Youth Gardening Journal: Materials List for After-School Garden Club

Seeds

Organic seeds (Carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, pickling cucumbers, beans, peppers, strawberries, basil, collard greens and dinasour kale, onions, flowers, sunflowers, watermelon, flowers)
Sources: We purchase reliable sources of non-gmo &/or Organic seeds:

Office Supplies & Craft Supplies

Large flip chart paper
Markers (flip charts & permanent)
Pencils
Colored Pencils (For making field notes)
Popsicle Sticks (large) for labeling
Stencils of plants, flowers, trees, fruits, etc- anything that might look gardeny - perhaps a nature stencil set (for decorating & making signage)

Hardware Store (Garden Section)

3 Shovels
2 Large rakes
6 Hand shovels/trowels
4 Hand rakes
1 Large Roll of Twine/Baling Twine
1 Roll of Chicken Wire (for the top of the compost bin)
3 Large Watering cans (Shower head-type)
2 Small (single stream, houseplant-type) Watering Cans
Gloves (with rubber coating on palms (2) 5-packs
1 Big bottle of Sunscreen
Non-VOC Paints (Non-toxic for outdoor use, one gallon each of red, yellow, blue, black and white - all should be the same brand, stick to bright colors)
Wooden Signs (These could be pine-boards, approx. 12" x 24" or another shape/size - that we can attached to raised beds - we'd need to make at least one sign for the garden name)
8 Tomato Cages
Bamboo Stakes (4 packs of 5)
2-3 Large Plastic Storage Bins with lids
(Ideal Situation...) 1 smallish outdoor Plastic Storage Unit w/lock

Local Home & Garden Store

Raised Beds

In our area, we have a community organization that puts together raised bed kits. For our time-frame and purposes, it is easiest to purchase four 4x4-foot raised bed kits and place them in a grid or diamond pattern at our site. Kits cost about $30-$40 each.

A possible layout of 4 raised beds

Pictured above: Two 4x4 raised bed kits, assembled.
One is covered with a homemade mini-hoop for season extension.

Other

Compost/Soil - We estimate we'd need about 4 cubic yards to fill the four raised beds, and 1 full size pickup truck should hold about 2.5 cubic yards - so we would need to make 2 trips to the compost center. Each Cubic yard costs $7 at the Ann Arbor site.

Free! Mulch-woodchips - The city gives these away mulch for free and even delivers for free. We just need to contact them about 1 week before delivery.
Free! 4 Wooden pallets - we will re-purpose these to create our compost bin (these can be painted so they look nice) - we just need to find them!