Capitol School Crew

Greetings from the students of Organic Farming II!

Our group, made up of six hep-cats by the names of Camille(myself), Justinn, Erica, Nicole, Andrew and Chance, has been blessed with the unique opportunity to start up an organic garden at the Capitol School, a small private school of grades K-12 located off of 28th Ave at the end of University Boulevard. The school consists of three adjacent buildings: a large preschool with a playground next door, and two smaller educational buildings.

Said garden will feature container-based planting, including several individual hanging plants and two large grounded terracotta pots. We will also be planting flowers directly into the ground.
There are several benefits that come along with choosing The Capitol School at our planting location!

Already present along the balcony roofs on either side of this building are six chains with hooks, waiting to be put to use.

We were lucky enough to have stumbled upon some small discarded containers with handles on the property, perfect for our plans to hang on either side of the building pictured above.

Also, beautiful discarded shutters on the property, ideal trellising for our cucumbers and tomatoes.

There is also an abundance of usable soil on the property.

Our flowers will go along the outside of the playground fence, located next to the preschool. These marigolds and sunflowers will be the only plants growing outside of containers.

Chance took soil samples from the land along the front of the picket fence and also in the wooded area outside of the metal gate and sent them out to the soil-testing facility at Auburn University. Results indicate that Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium levels are all adequate, and we have a neutral pH!

Pretty much the only negative aspect of attempting a garden at this school is the possibility of an abundance of shade, as the property features several giant trees (now bare, later surely fully foliaged). For this reason, we have chosen to place plants requireing high amounts of sunlight facing the Capitol Park, which is fairly tree-free and to the east.

As for composting, our group opted to test out an indoor vermicomposting setup. The location will be my (on-campus!) dormitory, either under my kitchen sink or in my room. After much research, and consideration of access to and cost of materials, we decided that a tiered system would be best, so that the worms can migrate out of the already composted material, and into the upper levels filled with kitchen scraps and bedding. In this way, we will also be able to catch the liquid gold that is worm tea, and use it to give our plants a boost!