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(More photos to be uploaded for this story!) |
A cheerful group of Rutherford Elementary Junior Master Gardeners, Stillwater Area High School students and adult helpers worked hard on this very warm morning to finish weeding and mulching the tomato section of The Giving Garden! The weeds will not win the growing war with efficient helpers like those we had working today!
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| Charlie |
The JMG kids searched for and discovered a little friendly gnome hiding near a corn plant! We used our magnifiers to inspect the leaves of corn and learned that they are a monocot plant which means that they have just one seed leaf (cotyledon), parallel leaf veins, flared roots, vascular bundles throughout the stem tissue and floral parts in threes. Using our detective skills, we learned that the other monocot plants in the garden are onions and grass, the later of which we want on the outside of the garden! The remainder of the plants in the garden are called dicot plants. These plants grow from two seed leaves (cotyledon), have net-like leaf veins, a main taproot, vascular bundles arranged in a ring and floral parts in fours or fives. While inspecting leaves, we discussed that they are the food factories of a plant! They are able to convert solar energy into chemical energy through the process called photosynthesis.
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"Too bad we can't donate these
to Valley Outreach!" |
Thanks to Misty, Jasmine, Charlie, Ruthie, Elizabeth, Amanda, Evan, Avery, Savannah, Anna, Nate, and Master Gardener Tricia for your work today!
P.S. Out of curiosity, we wanted to know how much a bucket of weeds weighed. This one was 14 pounds!
--contributed by Master Gardener Kathy Luoma
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| Anna |
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| Jasmine |
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| Elizabeth |
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| Charlie |
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| 4.15 lbs of weeds picked! |
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| Nate |
