Garden growing great at Carrier Mills-Stonefort Grade School
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Carrier Mills-Stonefort Grade School garden is growing great.
Pupils in third and fourth grade classes were assisted by master gardeners from the University of Illinois Extension Service in putting out some flowers and edibles this spring. The garden has been around several years, but this year has seen quite a few additions.
Tyler Woolsey, Renata Godsey and Shanna Rone provided a guided tour of the garden and gave updates on how things are going.
"Two of the strawberries are already red," Woolsey said.
Some of the vegetables were planted a few weeks ago in a wooden garden bed with the help of master gardeners George and Zada Turner and Luise Pittman.
Last week, Melanie Hustedde's third grade class planted a second garden bed with flowers and vegetables such as Swiss chard, onions and periwinkle.
Time will tell for the second garden, but the box planted in March is coming on strong.
"The first garden is completely big," Rone said.
"It's grown since yesterday," Woolsey said.
A few red radishes look almost ready to pick, Woolsey decided.
"It kind of looks like a little red bush," he said.
Most of the early-spring flowers are blooming, or have bloomed.
"The tulips have gone from red to white," Godsey said.
Each of the pupils has a favorite task in the garden. Woolsey seemed to like the planting.
"I like to sweep," Godsey said.
"I like to rake and sweep," Rone said.
The pupils and master gardeners tried to plant vegetables and flowers that would mature quickly and give pupils a chance to see color and crops in both spring and fall, fourth-grade teacher Phyllis Bradley said.