Welcome to the Garden Where Hope Springs Eternal

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Are We Beautiful, 11:55 pm

I wish I understood the beauty
In leaves falling.
To whom
Are we beautiful
As we go?

From "Crossing the Unknown Sea" by David Hyde

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Sunday, July 30, 2006

Garden Prose, 9:46 pm

A garden, then, is a finite place, in which a gardener (or several gardeners) has created, working with or against nature, a plot whose intention it is to provide pleasure; possibly in the form of beauty, possibly in the form of cabbages - and possibly, beautiful cabbages.

- Abby Adams, The Gardener's Gripe Book

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Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Budget Cut!, 11:38 pm

Sobs. Looks like we are working on a tight budget this year. It's been cut by A LOT.

This is what we can make use of (well, not bad- still substantial ...)
Maintenance of farm-$300
Equipment for Weeding-$60.00
Storage Cabinet- $200
Nutrients & Seedlings- $200
Plants and Soil for Emerald Garden-$300

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Sunday, February 12, 2006

The New Year, 11:58 am

The period of intermitten rain has not been too bad on the plants. Many are doing well. The pepper plants, however, did not take too well to the wet weather and to the glaring sunlight and only two still stand. We are looking into erecting timber structures to shade them and getting new ones to be added. The sweet potatoes will be harvested soon and the whole plot is going to be given a new lease of life. A different plant is going to take over. Watch this space.

1 Comments:

Hi there, thanks! Visited your blogs in return :) Good choice of songs in there. Great job!

By SeREnDipItY, at 15 February, 2006 23:30

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Monday, December 05, 2005

As the Garden Awaits Our Return, 4:37 pm

Garden Sanctuary

You who walk,
Maybe with troubled thoughts,
Come, enter here and rest;
And may the sweet serenity of growing things,
And the heavenly peace
Be mirrored in thy soul.

-Doxis M. Palmer

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Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Today's Presentation, 8:15 pm

Now the whole school knows about our plot. How? Through today's presentation! this morning, Liana and Nadia presented about our plot and the pepper and lemongrass plants in it to the school. According to Mdm Rufaidah, the pupils in front were really listening, but I don't know about the others. but one thing for sure, all the teachers and pupils seemed to be really fascinated by our blog! I think we'll see more people from our school visiting our blog! And also, a job well done, Liana and Nadia! (:

2 Comments:

Thanks, girls, you were game enough to take up the challenge and present to the whole school. That's the spirit I'd like to see! Jeff was the one who had suggested asking the two of you. Thanks to Jeff too ;)

By SeREnDipItY, at 08 November, 2005 21:59

haha, no problem! i still remember... it wasnt that scary at all. lol! oh right, jeff "recommended" us. haha, thanks! and youre welcome!

By Anonymous, at 10 December, 2006 19:41

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Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Garden Poetry, 10:05 am

If I were a garden
I'd plant myself with poetry,
spread seeds in fine lines,
work the earth with my bare hands,
feel the pulse of seasons.

I'd rock myself to sleep
with the sound of rain,
harvest and sow together,
so my earth would always be productive,
each fruit a seed,
each squash filled with promise of new plants.

When the drought time came,
I'd let my fields fall fallow,and wait.
I'd be a riot of color,fragrance, taste!
I'd plant lavender and lemon verbena,
rainbows of poppies.
I'd ply myself with seasons of sage, basil, oregano,
and be aware of thyme.
In winter frost,
I'd dream of spring's new shoots,
and in spring's first daffodils
I'd see the deep shades of fall.

Always I'd be ready for mystery,
and the delight of unexpected miracles.
I'd feel the power
that drives the plant to fruit.
I'd work and I'd wait,
and love those fine lines and rounded seeds,
those deeply lobed leaves,
billowing colors,
of my garden
myself.

Hey, I found this poem- so apt for what we are doing :)

Weeder's Thoughts

I have raked the soil and planted the seeds

Now I've joined the army that fights the weeds.

For me no flashing saber and sword,

To battle the swiftly marching horde;

With a valiant heart I fight the foe,

My only weapon a trusty hoe.

No martial music to swing me along,

I march to the robin redbreast song.

No stirring anthem of bugle and drum

But the cricket's chirp and the honey bee's hum.

No anti-aircraft or siren yell

But there's Trumpet-creeper and Lily-bell.

With a loving heart and a sturdy hand,

I defend the borders of flower-land;

While high over Larkspur and Leopardsbane,

A butterfly pilots his tiny plane;

But I shall not fear his skillful hand,

My enemy charges only by land.

Would those who lead nations in war and hate

But lay down their guns at some garden gate,

There, bury- their bombs and their bloody deeds,

And join the grand army that's fighting the weeds.

-ALMA B. Eymann

That said, here's the big picture...

Make time for the garden

You have to make time in your garden,

not only for working but just to see.

Not only for planting or harvesting or weeding,

but to smell the freesias,

to look at the new rose leaves

admire the new growth

thrusting out in strong red leaves,

to see the white columbine

blooming behind the flowering quince,

the lavender ageratum at the base of the snapdragons,

the grape leaves bursting from the seams

of last year's vines,

pink tulips about to open inside green sheathes,

and most amazing of all

the purple orchid sprays

in that pot you thought was dead and dry.

You have to walk through the garden

and say hello to each newly leafing tree,

caress the buds,

and try to see it whole, your garden,

or as much as you can-

how different greens complement each other,

set off the yellows and flame into reds,

how daffodils and star magnolias

turn dried brown leaves into background

for their spring painting.

So don't go into you garden looking for weeds,

which will only make you bend down

and miss the point.

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Wednesday, October 26, 2005

A Twist to Weeding, 8:57 pm

Submitted by Eric:

Credit must go to Andrew and the Fire Ruby team for the "innovative" approach to weeding. They created "The Amazing Race (Student Edition)" and a part of it was to weed our plot and fill a plastic container with weeds. I do not know about the other groups but while my group, Sapphire Supreme, was doing the weeding, it was drizzling but our group still weeded. We had to weed in the rain all thanks to the umbrella we were supposed to use, which had broken apart! Although we were not supposed to weed after being called back by Mdm Rufaidah, Nuovo still persisted and he managed to fill up the container with weeds.

Creative, I must say. Fire Ruby's idea allowed us to enjoy the game while weeding our plot.

**** Note: We came in LAST in this race.****

2 Comments:

Nuovo was ALL concentration today. Never seen one so earnest in pulling out the weeds- the desire to win must have really spurred him on. Hmm, not bad, Sapphire ... congrats on being third-runners up (teachers must motivate and give positive reinforcement)! Haha!

By SeREnDipItY, at 26 October, 2005 22:10

Hmm...Silver Wind won THE AMAZING RACE STUDENT EDITION!!!Congrats!

By American Andrew, at 28 October, 2005 20:43

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Monday, October 24, 2005

24 October, 4:24 pm

Submitted by Jeraldine:

Went a-weeding again today. Nothing much to do though. The contractors took all our jobs away... HMPH! Not much weeds to pluck, and not enough gloves, so everyone worked on 'shifts'. As in, change around, you know. We couldn't throw the weeds into the compost bin as we had to let the things in the bin decompose, a process that would take months.

The lemongrass plot looks so bare now, probably because we're all used to seeing the tall lemongrass... The new pepper plants are beauties, except for the blackened leaves and stems. 'Maybe a viral attack,' says Mdm Rufaidah. We were plucking out all the black leaves. What a wet blanket. There are already fruits on the pepper plants, but most are not ripe yet. You can already smell the pepper! When they fruits are ripe, they sort of shrivel up. We found some ripe ones, but they were already dead...

Why do people seem to dislike weeding? It's quite fun and a good way to relax! I don't think we have to do weeding tomorrow though, but just to be on the safe side, better do weeding lar, in case the weeds make their comeback when we don't do weeding. Some people might be needed to do maintain the plots during the holidays. Hope to see people volunteer!!!!!!!

1 Comments:

LOL. I read somewhere that in the wild, pepper plants grow among trees, shaded by their leaves and supported by their branches. Is that the reason behind the blackened leaves? Too much sun and rain??? Lemme find out ...

By SeREnDipItY, at 26 October, 2005 22:05

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Friday, October 21, 2005

The Revamped Plots, 12:56 pm

Shot these yesterday. Have a look :)
As you can see, they trimmed the lemongrass A LOT!

Ours and Mr Nair's:

The new babies, piper nigrum:

The lime plants, with fruit thrown in:

Well, after the 40 days are up, I'm definitely going to harvest the lemongrass and lime. Tom yam soup and lime juice, anyone?

3 Comments:

Erm...I think they shouldn't have trimmed the lemongrass. The plot looks so bare now...

By jelgirl, at 21 October, 2005 22:31

YAY!They trimmed it!This should mean less Weeding!Weeding Sux!Weeding Sux!YAY!YAY!

By American Andrew, at 23 October, 2005 16:55

... to each his own ...
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=to%20each%20his%20own

By SeREnDipItY, at 23 October, 2005 23:16

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005

The Arrival of the Pepper Plants, 9:14 pm

The pepper plants are here in the other half of our plot! 5 beauties with big leaves. The contractors came on Monday to plant them and also to plant lime plants- new ones- on Mr Nair's plot, the one that the class has been helping to weed. They look so fresh and healthy, I hope they remain thet way.

The workers removed the weeds from some of the plots and sprayed pesticide on most of them. We have been cautioned not to harvest ANYTHING for the next 40 days. Not that we'd have to worry, because I don't think any of the classes wants to harvest anything in the near future! And if we're doing weeding, it's best that we wash our hands THOROUGHLY after that, even though we've worn gloves. I wonder about the strength of the pesticide, given all the advice mentioned above. Sounds rather toxic to me.

Quite a lot of the lemongrass clumps have also been pulled out. You can practically walk among the existing ones without the leaf blades tickling your legs now :) The overall look is neat, tidy- spick and span, so to speak. But as Mr Nair and I were looking at the Garden this afternoon, we both agreed that those nasty weeds would make a comeback pretty soon, so we still need to be extra "gung-ho" in our maintenance of our new pepper babies and the lemongrass. I will take pictures of the plot and post them here soon. Keep a lookout for them.

To update everyone, we've got the following plants in the Emerald Garden:
Aloe vera, pandan, curry, kangkong, ginger (two varieties), turmeric, chilli, lemongrass, lime, pepper and a few others that I have to confirm wih Mdm Zulaiha. :)

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Monday, October 17, 2005

Weeding...again, 7:14 pm

Submitted by Eric:

It's yet another day of weeding. The work seems to be never-ending as after so many days of weeding, our plot still seems to be full of weeds. As I forgot to bring my glove I brought home, I had to use my bare hands to pluck the weeds. The soil of the area I was weeding at was quite hard so loosening of the soil was needed. True enough, it was easier to pluck after it was loosened. My hands were all dirtied after all those weeding but it was pretty fun. I was wondering something- why must we do all the tough work when I thought some better garderner was going to do all the weeding ?

1 Comments:

We don't have a gardener yet. Yes, the contractors who are coming will do the weeding but it's only quarterly. So in the meantime, guess who has to maintain our plot? Us!!! Take it as therapy, as I do, hee.

By SeREnDipItY, at 18 October, 2005 06:31

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Friday, October 14, 2005

14 October 2005, 6:51 pm

Submitted by Jeraldine:

After yesterday's weeding, the plot looks so much nicer, especially the Lemongrass. All the brown leaves were annihilated and the weeds were massacred. But we didn't have time to carry out the great assasination plan today as we were watching movies in the hall. According to Mdm Rufaidah, the plants we want to grow are very expensive. 1 pot of pepper plant costs S$18!!!!!!!!!!! Can you imagine how much we would have to spend if we bought those plants? We would need at least 10 pots to fill the plot up!

We'll have to do more weeding on Monday to make the plot (more) BEAUTIFUL, but how do we make sure those weeds don't make their comeback when we have the 4 days of holiday(PSLE Marking Days)? Spray 'weedicide'?
PS- I made that word up...

1 Comments:

Hee- Mdm Zu, she's such a doll, has already ordered 5 pots of the pepper plants- the white pepper variety. I'm thrilled :)

By SeREnDipItY, at 16 October, 2005 22:09

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Thursday, October 13, 2005

October 13 2005, 7:04 pm

Submitted by Eric:

Annihilation almost complete. We, 6A1, had a massacre, killing all weeds in our sight. Actually, some survived but I believe soon, they shall all be gone. Well, most of the class did weeding at the Emerald Garden today, in our plot, while Alfred and Jeff did some trimming for the lemongrass. It was rather fun pulling out weeds as it is a form of de-stress after PSLE, the terrifying examination.

1 Comments:

Well, I wasn't really looking forward to it, honestly, but when I started weeding, I found it kinda THERAPEUTIC. So let's have a go at it again and again, shall we?

By SeREnDipItY, at 13 October, 2005 21:46

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Tuesday, October 11, 2005

More Focus...Finally, 6:25 pm

Yipee! The dreaded (or highly-anticipated) exams are finally over- and done with! The weeds have been having a great time thriving on our plot. Time to annihilate them.

1 Comments:

Let's have a great Weed Massacre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's bump them all off and assasinate them!!

By jelgirl, at 12 October, 2005 18:50

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Sunday, September 18, 2005

Some TLC, 10:41 pm

English:
The garden needs some tender loving care...

Francais:
Le jardin a besoin du soin tendre d'amour... (is this right??)

1 Comments:

It's not SOME, it's A LOT!

By jelgirl, at 17 October, 2005 14:41

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Monday, September 12, 2005

Moving Butterflies Included, 9:33 pm

Finally! Managed to add in the moving images into the main pic. Mdm Poh (Uchiha Sasuke) will be happy to know this. 3 naughty butterflies and a relac-one-corner one- hee. They weren't there before...

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Sunday, September 04, 2005

How Does Your Garden Grow?, 12:02 am

Well, like this blog, the garden has been rather neglected for quite some time, no thanks to our terribly busy preparations for the exams. The weeds are having a field day, all gloriously soaking in the sun and the rain. Time for a-weeding very, very soon. Gloves, spades, hands, get ready...

The upcoming Learning Fiesta - a bigger-scale Science Fest, with IPW and Maths departments jumping on the bandwagon to work with us, the Science people - will heavily feature the Emerald Garden. So, in her sophomore year, is the Garden ready to be presented to one and all?

What do YOU think?

3 Comments:

FYI, I'm the blogger- ShOoTiNg StArZ was my old display name- changed to dissociate the name from the TV series- hee ;)

By SeREnDipItY, at 04 September, 2005 01:14

well, i dun really think our garden is ready. i mean the other plots are ready, but not ours. it's so...erm...plain? anyway i agree with you, we really need some weeding done the the almost-abandoned plot. if we're not gonna do anything, we might have fungi growing there, instead of plants...

By jelgirl, at 12 September, 2005 21:35

A-weeding here we go, a-weeding here we go! Hi-ho...TOMORROW!

By SeREnDipItY, at 12 September, 2005 22:06

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Sunday, July 10, 2005

New Links Added, 8:47 pm

Thanks, Matin, for indirectly helping me to add quote, weather and dictionary :) And I suppose, Locks, too, but do NOT gloat! Oops, I can see the smug look on Locks' face already...

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Saturday, July 02, 2005

The Open House- The Garden Is Visited, 4:56 pm

Well, here are the pics, as promised :) Turnout was quite good. We were exhausted at the end of it all...thanks, people on duty, for your enthusiastic presence!

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Friday, July 01, 2005

The Garden- In Its Visual "Glory", 11:04 pm

Hey, I didn't know that adding a pic is very easy! Ok, so this is the Emerald Garden shot a couple of months ago... will be taking more shots during Open House. Will keep you posted!

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Thursday, June 30, 2005

The Garden Is Open..., 10:14 pm

Come Saturday, people will visit the Emerald Garden during the Open House. It's still at its early stage, but we are making progress :) Let's hope for favourable responses from our visitors!

3 Comments:

I am SO excited! Wonder wad's in stall!

By jelgirl, at 01 July, 2005 13:54

oppsies, i typed wrongly! should be store and not stall!

By jelgirl, at 01 July, 2005 22:14

Haha! We ARE setting up some stalls for Open House so you can find out what's in store at the stalls! They will be at the quadrangle, NE/SS corner etc... ;)

By SeREnDipItY, at 01 July, 2005 22:24

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Monday, June 27, 2005

Music Changed!, 2:24 pm

New musical score- even more whimsical...

1 Comments:

Why! Thanks, gals...Smooches!

By SeREnDipItY, at 01 July, 2005 21:43

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Sunday, June 26, 2005

Comments Enabled, 5:06 pm

Whoosh...comments enabled now...I'm a-learning fast...on me own...site counter added too...LOL!

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Music Added, 4:20 pm

Added in some whimsical music taken from one webbie...Edward Scissorhands...good movie...so sad...tragic...HAD to learn some HTML for that! Will change music once in a while...lalala....

1 Comments:

The Music is nice, It gives the eerie yet Nice feeling

By American Andrew, at 01 July, 2005 21:51

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New Template, 1:58 pm

Yet another template...a few links -other bloggies-added and shoutbox too.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Harlo! This is just a standby blog. Don't quite know what to do with it, actually! Heheh!

Friday, June 03, 2005

The Very Beginning, 1:25 pm

Enter the garden