February Garden Tour

Posted on March 3, 2017 by kidsingardens

Citrus is booming in San Diego County (though not here at 4,200 feet in Julian) so it makes for a perfect February/March harvest of the month.

To kick off this lesson, I bought five containers of orange juice and things that “look like orange juice.” We did a little consumer education as the kids passed the bottles around looking for the percentage juice, other ingredients, and marketing techniques (pictures and phrases.) We then analyzed them together based on their observations.

After deciding that 100% juice was the best, we squeezed our own 100% orange juice and everyone received a small cup to drink. (We did some classes inside, others outside, depending on the weather.) I found that using an electric juicer made the process quick enough for each child to try his/her hand at it.

Upper grade students started their lesson with a slideshow I made about citrus varieties, citrus pests, biological control and California history. Then they spread out and played a “grapefruit fact” matching game I created a few years ago.

A few other garden activities lately include:

A “love note” to the garden displayed on our bulletin board for Valentines Day :

In after school class, Miss Kat continues to wow kids with her exciting lessons and field trips.

Planting peas:

Creating mountain puma art, after lessons on local wildlife:

Although everyone worked off the same picture, the results were wonderfully varied!

Kaitlyn Kuiper, 1st grade

Aryana Bennington, 1st grade

Gavin Leck, 1st grade

Carlo Martinez, 4th grade

Kasen Mushet, K

Jackson Angel, K

Liaden Mitchell, K

And finally taking trips with Club Wild (a joint program with the Volcan Mountain Foundation) to Mount Volcan to learn about watersheds and water! (Lucky kids!)

Harvest of the Month: Citrus

Posted on March 2, 2015 by kidsingardens

Our December Harvest of the month (broccoli) was still going strong in January…

…and then we switched to “citrus” for our January-Feburary Harvest of the Month. I put out a call to friends and colleagues “down the hill” where citrus grows, and my desk was soon buried in bags of lemons, oranges, and grapefruit. We began to use them up by:

….making orange pomanders with whole cloves….

..making our own “non-toxic” cleaners in the afterschool garden class to clean the tables in Club Jaguar (we steeped lemon and orange rinds in vinegar for two weeks)…

…..creating a seasonal wreath with oven-dried citrus rings to decorate the Club Jaguar door….

…squeezing lots of homemade lemonade…

..playing a “memory” game with grapefruit facts…

…enjoying “taste test” stations with blood oranges and three types of grapefruit…

(Photo courtesy of Mr. Copeland)

….reading An Orange in January by Dianna Hutts Aston and The Red Lemon by Bob Staake…

….and sending kids home with lemons and recipes to make lemonade, cleaners and invisible ink!

Teaching and tasting a “ray of California sunshine”

Posted on January 30, 2013 by kidsingardens

(Or citrus, as it used to be marketed for folks back East when citrus was being established here in southern California.)

Many of you know I am six weeks into my role as the Farm to School Coordinator, a postion funded by a USDA grant we received in the fall. It is a planning grant. In other words, I have been calling myself “chief researcher” in our district’s process of exploring what infrastructure modifications (i.e. school lunch program) and education programming (i.e. nutrition lessons, fieldtrips, garden expansion, etc.) are a good fit for our schools.

One thing I’m looking at is getting free or discounted produce (local, seasonal and preferable organic) to work into lessons for University of Wednesday. I haven’t figured this out yet, so last week I went to Whole Foods in Hillcrest and bought 5 each of every citrus item they had (excluding limes and lemons.) Cut into sixths, this was the minimum amount I needed for a class of 26. (It cost $50.)

I set up the fourth grade room in groups of six, with each seat having a plate, pencil, and taste test sheet. The citrus was set out in the middle of the table. A bag to the side was open for rinds, to be later sent to the compost.

Kids were to make their best guess on whether this was a new fruit for them. After tasting, they were supposed to give each a rating and one descriptive word.

I made a keynote presentation on citrus. We talked a little bit about the history of citrus and where different varieties are grown today. Here’s a story I told, like a botanical thriller (arms waving, eyes flashing):

In 1869, a serious citrus pest, the cottony-cushion scale was imported into the state, and within 15 years it threatened to destroy all of the citrus plantings in California. In the late 1800’s, an entomologist affiliated with the USDA, Albert Koebele, conquered the cottony-cushion scale with a natural predator of the pest imported from Australia……

If told dramatically, you can now pause for effect, and ask kids what they thought it was, before revealing it to be

….the Vedalia beetle, more commonly known as the LADYBUG or LADYBEETLE (capitalization mine) . It was the first spectacular biological-control success story.*

Then we took time to get up and wash our hands properly. Properly. It’s flu season.

And then we got to the fruit. I’d introduce one, give a few facts, and the kids would cut them into slices (with plastic knives.) We got into this groove and it took to the end of the period to finish all of the varieties. Kids loved it! I loved hearing them say things like, “I think I like the Cara Cara orange better than the Valencia” and “I’ve never had grapefruit before but I like this” and “I like the last tangerine better than the first tangerine which I already gave a 10. Can I give a 10 plus?”