Organic Garden activity of Middle School Affiliated to ECUST

Event: Organic Garden activity of Middle School Affiliated to ECUST

Group Name:  Roots & Shoots, Middle School Affiliated to ECUST

Event Date:  2015-04-10

Report Submitter: WeiHong Zhou

Participant Number: 18

—– —– —– —– —–

EVENT DETAILS:

Since I became the leader of the Roots＆Shoots Association in our school,we have planted six times and spent a lot of time taking care of our crops.The new members of this association have learned how to work the land,how to plant different kinds of plants and the way to take care of these plants during three months.More importantly,they harvested a greater interest in the environment and plants. I shall now explain the method of cultivating our plants for a long period of time.

On April 10th, I and some club members worked the land with difficulty because we didn’t have acceptable tools at that time. Luckily, we finished quickly and sowed the seeds of spinach and carrots. Then, we covered them with soil. Every day,we started watering the land and destroyed weeds. After a few days, the seeds started to grow.

During the 24th of April, we received better gardening tools from other members in the association. With these new tools, I thought we would be able to  plant more crops in a larger area. So, we began to prepare the land for more crops.With the suggestions by our previous leader, we learnt a lot of about how to work the land and our operation became much more skillful. After the helpful information, we learned to divide the land where we have worked into three rows and we planted sideways. When we initially sowed seeds we didn’t plan on spacing, which lead to plants growing very close and we had to uproot some plants to protect the others. This time, we spaced sowing and were able to plant Pakchoi seedlings,swamp morning glory, and carrots. Unfortunately, a student sowed all the spare seeds and made the plants on certain plot of our planting area grow dense. However, we still believe that planting was very successful.

Unfortunately, pests started to appear more frequently. The leaves of Pakchoi seedlings and carrots were attacked the most. We tried many methods to kill these insects, but to no avail. At the same time, weeds also became an increasing problem.Fortunately,these crops grew at a normal rate with no abnormalities.

During the months of May and June, volunteers also planted four times when we were still in the initial planting and when we were fighting off pests. In addition, teachers ,who were also volunteers, planted  a variety of sunflowers. These actions have injected a new vitality in our field, the sunflowers stood out and grew quickly.Now they have become a “landmark” in our field. It is believed that they will flower soon and spread their warmth throughout the school. Other members of the association also planted mung beans,soybeans and red beans, which also grew exponentially.

Nevertheless, some mature spinach was destroyed due to negligence by anonymous people.