Hi, my name is Susan Zhang. Today would be my first full day of work in the garden.
I did a good amount of gardening upon my entrance into the garden – if you consider clearing away trash along with the soil as gardening. I ‘gardened’ with Jesenia and some students from P.S.134. We also worked on the mosaics glued onto one of the plant containers together. One of the main goals for today was to at least make some progress in completing the garden’s first mosaic container. The girl I was with from P.S.134 - Marsali - and I reached for that goal by simply finishing her mosaic and clearing away the extra cement that covers the mosaic pieces with the end of a paint brush. It wasn’t that easy since the majority of the cement glue had already hardened. It was also very frustrating because very little difference is shown even after a lot of hard work.

Alex, Jenny, Dominick, William, Zi Yi, Le Wen and Janet joined us later on with ideas and goals of their own (Anne was already there). Jenny joined us with the mosaics and showed me how to use a hammer and a shovel or just a shovel to chip off bumpy pieces or dried cement. I’m not sure why but I got really excited and interested in trying out her ideas. It was really fun and I even got around with trying out other tools that were available. By then this girl named Lily was also working on the mosaics. I have to admit, I felt as if she had more concentration and determination than me to smooth out the bumpy container. She got so involved with her task that she even decides to skip her lunch period. In my opinion, I think today was a success already since the project was able to attract kids from P.S. 134. The playground was filled with kids playing and having fun. It was amazing how a lot of them offered to help work in the garden rather than continue playing with their friends.

Another job that I perform that I thought would make a good contribution to the garden was planting seeds with Jesenia. She had brought seeds that would one day sprout into a sunflower, a snapdragon, or an aster. The flowers were going to be really pretty, the seeds were easy to plant and the best part of all – we would see results in a short time! The sunflowers were buried behind the benches by the fence, the snapdragons in a container (I didn’t help with that unfortunately… I was busy), and the asters in another. The sunflowers weren’t much trouble but the asters were a whole different story! First we turned the soil with Janet, and then took a look at the seeds for the first time. The seeds were so so so so tiny! Like no larger than a grain of rice! Another trouble with this is that if we were to follow the directions we would have to place each seed in a hole 1 inch by 1 inch. I’m not sure if Janet and Jesenia shared the same opinion as me but I was like “As if!” (I wasn’t good with measurements and being precise with a tiny object in the heat with soil all over me) Well, we ended up randomly spooning out a little of soil for each seed, throw a seed in, slap a handful of dirt on top and forgetting all the measurements and the exact place they were buried in. I really need to work on my patience when I garden!

Then there was the weeding… it wasn't very difficult except for the fact that I constantly got sprayed by the water hose while weeding. Actually, I should thank the kids from P.S.134 for that… it was rather refreshing!