Apple trees, Flying Scissors, Birds Nests and Weeds

Hello 

The report below comes from Juan Morel Campos JHS in Williamsburg Brooklyn.  Their garden is in its second year and this year and will be center stage in the school health fair.

Recently, they planted a Newtown Pippin apple tree, a New York native!  They are also creating a rolling kitchen to take good food education cooking demos to different classes in their school.  (If you would like to get your own free Pippin sapling go here:  http://newtownpippin.org/)

We planted two apple trees. One of them is called Pippin. He is a Newton Pippin apple tree. He is special because is originally from Queens, and for a long time, nobody thought there were any left. The other tree we planted is named Blossom. She is a Honey Crisp apple tree. We needed two apple trees because they need to pollinate with one another so they can have apple trees (they're boyfriend and girlfriend). Pippin looks like a tall stick and he has little buds coming off of him. Blossom has a lot of branches with buds coming off of her too. We are very excited because in a couple of years we can eat the apples!

We have done some other stufff in the garden, too. We weeded, ALOT! Also, there used to be a pond in the front of the garden, but we got rid of it. We are using the dirt from that section to fill in other sections of the garden. It's really hard work. We have to pulled out all the weeds and rocks, and now we are moving the dirt by putting it in the wheelbarrow and dumping it.

We cleaned out the shed, too. It was a MESS!!!! There were things in the shed from MANY years ago. Some of the things in the shed were from a teacher who hasn't been in the school for years. It smelled so bad like a cat was living in it.

In the back of the garden, there is a section where we have to dig out all the rotten wood and put in cinder blocks. This is really hard work! On top of it, people from the second floor threw things out of the window at us. They were really mean. We are worried that they will ruin the garden.

Guess what! We found a bird nest on top of one of the air conditioners with little birds in it! They are getting big. They are all brown with little hairs. The mom is all red and we named her Ruby. There was a bird named Max who died. We saw a butterfly, too.

The rainy weather is really bad, because we can't go in the garden. But we will tell you all about it when we finally do! Have fun and keep dry!