Mrs. Aitch's File Cabinet of Ideas for Nature Study Lessons

Garden Calendar

What to Plant This Month in West Virginia
(from the WV Extension Service 2011 Calendar)

April

1 – Seed Swiss chard & carrots outside
2 – Seed onions & radishes outside
4 – Plant cabbage & kohlrabi (definitely OUTSIDE—they love cold!)
5 – Plant potatoes & raspberries
6 – Seed beets and kale outdoors
7 – Plant broccoli & cauliflower outdoors
8 – Seed parsnips outdoors
9 – Plant blackberries and fruit trees
11 – Plant peas and radishes
14 – Plant leaf lettuce outdoors
15 – Plant tomatoes INDOORS
16 – Fertilize lawn, plant perennials
17 – Palm Sunday:   Hallelujah!
18 – Start compost pile, plant collards
19 – Loosen mulch on strawberries
20 – Refresh mulch on landscape beds
21 – Plant peas outside, transplant leeks
22 – Good Friday:   Such a GOOD day for Christians!
23 – Seed new lawn
24 – Easter:  He is risen!  He is risen indeed!
25 – Seed more carrots, plant sweet corn
26 – Apply pre-emergent landscape weed control
27 – Plant summer flowering bulbs
28 – Begin spraying fruit trees after petals fall
29 – National Arbor Day – plant a tree in your yard!  Take your picture next to it after you’re done, and then every year afterward.   Watch it grow!
30 – Plant some more perennials

Nature Hike

Take a walk outside your own home. Look around at all the signs of Spring in your own backyard! What do you smell? What do you see? What do you hear? Fresh earth, budding plants and trees, birds chirping? How does the wind feel against your cheek?

Keep your nature journal handy....summer is a busy time in the natural world! Jot the occasion, date, time, weather, and anything unusual. Make a simple sketch to help you remember. Doesn't have to look like da Vinci! Just your sketch.

Take note of a special tree in your yard. Keep track of it during each season. Sketch one or two branches right now. Take note of the buds or twigs. Date the sketch, add the time of day, something about the weather. Yeah! That wasn't so hard!!