Goodbye Garden

School has been out for about 2 weeks and I have been so busy.  I moved to Temple TX to join my husband!  Yea! As a result, I had to leave this garden project behind.  BOO!  It took about a week longer to get internet than I thought, hence the break from blogging.  At last, I have internet access and time, what a magic combination.

It was a very emotional departure for me, a mixture of joy, sadness, guilt and excitement.  I had a hard time handling it all.  The last days of school I asked the garden kids to write about their experiences in the garden.  We also took lots of pictures.  I wanted every kid to have a souvenir, they all ended up with a thick envelope full of pictures.  Here we go:

Before (February)

After (End of May)

"At first when we were first cleaning the garden area to make the garden it was hard work and I thought that it wouldn’t work out because it looked bad but when we planted the plants and they grew and how I saw the tomatoes I planted grow.  My mind changed completely because how we have all those plants that we cant even walk in the garden with out stepping on a plant.  I feel so proud of all of us."

Miguel Torres

"My experience with the garden was different from others because I really didn’t help and I feel so bad."

Marcus Cook

Marcus on the left and Xavier on the right in front of our 6 ft tall corn.

"I liked the garden and so far this year was amazing for me. I will miss you all, good luck next year."

Xavier Perez

"What I liked the most was harvesting the vegetable and seeing how big they grew.  I also liked being outside instead of learning from a class indoors."

Flor Cruz

Flor in front, Katelyn is beside me. 

I liked when we got to get out of class a couple of times and when we read to the little kids.  I also liked when Mrs. McGehee cooked the vegetables and we ate them, they were very good.  I didn’t like when we had to pull weeds because there was a lot of them.

Katelyn Mosely



"I liked when we did the potatoes cause it was layers of grass and dirt.  I liked when we grew the strawberries, they taste so good. My favorite part is writing the blog on the laptop and we took a lot of pretty pictures. "

Kasharia Rodgers

Mercedes on the left and Kasharia on the right.  

"What I like about the garden, that we put flowers in the tires and how we got the rows between everything we planted and I like that we all worked together to make it look like it does now."

Mercedes Brown

"My experience was when the Washington kids came over and we read to them and made caterpillars out of fruit loops and pretzels and also marshmallows.  Another thing that was fun is when we walked them to the bus.  The whole thing was fun.  Well, that’s my good experience.  Bye."

Eriel Taylor (Eriel was not in class when we took out final pictures.)



"My experience in the garden was when our plants grew and they got really big and we got to see our rainbow tires that a tire place gave us and it was a great year and I had fun with everybody."

Icelynn Taylor

Add caption

"This experience has been an great experience.  At the beginning when Mrs. McGehee started talking about making a garden, me and Astrid looked at each other not interested in the topic.  But as the days go by in the garden, it gets more fun and interesting by the second.  The garden now looks amazing with great results."

Angel Khong

Angel was always a little more comfortable on the other side of the lens. 

"Well let me tell you about my experience with the garden.  Umm...well it was fun and hard at the same time but at the end it was all worth it.  I liked when we did the tire garden and when all the Washington kids came over.  My favorite part about the garden was when we stared harvesting.  Well, that’s it!"

Astrid Sandoval

"So you say you want my opinion about the garden...(: lol well “OUR” garden is awesome.  We planted alot of plants.  Well our class planted like three of each kind of plant.  The tire garden was a good idea because if it wasn’t for the best teacher the whole garden wouldn’t have that special color to it.  (:  Everyone did a wonderful job and I’m going to miss you Mrs. McGehee."

Jesus Estrada

Arianna left before the class wrote their letters so I don't have one from her.  

I had to show you Selenia's because I wasn't sure if just typing it would get the message across.  

I loved each response!  These kids have been such a blessing to me this year.  I learned so much from them and I watched each of them grow throughout the year.  We definitely had a lot of "duh" moments and we made tons of mistakes.  I told myself that as long as something grew, our garden would be a success.  I was so cautiously optimistic that I was constantly telling people to "Pray that the plants don't die!"  Even though a few of them did, in the grand scheme of things, it really didn't matter.  And more than anything, any vegetable that grew or flower that bloomed, the thing I loved the most about this project was sharing in the wonderment every time a new discovery was made.  A lot of people don't give kids like these enough credit.  There is so much knowledge to be gained that cannot be tested by a state assessment and there is something to be said about getting your hands dirty just because.  These kids stepped up to the challenge every time.  I will miss these kids and the garden that we grew together.  I'm so glad we had the opportunity to do this project.  Love you guys! Great job!