Emma's Garden
Pictures
Intern Profile
I want to work at the garden because:
I wanted something fun to do over the summer, so when I heard about this, I thought it would be good to do because I can learn a lot from it.
Two of my personal goals for working at the Dallas Youth Garden this summer are:
1. I want to learn how to successfully keep a garden growing, and as weed-free as possible.
2. I really want to grow beautiful sunflowers!
Two things I hope to learn for working at the Dallas Youth Garden are:
1. I want to learn to be very responsible.
2. I want to learn how to be a good employee.
I think my biggest challenge will be:
I think my biggest challenge will be to get rid of weeds.
My favorite vegetable or fruit is:
My favorite vegetable is carrots because they taste super good and I love the way that they grow.
I think a leader is:
I think that a leader is someone who doesn't only pay attention to what's best for them, but also what's best for others.
I hope to contribute this leadership skill to the garden this season:
I hope that I can be responsible and help others if they need it.
Garden Plan:
Rows of vegetables planted: 17 rows
Number of different kinds of vegetables planted: 14 different vegetables, and 2 different flowers
Planned Garden Yield: 348 lbs
My garden did or did/not match my plan and why:
My garden didn't match my plan because my garden wasn't exactly 25 feet long. It's not 25 feet long because we measured 25 feet from the fence, but there was some grass/weedy stuff for about a foot of my garden, so I ran out of room at the end. Because of this, my Swiss Chard and squash is much closer together than expected.
Garden Log:
May 4: Started work and removed tarps
May 7-11: We measured out where our gardens were, and cleaned up from the Master Gardener Sale.
May 14-18: I started planting my vegetables
May 21-25: I still was working on planting my vegetables
May 27- June 1: I speed planted my vegetables and finally finished!!
June 4-8: I weeded in my rows and worked on my creative portion.
June 10-15: I weeded my carrot row and started thinning the carrots, as well as weeding the rest of my garden.
June 18-22: I put fish fertilizer on my zucchini, squash, and cucumber, and weeded my garden. I missed work on Saturday due to a family vacation.
June 24-29: I missed Tuesday and Thursday because of my family vacation, and on Saturday I weeded my garden and then did the minions activity with the group.
July 2-6: On Tuesday we harvested our crops. I had 7.8 pounds of lettuce, and some radishes. We didn't have work on Thursday dude to the 4th of July. On Saturday I weeded and we did minions.
July 8-13: We harvested on Tuesday, and Dean, Ruth, and I went to the T-Shirt place to turn in our sketch to have our t-shirts made. I weeded on Thursday, and on Saturday we weeded, and did minions.
July 15-20: On Tuesday, we harvested, I didn't have very many pounds of food. On Thursday, we weeded, and on Saturday, we did minions and cleared out the paths to get ready for the open garden.
July 23-27: On Tuesday we came at 3:30 so we had time to pick and water before the open house started. The open house was from 4:30 - 5:30. On Thursday we weeded and watered as usual. Friday work was from 9-10, and if you felt that you needed to stay for a makeup day you could stay until 11. I stayed because I have missed a couple of days. On Saturday during the makeup day Amanda helped me weed my cucumbers, and Dean weeded my tomatoes and basil. Thank you guys!!
July 29- August 3: On Tuesday I picked and watered, Thursday I weeded and watered, and on Saturday I missed work due to camping.
August 6-10: On Tuesday I picked the vegetables and flowers I was going to take to fair, Thursday I helped pick flowers for fair in the morning and went to the fair grounds to help set up things for fair. Friday, I worked in the both in the fair with johnny for a hour and on Saturday we just did minions as usual.
August 13-17: On Tuesday we got our ribbons from fair and picked, on Thursday I missed work and on Saturday We did minions.
August 20-24: On Tuesday we picked, I had lots of tomatoes. On Thursday, we watered and weeded, and on Saturday we tied all of our tomatoes up so they wouldn't rot on the ground.
August 27-31: On Tuesday we picked as usual, then on Wednesday we got to go to the place where all of our produce goes to. That was cool. Thursday, we watered and weeded, and on Saturday we picked, watered, and worked on our end of the year surveys.
June Leadership Project:
Problem: When we meet with the public, we have trouble fining each other, and a lot of people there don't know who we are.
Solution: Making T-Shirts for the Dallas Youth Garden interns/supervisors to wear.
Test/Activity: Next time that we go somewhere as a group, we will see if it helps others know who we are and us find each other.
Results: People knew who to ask questions to at our open house, and we got multiple compliments. It was a success!
Communication: Ruth, Daisy, and I worked on the t-shirt ideas together, showed the group what slogans we liked, and the group voted on a design. The group decided on the slogan, "I love gardening from my head to-ma-toes."
Leadership Skills: Communication
July Leadership Project:
Problem: Lots of times, people don't know how to prepare the vegetables that they get from our garden.
Solution: Find a recipe, and make some food with the vegetables from your garden.
Test/Activity: I found a recipe online for zucchini bread, and made it! The good thing about this recipe is that it makes two loaves of bread, and only uses about half of a large zucchini.
Results: I have no way of knowing if people used this recipe, but people at the garden liked the bread.
Communication: I will bring a loaf of it to the group and tell them what I made.
Leadership Skills: Education
Here is a link to the recipe I used: https://www.justataste.com/best-chocolate-chip-zucchini-bread-recipe/ (I substituted coconut oil for vegetable oil because we were out of vegetable oil. Plus, coconut oil is better for you;) )
Here are some pictures of the process of making the bread:
August Leadership Project:
Problem: We aren't sure if we should grow both Red Cabbage and Cannonball (or green) Cabbage because the Cannonball Cabbage heads a lot faster than the Red Cabbage, and we only have a few months to grow our cabbage. The Red Cabbage might not head fast enough for us.
Solution: I will find out if it's worth growing Red Cabbages or if it's better to just grow Green Cabbage.
Test/Activity: I am researching both types of cabbage to see how fast each grow, and what helps both grow well.
Results: I read the following website: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/cabbage/cabbage-head-formation.htm and found out that Green Cabbages do grow a little faster than red. We only have a week left of work, and I don't have a single cabbage ready (I have Red Cabbage) when people who have Green Cabbage have donated all or almost all of their cabbages. Also, Green Cabbage is used more often, so people will know what to do with it. Because of this, I think that next year we shouldn't grow Red Cabbage.
Communication: I will tell the group my results at work.
Leadership skills: Garden Improvement
DExtra Leadership Project:
Problem: When new interns join, they don’t know very much.
Solution: Write a paragraph or so of advice for an intern that’s joining next year.
Test/Activity: Dear new intern,
Congratulations! You got the job! I know it might seem a bit scary right now, but you’ll do great. My advice for you is to always try your best, and always water more than you think you should. I made the mistake of not watering enough, and it’s not easy to help your plants once they’ve started dying. Also, plant green cabbage, not the red. The red takes too long to head. Another thing that I learned while I was working in the garden was to plant your squash/zucchini in the front area of your garden, because if you plant them late you won’t get as many squash/zucchini. Something that I actually learned today, about 5 minutes ago, is that you can actually update your website on your phone! All that you have to do, is log in like normal, and click the,”view in desktop” button. Hopefully this will help you update your website on time, because that totally would’ve helped me. Try to have fun while you’re in the garden, don’t worry too much about people’s opinions, just try to make friends. I hope that this helped you!!
Results: There is no way to know if this helped until next year, but I hope it will.
Communication: I told the group what I did
Leadership skills: Communication