So the garden committee did a little research over the winter. Just how does one add nitrogen to depleted soil? 1) Plant a fall cover crop such as rye or oats and let the soil restore itself over the winter. 2) Amend the soil with composted manure or blood meal. 3) Plant legumes in the spring and leave the roots in the soil when the crop is done.
The problem with the first two options is time. If we plant a winter cover crop, that eliminates use of the garden plots for growing vegetables for an entire growing season. Likewise with adding manure or blood meal, because those substances take a few months to break down and do any good. That leaves us with option #3. So without further ado, I'm happy to announce:
THE GREAT PEA PROJECT!!
As it turns out, peas fall into that lovely category of Early Spring Plants That Will Fix Your Nitrogen Issues And Are Also Delicious. In March, as soon as the snow started to melt, fourth and fifth grade math students took measurements of all the garden plots in need of a nitrogen fix. They calculated the area and perimeter of each plot, and then figured out just how many seeds we'll need. Click here to view the results as a PDF.
We will need almost 1700 pea seeds to cover every garden plot in need of nitrogen. That's a lot of peas! Enough, we hope, to treat each and every student at Crestwood to a few delicious pea pods as an end-of-the-school-year snack. And then we can plant all the other vegetables for harvesting in the fall and watch as they flourish over the summer. (This is assuming everything goes - and grows! - according to plan.)
Here's the part where I solicit volunteers. Did you see that number up there? 1700 is a lot of peas to plant, and we need to get them in the ground next week, before school is closed for spring break. If you can spend even a half hour helping a fourth grade class plant peas next week, please let your child's teacher know, or email us at [email protected] and we'll set you up.