Garden Update
Greetings all!
I am thrilled to announce the garden has received the Whole Kids Foundation grant in the amount of $2,000! The goal of this foundation is to educate kids on healthy eating. You can read more on their website : https://www.wholekidsfoundation.org. (theres lots of cool info here too) I am working on what we will use the money for but I would love to use this money to expand our garden so that each teacher could have their own planter bed.
If you are hesitant and not sure how to incorporate the garden into your curriculum, I have lots of lessons to help you. I also have access to teacher scholarships for teachers to attend the California Ag in the classroom conference in September:
http://learnaboutag.org/programs/conference.cfm. Please let me know if you are interested in attending this! I think Ramie has attended this before, if you want a personal experience opinion.
As for our current garden, the last week of cold nights was not our friend. Our peas got a little frost bitten, and so did our citrus trees. However, there have been several classes that have gotten to go out and taste the crops they have planted. A couple classes had "salad bar classroom lunches" and others did tastings of the crops. The reactions from the kids make my heart smile with glee...some comments I have overheard are: "I love broccoli"....."I didn't know that was how broccoli grew"... "I love Kale"......"Arugula is spicy"......."Wow that's a snap pea?" .... The kids LOVE harvesting food so if your class hasn't gotten the opportunity to do this yet, take a walk out to the garden, and have them chose something to taste. Just remember, best practice is to wash these and THEN taste them.
Also some of our winter crops are nearing the end of their planting, so it’s time to start thinking about spring planting, and cleaning up the planter beds. This means you can start planting seeds in the classroom, keeping them indoors until the frost season has passed.
Things that can be planted and ready by the end of May are: beets, radishes, peas, chard, potatoes, carrots, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, herbs. Let me know if there is something in particular your class would like to plant and we can look at the planting season if it coordinates with our climate, and if we have seeds.