Blooming Buddies Garden Club
Established January 2006

The Matthew Jago School Garden Club has been reorganized and has a new name.  It is the Blooming Buddies Garden Club.  It is sponsored by the WGC as a youth garden club with the Garden Club of NJ.  The BBGC and involves 10 classes with over 100 children participating in garden projects.  The different classes  have adopted different sections of the school garden.

The Matthew Jago School Garden Club
March 2002 - December 2005

The Matthew Jago School Garden Club was sponsored by the Woodbridge Garden Club from March 2002 until December 2005.  It met during recess at the Matthew Jago School #28 in Sewaren, NJ approximately every 2 weeks.  WGC members, Jean Gall (e-mail me), Mary Larkin and Joan Zsilavetz, worked in conjunction with MJS teachers, Ms. Mandio and Ms. Thumann, to bring the joy of gardening to students.

School Year 2005-2006

10/2005-The MJSGC would like to thank those who generously donated gloves,  tools and plants.  We truly appreciate your gifts.  Eighty daffodil bulbs were planted around 2 trees.  Members worked hard to clean up the garden for winter. 

09/2005-The MJSGC kicked off the new school year by once again participating in Monarch Watch www.monarchwatch.org.  Members of the MJSGC and WGC worked together to tag  50 monarch butterflies for their journey south to Mexico.   

School Year 2004-2005

Farewell to our Matthew Jago Garden Club Members 2004-2005

Presentation of Certificate of Merit for
Largest Sunflower in Garden Club of New Jersey Sunflower Contest

6/2005 - The year has certainly flown by!  The club members have been busy tending the garden and planting some new perennials. Members found it "way cool" to see hundreds of praying mantids emerging from 2 egg cases.  They promptly released them into the garden.  Maybe we will see them around this summer.  One of our members won the GCNJ Largest Sunflower Contest and we presented her with her certificate and what else but a collection of 5 different sunflower seeds!  Members took home zinnia, forget-me-not, cornflower, and cosmos seeds to plant in their own gardens.  Again, I have to thank our teachers, Ms. Mandio and Ms. Thumann, for their time and effort, our MJSGC members good spirit and hard work, and my fellow WGC members, Ms. Zsilavetz and Ms. Larkin, for all their help.  Have  happy summer!

4/2005 - Welcome Spring!  Finally the weather has become cooperative.  We are busy cleaning up our garden beds and planting pansies.  The daffodils are blooming away. 

9/2004-  The MJS Garden Club has geared up again for an exciting season of fun.  We have 30 members from the fourth grade this school year.  Two of our last year members won the GCNJ poetry and poster contests for third grade.  Our poster winner went on to place 1st regionally and received honorable mention nationally.  Our poetry winner went on to place 2nd regionally.   We presented the awards to the winners.  Congratulations!

Ms. Thumann set up a wonderful exhibit on Monarch butterflies in the school hallway.  Currently the exhibit is housing Black Eastern chrysalis as Monarchs have been scarce this season.  The club members will be taking part in Monarch Watch again this year, tagging the butterflies for their migration south to Mexico.  

After reviewing club rules, we made a beeline outside to work in the garden.  We broke into 4 groups, the watering brigade, 2 groups to plant pansies in the barrels and 1 campanula planting group.  We were able to accomplish all of our tasks quickly and efficiently

School Year 2003-2004

6/2004 - Members planted marigold and cosmos seeds, weeded, planted geraniums  and spruced up the barrels.  Members will be taking part in the Sunflower Contest sponsored by the Garden Club of New Jersey.  Each child was given seeds and instructions.  Good luck! 

We gave out cosmos seeds to each member to plant in their own gardens.  Have a great summer!

5/2004- Members were chosen from each third grade class to attend a tree planting ceremony with the township officials, community members, MJS faculty and four Woodbridge High School students.  The tree was donated by Motiva, a subsidiary of Shell Oil Company, on State Street, Sewaren.  Thank you!   

Members mulched the new garden after placing newspaper around the tulips and daffodils.  The newspaper is used to smother any weeds and grass.  They also removed spent blossoms so the plants do not use energy to make seeds.

4/2004-The tulips and daffodils that the MJSGC received through a grant from the Dutch Bulb Company bloomed their heads off!  The students were quite excited to see the results of their hard work.  The pansies they planted in the barrels are making a really big show.  The members divided clumps of daylilies to plant around 2 trees and cleaned up one of the flower beds. 

10/2003-11/2003- These 2 months  found students busy planting  over 500 bulbs they received through a grant from the Dutch Bulb Company.   This task was made all the easier thanks to the MJS Student Council under the guidance of Mrs.  Grippo.  They made it possible for the club to purchase kid size shovels, rakes and trowels.  We thank them very much.  It sure made the digging a lot easier than using our clam shells!  The PTO made it possible for us to purchase top soil and a "few extra bulbs".  Thank you!  We can't wait to see the results.

The students also took part in Today's Acorns = Tomorrow's Trees and collected acorns for The New Jersey Forest Service to be used for New Jersey's future forests. 

The students also are took part in the Garden Club of New Jersey Poetry and Poster Contest. We wish them the best of luck!  The club will take a recess for the winter and begin meeting again in March.

9/2003 - This new school years brings a new group of eager third graders to the garden ready to learn and beautify their school.  We are continuing the MJSGC under the guidance of teachers Ms. Mandio and Ms.  Thumann and WGC members Mary Larkin, Joan Zsilavetz and myself, Jean Gall.  The group has been split into 2, the Butterflies and the Flowers. 

Once again, we took part in Monarch Watch with students learning about the Monarch butterfly.  The students tagged over 100 butterflies for their  journey south to Mexico.  Our participation in  Monarch Watch was made possible by the WGC.  Thank you! 

 School Year 2002-2003
6/2003 - School has now ended for the year.  I am sure the kids are thrilled that the summer is here!  I am a bit sad though.  I have really enjoyed working with them and will miss them all.  I want to thank all the students who gave up their recess to work in the garden.  We are very proud of you.  You should be proud of the work you did and your school.  I  hope you continue to garden, plant and nuture and become good, strong leaders and volunteers in your community.  Remember to ride by during the summer and take a look at all that is blooming!

I wish to thank teachers Ms. Mandio and Ms.  Thumann for giving up their lunch to coordinate the program.  Without them, we could not do it.  I also wish to thank Joan Zsilavetz and Mary Larkin, WGC members, for helping with the MJSGC.  They are hardworking gardening enthusiasts and I certainly could not do this without them. 

I want to thank PTO parent, Nikki Albanese, who has been involved with the garden since its infancy and who has helped with the club from time to time.  She is moving to Florida and will be missed!  Good luck and good gardening in the  Sunshine State Nikki!

Monarch Watch is still processing the tag recoveries from this past winter and I will let you know if any of our tagged butterflies are recovered as soon as they post the information.

The MJSGC has applied for 2 more grants. One is from Captain Planet for a Grow-Lab so we can extend the growing season, start our own seeds and have a kitchen garden all year long.  The second is for Dutch Bulbs to plant in the fall for spring bloom.  Wish us luck!

GREAT NEWS!  Two of our members won awards from the Garden Club of New Jersey.  Quinten Ferraris is NJ Third Grade Winner, 2002 Poetry Contest “Plant a Tree for You and Me”.  Gage Sianna NJ is Third Grade Winner, 2002 Poster Contest “A Thing of Beauty – A Tree”.  Congratulations to these young, hardworking and talented gardeners!  We are proud of you! 

4/2003-6/2003 - We spent many meetings in the garden doing spring cleanup, planting marigolds, pansies and ageratum and seeds of Catchfly and cosmos.  The barrels, which flank each entrance (8 barrels in all), were planted with heliotrope, lantana, geranium, portulaca, lime green and pink/green  sweet potato vines.  The students are responsible for watering and tending to these barrels.  The kids went home with many different types of seeds to plant at home. We hope they have success with them.   Kindergarten students joined us to plant pussy willow they rooted in water.

 The kids learned to divide clumps of plants and plant them up.  They divided a low growing form of campanula and potted it up in newspaper pots to be used as a give away on the garden tour. 

The Can-O-Worms arrived!  The worms are at work composting in Ms. Mandio and Ms. Thumann's class.  Soon we will be able to use the compost in  the school gardens.

The Woodbridge Department of Parks was kind enough to deliver a truckload of mulch which the MJSGC members worked ever so very hard at  moving and distributing it  in the garden.  After recess, we were joined by the rest of Ms. Mandio and Ms. Thumann's class and we greatly appreciated the extra hands.  Thank you.

3/2003 - In preparation for being on the Woodbridge Garden Tour, members decorated, labeled and filled seed packets to be given out to people on the day of the tour.  They learned facts about Silene armeria, commonly known as None-so-Pretty or Catchfly.  I have found this beautiful annual to be very easy to grow and hardy.  It loves to re-seed itself.  Unwanted volunteers can easily be given away or pulled out.  This is one of the first plants to bloom in the spring and it is a good source of nectar for butterflies.  One often finds swallowtails on it early in the season.

 10/2002-11/2002 - We met  4 times during the months of October and November.  The students learned about the New Jersey State Tree, the Red Oak.  They also learned a lot of facts about acorns and oaks.  They took part in Today's Acorns = Tomorrow's Trees and collected acorns for The New Jersey Forest Service to be used for New Jersey's future forests.  While collecting acorns, these observant youths noticed some growths on some of the leaves leading us to a lesson on galls.

The MJS Garden Club was awarded a grant from the Middlesex County Division of Solid Waste Management for the vermicomposting project submitted for the Environmental Awareness Contest.  Mr. Richard Hills, Division Head, came out to give a lecture on composting.  He will be coming in again to help us set up our project once the materials arrive.

In preparation for start of the composting project, I introduced the students to mini containers of material from my vermicomposting bins.  They identified the worms in their various stages of growth, egg cases, castings, bedding material and food stuffs.  They are very anxious to start the composting project.

MJSGC members took part in the Garden Club of New Jersey 2002 Poetry Contest “Plant a Tree for You and Me and 2002 Poster Contest “A Thing of Beauty – A Tree”.  We wish you all luck!

09/24/02 - In our hopes to tag even more monarchs for their migration, we headed out to the garden again.  Only 4 monarchs were tagged, but the children took the opportunity to net skippers and observe them.  We also watered our barrels located at each entrance.  Seed gathering was also on the program.  Each member had a bag to collect marigold seeds which we will plant in the spring.  The children were thrilled and were very disappointed that the bell rang so soon.  We want to continue with seed gathering of our many other plants at our next meeting.

09/19/02 - The school year starts with a new group of third graders who are eager to learn.  There are 20 members this year.  We are members of Monarch Watch www.monarchwatch.org this year and are taking part in the tagging of monarch butterflies on their journey south.  WGC members have made nets for the children to use for this purpose.  The children learned about the life cycle of the monarch butterfly and its migration.  We then proceeded to the garden to net, identify gender, tag and release monarchs.  The monarchs were plentiful!  The children tagged and released 50 monarchs.  Let’s hope at least one is recovered in their wintering sanctuaries in Mexico.  We can find this information as it comes in on the Monarch Watch web page. 

School Year 2001-2002
4/12/02 - This was the first ever Matthew Jago Garden Club meeting.  The children learned about host plants for the Black Eastern Swallowtail.  They were able to see, touch and smell fennel, parsley and dill.  They were able to name ways in which people use these herbs too.  We had several chrysalises available for them to study and observe until they emerged in a few weeks which they were thrilled to see.  They proceeded to plant parsley, dill and fennel seeds in 2 liter soda bottles (mini greenhouses).  They anxiously awaited their first sprouts.  These were planted later in the school beds.

4/26/02 - Zinnias were the topic.  The children learned where zinnias originated from (Central America, Mexico and the US Southwest) and located these areas on a world map.  They learned that they were called “mal de ojos” (sickness of the eyes) by the Spaniards who came to Mexico.  They learned that zinnias are named for Dr Zinn, a botanist from Germany, who worked on improving these “eye sores” and is responsible for what we now think of as zinnias.  They learned that goldfinches love to eat the zinnia seeds, so it is a good thing to leave the zinnias in the garden after the first frost to feed them.  They also found Germany on the map and added “botanist” to their vocabulary.  They then proceeded to plant zinnia seeds.

5/17/02 - Our children in wheelchairs and their fellow classmates planted the eight barrels at the various entrances to the school with annuals, parsley and dill.  They were able to wheel their chairs right up to them and had a great time.

 5/23/02 - Mulch was the topic.  They were asked why we would want to use mulch in the garden and came up with these reasons:  to conserve water, to keep weeds down, to condition the soil and to provide a neat appearance.  They then proceeded to mulch all 5 garden beds with mulch provided by our township.  They worked very hard.

6/17/02 - Ladybugs were the topic.  They learned what ladybugs eat – aphids and what aphids do to plants (we had some on some roses so they got to see them).  They learned the term beneficial insect and how it applied to ladybugs.  They were able to see all four stages of the life cycle of the ladybugs in the live state.  We had eggs, larvae, pupa and adult.  They learned interesting facts about lady bugs.  Unfortunately it was our last meeting of the school year.  We wished them happy gardening and a wonderful summer.