Sophia's Garden
Intern Profile
I want to work at the garden because:
it seems really fun and interesting and i think i could gain a lot of valuable knowledge from this experience.
Two of my personal goals for working at the Dallas Youth Garden this summer are:
1. To plant and maintain a healthy garden for the summer.
2. Gain work experience and hard work ethic!
Two things I hope to learn for working at the Dallas Youth Garden are:
1. how to keep a healthy garden
2. valuable knowledge for gardening and other useful skills :)
I think my biggest challenge will be:
Trying to maintain my garden while keeping social distance, but i don't think that should be to hard!
My favorite vegetable or fruit is:
hmm...i love pineapple and strawberries, hard to choose one! :/
I think a leader is:
A responsible, caring and kind individual who listens to their followers, and guides them well.
I hope to contribute this leadership skill to the garden this season:
responsibility! When it comes to my qualities, you can always count on me to be responsible so that's what i hope to contribute! :)
Garden Plan:
Vegetables and Flowers Planted:
Marigolds
Zucchini
Butternut squash
Radishes
Beets
Onions
Carrots
Tomatoes
Cabbage
Beans
Rows of vegetables planted: 16
Number of different kinds of vegetables planted: 9
Planned Garden Yield: 330
Planned Biggest Producer: Zucchini
Time Sheet:
May Days Off: 0
Extra Days: 0
Days Late: 0
June Days Off: 0
Extra Days: 0
Days Late: 0
July Days Off: 0
Extra Days: 1
Days Late: 0
August Days Off: 2
Extra Days: 0
Days Late: 0
September Days Off:
Extra Days:
Days Late:
Total Days Off:
Final Thoughts:
My favorite vegetable was carrots!
Because: they were fun and easy to grow!
My most productive vegetable was zucchini and I harvested 199.5 Pounds.
My least productive vegetable was beans and I harvested 0 Pounds.
My total harvest for the year was 277.95 Pounds.
My favorite job was: picking! It's really fun and rewarding to see the crop you grow :)
My least favorite job was: watering haha
I could have done better at: weeding :/
I did the best I could doing: trying to maintain the health of my plants and take care of my garden :)
The two things I learned most at the garden this year were:
1. Harder work ethic! It's very motivating when your hard work pays off, and seeing my plants produce is just so nice!
2. Better communication! I've learned to ask and help my peers more than I had done before :) it's truly been a delight getting to work with everyone here and I'm sooo gonna miss it when the seasons over!
Garden Log:
May 9: I started planting my garden today! I planted my first 2 rows, marigolds and zucchini.
May 16: No garden today, it was raining.
May 23: Just continued planting all week, I'm so close to done!
May 30: worked on Friday instead of Saturday, planted cabbage and beans. I'm very close to done! one row of flowers to go!
June 6: Lots of watering and some weeding (which takes a long time wow) and i made my sign!
June 13: lots and lots of weeding this week! But with some help i got the bulk of it done! We also started laying down straw to prevent weeds from popping up and to help prevent pests from laying their eggs in the dirt!
June 20: Lots of weeding, watering and picking radishes! we've also continued laying the straw in the garden! the goal is to cover the entire garden :)
June 27: Just lots of weeding, watering and laying straw! We've also been doing our leadership projects, which is pretty cool!
July 4: Finished laying straw in the gardens finally! we've just been continuing with weeding and watering, but we've also been harvesting! radishes are pretty much completely gone, but we have been picking our squash and zucchini!
July 11: more of the same, weeding, watering and picking!
July 18: weeding, watering, and fertilizing! Smelled gross, and got some on my shoes, but it's good for the plants!
July 25: Weeding, watering and picking! i also thinned one of my carrot rows with some help! :)
August 1: more weeding, watering and picking!
August 8: weeding, watering and picking!
August 15: weeding, watering and picking! I got to pick a whole lot of stuff like beets, onions, cabbage and one zucchini :)
August 22: weeding, watering and picking! My butternut squash is finally producing, and one of em is just about ready for picking!
August 29: watering, picking and totaling up the weighs from our crops!
June Leadership Project:
Problem: There's some sort of underground animal munching on my crops! After comparing pictures of different holes between gophers, moles and California ground squirrels, i found that the squirrel hole is the most similar to the holes I've found in my garden. The animal (whatever it may be) has eaten one of my cabbage plants all the way down to its stem, and stolen the bottom half of one of my tomatoes! it chewed through half way up the stem, and took the lower half and roots of my perfectly healthy tomato :(
Solution: Get rid of them! setting traps or destroying their burrows are the easiest ways to get rid of them, however there is ways to prevent them as well! Getting rid of brush piles and debris that would typically make a good spot for their burrows.
Test/Activity: We laid out some traps for the thing that's eating' my stuff!
Results: i haven't been there since we did that though (which was on Thursday, the 25th.) so i cant exactly provide an answer as to weather or not its worked!
Update: the traps caught something, just not the right thing...anyways,i found a new hole, so we've trapped that, hopefully it works this time!
Communication: I communicated my project to the group last Saturday(June 27th)!
Mole hole
California ground squirrel hole
Gopher hole
July Leadership Project:
Problem: People don't know always know how to cook/utilize beets!
Solution: You can use all of the beet! you don't even have to cook them if you don't want to. you can take the leafy tops of the beet and throw em in a salad, and very thinly slice the beets to go on top! you can steam, saute, juice and boil them too! you can even boil beets, take the red water they steeped in and use it for dying hair!
Test/Activity: I cooked up the beets a few different ways that were pretty tasteful and creative (i hope) Firstly, i cooked up the greens with some chopped up onions, bacon salt, and pepper! second, i boiled the beets and the stock of them( the stem sorta thing on it). once done, i strained out the beets and there stems, and set aside the water they boiled in. i saved the stems, and fed them to our bunny, and then took the beets,salted and peppered them, and i think they were pretty ok! thirdly, i took the red beet-water, and that's pretty much all ya need for the hair dye! it most likely wont stay very long, but its fun to have for a little!
Results: i learned a few new ways to cook and utilize beets! I don't really like beets all that much, but i thought they were pretty good! i even put some of thr greens on a pizza slice kinda like spinach!
Communication: i told the group about 1-2 weeks ago :)
August Leadership Project:
Problem: weeding plants with delicate roots can kill the plant!
Solution: There's a way to weed the plants that's a little more time consuming, but effective ( for me, at least) When you have a really tough weed close to your plant, the roots are most likely entangled together, which is why when you rip up the weed, it's rips the roots of your plant, which kills it. To get rid of this weed, carefully dig with your fingers until you reach the roots, and gently rip the roots a few branches at a time until you've ripped all the roots off. Then just pull up the separated roots a few at a time until there all gone and your done!
Test/Activity: I've tried this on a few of my own plants!
Results: It worked pretty well! My plants seem to be doing fine :)
Communication: I told a few people a few days ago :)
Bonus leadership project:
Problem: tomatoes aren't ripe be end of season!
Solution: clipping of all the bigger bottom branches! This stresses the plant so that it sends all it's sugar to the fruit, causing it to ripen up!
https://garden.org/learn/articles/view/365/
Test/Activity: I trimmed my tomatoes quite late compared to everyone else.
Results: my copious amounts of green tomatoes have start to ripen quite fast!
Communication: yesterday!