughout the fall season serve an important purpose in our garden close-up. Keep reading to find out.
The purpose of a hoop house (which is essentially a smaller version of a green house with fewer climate control abilities) is to be able to continue growing cold tolerant crops throughout the New England winter season.
4 key materials and tools were needed in order to successfully set up this hoop house: 3 PVC pipes, 6 metal hoops with screws to secure the PVC pipes into, a thick plastic that goes over the pipes, 6 metal clips to hold the plastic to the garden bed, and a drill.
With the two of us setting it up and our tools and materials all ready to go, our maximum time spent on assembling the hoop house was 10 minutes.
Garden Educator Alyssah will be planting broccoli and cauliflower in this hoop house.
A look inside one of our hoop houses at the Nathan Hale School
Once the hoop house was set up, we moved on to take care of the rest of the garden beds. Remember the piles of leaves we saved up? Here’s how they came to play - each bed is covered with a layer of dried up leaves. This is done to help protect the soil over the winter and preserve soil health until the spring.
Another technique used to protect the soil in the beds over the winter is by planting cover crops. Cover crops serve similar, if not the same purpose as the dried up leaves. While they are not meant to be harvested, they are sowed to preserve soil health, consume water and nutrients for the soil, and control pests and diseases from getting into the beds.
To wrap up our outdoor classroom clean up, our final steps included securely closing up the compost bins, emptying water from the hoses and disconnecting hose heads from the hose, and wishing our gardens a final goodnight for the season. With a successful summer and fall season here at CitySprouts, we look forward to the spring when the gardens start to turn colorful, and the students start to get their hands dirty again! Until then, keep up to date with us on our socials on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Happy Winter!