11/17/2015

Crafts this week in Garden club! We had three stations; a picture station where students could draw or paint their favorite fruit or vegetable then write a story about it; a home-made clay station where they made small fruits, vegetables or people for our upcoming terrarium project and bird feeders from ice-cream cones, bird seed, pipe cleaners and peanut butter (clean-up took a little longer this week!). we also passed out snacks which included dill pickle sunflower seeds and kale chips. They were a hit with some and not with others.

10/20/2015

Soil is the key to a great garden and worms help to break down this valuable resource! This week students learned all about worms, including what they eat and their basic anatomy. We were going to head outside to race some worms, but it was pouring with rain (great for worms, not so great for students).

We also read "Diary of a Worm," by Doreen Cronin and "Compost Stew," by Mary McKenna Siddals

9/29/15

This week we started with a book by Will Allen called "Will Allen and the Growing Table". The book describes Allen's life from the garden as a child, to his sports career in Belgium back to his love of food and helping others. We headed outside and cleaned up the garden. We filled up 10 giant bags!

9/24/2015

This week we discussed the idea of extending the season and putting the garden to bed. We harvested, cleared some of the beds and prepped them to sow some hardy vegetables. We will be putting a rye cover crop over most of the garden to provide nourishment that was depleted over the growing season.
 

9/15/2015

This week we talked about saving seeds. Saving seeds is a great way to preserve history and save certain types of plants, flowers, fruits and vegetables. It also saves money because you have to buy less next year. We split up into groups; team basil, melon, radish, tomato and bean, and learned how to save each.

At the end of the lesson, when students were looking for seeds in our garden, Lily found a monarch chrysalis on a tomato!

Here is the syllabus for our garden club school year

September- Seed Saving, clean up and extending the garden season

Tuesday 8^th. What are seeds, which types are in our garden and how do we save them?

Tuesday 15^th. Types of seeds and seed saving techniques and garden clean-up

Tuesday 22^nd. Hardy vegetables and extending the season

Tuesday 29^th- Hoophouses and ways to extend the season

October- Soil and Compost

Tuesday 6^th-  What is soil and why is it important?

Tuesday 13^th. Types of soil, worms and vermiculture

Tuesday 20^th. Compost- what can and can’t be composted

Tuesday 27^th-No garden club (conferences)

November-Art and science in the garden

Tuesday 3^rd- No garden club

Tuesday 10^{h- -} No garden club

Tuesday 17^th. Garden crafts

Tuesday 24^th. Measurements in the garden

December- Indoor gardens and plants

Tuesday 1^st- Terrariums

Tuesday 8^th. Upcycled crafts

Tuesday 15^th- Containers and crafts

Tuesday 22^nd- No garden club

Tuesday 29^th- No garden club

January- Planning our garden

Tuesday- 5^th- Seed catalogs

Tuesday- 12^th- Garden planning

Tuesday 9^th- Types of gardens

Tuesday 26^th- Garden Crafts

February- Art, History and music in the garden

Tuesday 2^nd- Different cultures in the garden and some seed starts

Tuesday 9^th- No garden club (conferences)

Tuesday 16^th- Literature and the garden

Tuesday 23rd- Music and the garden

 March- Prepping the garden

Tuesday 1^st- Seed starts

Tuesday 8^th- Soil testing, amending

Tuesday 15^th- No garden club

Tuesday 22^nd- seed starts and transplant explained

Tuesday 29th- Beneficial  and bad bugs

 April- Botany

Tuesday 5^th- Plant parts

Tuesday 12^th- Pollination

Tuesday 19^th- Composting revisited and planting

Tuesday 26^th- Planting and crafts

May- Planting

Tuesday 3^rd- Making garden art

Tuesday 10^th- Planting and garden art

Tuesday 17^th- Stories in the garden

Tuesday 24^th- Science and measurement

Tuesday 31st- Celebration- Last day of garden club

Garden meetings will continue over the summer while we water, weed and harvest. Also plan on attending farmers markets and workdays throughout the year, although they have not been included, but there will be a cold crop day in April and a warm crop day in May

If you have questions or concerns, email victoriafernandez6@gmail.com , or call

319-415-5478

8/8/2015

Last week and the week before we had students tour the garden. Students who attended our very first garden club collected some of our tomatoes and made salsa. All of the ingredients came from our garden (except the onions.) We did have onions, but they were ready much sooner in the Summer.  Next time we will try and time it a little better!

Over the Summer we had more monarch caterpillars come and munch on our milkweed. We collected some and gave them to our eager first graders.

Here is a link to our school featured in New Pioneer Food Co-ops newsletters. The article highlights the importance of planting milkweed and how everyone can help with saving the Monarchs!
http://issuu.com/newpioneer/docs/september_catalyst_-_final/5?e=1

8/18/15

Last garden harvest before students come back to school. This week we have melons, cucumbers, chard and beautiful heirloom tomatoes (many from Seed Savers Exchange) that students started from seed.

Also, check out these little guys- Thai peppers from Seed Savers Exchange

8/11/2015

This week's haul has kale, chard, heirloom tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, jalapenos, beets, basil and a midget melon! Available tomorrow :)

8/4/2015

Flowers and veggies are blooming! Check out the melons, cucumbers, bell and Thai peppers coming soon!

This week we harvested basil, orange mint, lemon balm, chard, cabbage, beets, marigolds and different types of tomatoes. If you are interested in produce, available fruits and vegetables will be at school every Wednesday. Email victoriafernandez6@gmail.com for more information.

7/21/15

Did you know we have a lot of edible flowers growing in the school garden? You can eat marigolds, nasturtium, radish flowers and borage. Also, check out the chard and tomatoes!!!

7/14/2015

The first tomatoes of the season!!! There will be lots and lots in the coming weeks. There is also more chard, lots of herbs to harvest and the first sunflower also opened up.

7/1/2015

So far we have harvested radishes, chard, broccoli, lettuce, kale, edible flowers and herbs. This week we will have more available. I harvested some chard yesterday to demonstrate chard chips (this also works with kale).
Take the chard and take out large stems with a knife. Make sure leaves are dry. Toss in a little olive oil and salt, or soy sauce. Place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake for 350 for around 10 minutes. Delicious and healthy!

We also have peas ripening

A great way to preserve herbs is by freezing. Below I picked cilantro, basil and chives. Wash them, dry them and put them in ice cube trays until you need them. You can also cover them in olive oil.

6/25/15

I have made notes to show which crops are where

This is the old bed by the entrance to school with the rain barrel

This is where we planted the raised beds- the pollinator, salsa and veggie bed

As produce becomes available, I will try and post ahead of time. So far we have had some radishes, kale, chard, basil and cilantro ready. I have had to freeze some cilantro so we can have it for our salsa recipe later on in the year. If you are interested in produce, let me know. This week the rest of the broccoli will be ready, more radishes, borage and chard.

Beets, peas and onions will soon be ready. Haven and Riley have already harvested some radishes and onions and basil.

05/26/15

This week Scott Keopke from New Pioneer Food Co-op (a kind sponsor of our school garden) came to give us a presentation called "From Tomato to Potato". Students had to say whether the vegetable or fruit grew underground or above ground. We then went out to check on the progress of our garden.

              Photos courtesy of Ben Partridge, New Pioneer Food Co-op.

We also finished installing our Little Free Library! Garden club students helped to paint the post and the car (minus the windows). We will have a small ribbon-cutting ceremony tomorrow, our last garden club class of the school year.

To find out more about Little Free Libraries, go to http://littlefreelibrary.org/. If you have any questions about donations, please email victoriafernandez6@gmail.com

5/12/15-5/23/2015

We've been very busy getting everything prepped and planted. The gardens are all sprouting. We had a workday on Saturday and painted pots, cleaned out the rain barrel and planted strawberries and tomatoes.
The first milkweed plant we had was nibbled down to the bone. A wonderful Master Gardener let us take a few plants from Lowe Park. Hopefully that should satisfy their appetite for a little while!

5/5/15

We have had a lot of rain in our garden and it was too wet to plant much today but we did manage to sow beets, radishes and sunflowers. When we turned the soil we found it teeming with life. We also made plant markers.

4/28/15

This week we measured the bed to add our grids and planted some broccoli, beans, beets and milkweed!!! Milkweed is the only plant Monarchs will feed and lay eggs on and there is a short supply. By planting milkweed we are helping to restore habitat. On May 30th Indian Creek Nature Reserve will have a Monarchs and milkweed lesson where you can make milkweed seed bombs. For more information, go here http://www.indiancreeknaturecenter.org/store/family-activities/monarchs-and-milkweed-seed-bombs-saturday-may-30-1000-am-noon/

4/25/15

Well rain was scheduled for our cold crop workday, but it was important to get the beds down and so we went on with the show. Students showed up and worked tirelessly moving compost and amending the beds so that seeds could be sown when the soil is dry enough. They were such troopers!

4/21/15

Our garden club t-shirts arrived just before Earth Day and students were pretty proud sporting their new colors!

4/14/15

This week we continued working on the cleaning up the beds in anticipation of our April 25th cold crop workday.

4/7/15

This week students tapped into their creative sides and began painting the wood that will make up some of the 4x4 raised beds.

3/31/2015

This week Mrs Scheuerman explained the Tower Garden to the students. She showed us the pump, we tested the pH, filled up the garden and put our transplants into six holes (we will not be using the whole thing as we only want to rely on natural light and will not be purchasing the fluorescent lights that come with the tower). Students also took seeds home to transplant into the garden this Spring!

Our Spring workday for cold crops is April 25th. All students, staff and families are welcome to attend but please respond via email with how many in your party will be attending. We will also have a little garden tour during Carnival and we will be transplanting warm crops on the 23rd May.

03/17/15

On St. Patrick's Day, it was warm enough to head out into our existing bed and start cleaning up in anticipation for our April 25th cold crop workday. Students picked up leaves, removed some of the mulch from last year we used as walkways and had fun being outside again in the garden for the first time in a long while at garden club. We found our soil teaming with life and named some of the worms we found!

3/10/15

This week we put together toolboxes kindly donated by Enrichment coordinator Joni. Students had a great time painting and decorating them and we hope to put some in the school garden.

We also started some tomato seeds for our May 23rd planting day.

02/17/15

This week we talked about starting seeds- how to sow, the contents of soil compost/seed starting medium, germination, and the importance of water and good fluorescent lights.

Then students began working on some art that we could display in the garden this Spring.

 

2/10/15

Sometimes, when the gardening season is done, the next year you have packets of seeds left over and need to see whether or not these seeds are viable. This week we used ziplock bags, damp coffee filters/paper towels and ten seeds. We used ten so that when the seeds germinate it will be an easy percentage to work with. If 70-90% germinate, we will plant thickly. If less than this number sprout, we will discard the seeds. We will check on our seeds in a week.

We also started seeds for our tower garden. We put kale, lemon mint, lettuce and basil in the small holes and covered with the vermiculite medium.

1/3/2015

This week we elaborated on the square foot gardening method (a simple method for planting seeds in a specific way in raised beds). The most convenient size for school beds is 4x4. The grid is then marked every foot with small wooden dividers so that there are 16 squares total. There are four spacing guidelines...

Extra large seeds- one per square for 12 inch spacing (eg. broccoli, cabbage and pepper).
Large- four per square for 6 inch spacing (eg. leaf lettuce, swiss chard and marigold).
Medium- 9 per square for 4 inch spacing (eg. bush bean, spinach and beet).
Small- 16 per square for 3 inch spacing (eg. carrot, radish and onion).

For more information on Square Foot Gardening, the book "All New Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholemew is an excellent resource. See also http://www.vegetable-gardening-online.com/square-foot-garden.html

5th graders had also had a gardening class during school and so we talked about how different factors (moisture, seed depth and temperature) affected plant growth. We identified terms such as control in the scientific process discussed the best conditions for overall optimum plant development.

We took a little walk outside to enjoy the snow :)

1/27/15

This week we split up into groups and discussed different types of gardening (row, vertical, square foot etc). We also brainstormed ideas for decorative stakes, stepping stones and plant markers. Below Abby and Teagan explain starting, transplanting and maintaining seeds.

  

1/20/15
Seed bombs are not a new thing. When birds would nibble the corn seeds that had been planted, American Indians dug up mud and clay from nearby rivers and encased the seeds in them, giving them a protective coating so that they could germinate. 
In the early 70's, an Asian farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka used the same technique and made a "seed pellet" to protect his rice seeds from birds, mice and rot. More recently, seed bombs have been used to beautify abandoned and derelict urban areas. 
Students had a lot of fun crafting their own seed bombs to start at home either in their gardens or in pots.

To make seed bombs

• air dry clay
• compost or potting soil
• native wildflowers, herbs or lettuce and kale
• water                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
  
  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

  We took the lesson plan from kidsgardening.org. 

  http://www.kidsgardening.org/sites/www.kidsgardening.org/files/Seed%20Bomb%20Activity.pdf

1/13/2015

This week I brought in the remaining supplies of some British candy from England to share with students. I also brought in some kale salad and pickled beets. Most students tried the beets and comments ranged from "tastes like tadpoles" to "I love beets". Making healthy food a staple of a child's diet fosters healthy eating habits for life.

Next we watched a video on the tower garden. Mrs Scheuerman kindly offered to let us use her tower garden. The tower garden is a vertical aeroponic tower that uses no soil, 10% of the land than conventional gardening and 10% of the water. Water with nourishing solution is pumped up the tower and as it comes back down, it hits the roots of the plants and provides nourishment to the plants.

To find out more about tower gardens, go to http://www.towergarden.com/.

Finally, we went outside to show new students where the future garden would be and enjoyed playing in the snow with a beautiful sunset over Cedar Rapids.

 

 Anthony's definition of a snowball was a little scary :)

6/1/2015
Happy New Year! This week in garden club we looked at the basic parts of a plant-roots, stem, leaves, flowers and seeds. I brought in some salad components and students noted which part of the vegetable or fruit they were. Then, they got to eat them! There was one student who had never had broccoli before!

Students, in an earlier class helped to provide input for our school garden club logo. I had a friend take elements from their work and this is what he came up with it! The students love it!