February Garden Tour

Posted on February 14, 2014 by kidsingardens

Time for a walk around the garden. Leave your jackets at home—it’s 76 degrees here today in Julian.

I picked up these banners at a garage sale in my effort to add holiday touches to the garden.

Miss Lynn added these:

Valentines Day is the rule of thumb for planting peas, and peas we did plant!

Kale is our harvest of the month, and my parent helpers/Garden Beneficials cooked up kale chips at our outdoor kitchen for the fifth graders. One thing I have become convinced of during my tenure as garden teacher—-NUTRITION EDUCATION WORKS! These kids were gobbling down the kale chips, begging for more, asking for the recipe, declaring it to be one of their favorite foods….uh, kale chips!

Harvesting from our new 3×3 beds:

Cooking in our new little convection oven at our outdoor food prep station:

Munching away:

A Farm to School project recently finished! I had sets of banners made for the crops that are grown in San Diego each season. The winter set now enhances the indoor area where children pick up their lunches.

Next to the banners is one of the photographs taken by a student in our after-school photography program Kids with Cameras, identifying the chef behind the meal.

Early start kindergarten and kindergarten students focus on a “letter of the week.” I’m using these empty picture frames to teach garden vocabulary. The students hunt for them, and we learn the name of the object framed. D-d-d-d for daffodil!

Lastly, our district recently received a Live Well San Diego proclamation from our county board of supervisor for our wellness programs. Pictured left to right–County Supervisor Diane Jacob, School Board president Eileen Tellam, Superintendent Kevin Ogden, and me. Also recognized were Teresa and Jeremy Manley who were also present at the meeting.

Smoothie bike!

Posted on February 5, 2014 by kidsingardens

One of our Farm to School purchases was a bike blender attachment. A regular bike gets hooked up to a stand and a platform with a Vitamix blender. Thirty seconds of pedal power, and you have a full pitcher of smoothie.

We ordered the smoothie apparatus in order to promote healthy snacks at school events. The mountain bike club borrowed the equipment last weekend for the elementary cross-country meet. We used a simple recipe of apple juice, frozen berries, fresh bananas, and ice. Not only did we raise money for our team, but we also had the pleasure of passing out healthy, delicious drinks to kids running their hearts out on a beautiful day in Julian.

Thanks to my Dad who first saw this type of bike at a golf tournament and led me to research it. Find out more at http://www.rockthebike.com

Thankful for restoration work

Posted on January 29, 2014 by kidsingardens

Last Thanksgiving break found me finishing a big project at the junior high garden. We received funding to plant out the hillside adjacent to the garden with California natives. I looked around for a volunteer landscape consultant, but when there were none to be found, I buckled down and did the research myself on the question: What are the best native plants for slopes?

Visiting the “natives only” Las Pilitas nursery in Escondido (and their super informative website: http://www.laspilitas.com) told me everything I needed to know. Planting natives requires adherence to a few important principles:

Ground should be saturated before the plant goes in so all the water isn’t drawn away.
Natives need lots of water the day they are put in the ground.
After that, you water only when you test the soil with your finger and feel that it is dry. If it’s wet, leave it. One exception seems to be that slope plants need water twice a week to get established.
Fall is a great time to plant because the rains will take up the slack in getting them established.
After they are established, they may need supplemental water in the summer—but after that, they’re good to go!
Shredded redwood bark (sometimes called “gorilla hair”) is a excellent choice for thick mulching around the plant. I bought as many bags as I could shove in my car.
Natives are awesome: They are appropriate to the area, create habitat, and thrive with minimal resources.

Here’s another cool aspect of this project. We have four 60 gallon rain barrels hooked up to a portable classroom at the junior high. Up until a few weeks ago we used this water exclusively—-no tap water at all—-to plant 40 plus plants on the hillside. People wonder if small rainwater catchment systems make a difference. They do! Sixty gallon barrels fill very quickly catching even a modest amount of rain off a large surface, like a building’s roof. Of course, they are now empty with our (distressing) dry spell. We might get some rain tomorrow night, however, which will not only take care of the once-a-week watering they require to get established, but will also fill the barrels again to get us through the next stretch of (super distressing) drought.

I pulled students in to the planting when possible, grabbing a few volunteers at recess and taking students out during a Thursday enrichment class. Rains in November, however, dictated the planting schedule, so I found myself there alone, digging, planting and mulching. The hillside is bare and a little eroded, so putting in the plants helps to beautify one of the outdoor areas where children eat—an element in creating a Farm to School program. These plants will also stabilize the bank over time while creating appropriate habitat for birds and butterflies. So as I teetered on the hillside, digging holes and gazing down on our public school, I felt thankful for restoration work which turns out to be personally restorative as well—a good way to kick off my Thanksgiving break.

Many thanks to the Community United Methodist Church of Julian Gallo Fund for making this project possible!

The hillside is dotted with beautiful little natives, reaching deep for water.

The big vision is to have this entire hillside landscaped with California natives. We’re 40+ plants on our way.

Winter Garden Tour

Posted on January 13, 2014 by kidsingardens

And by winter, I mean the months of November and December and not the weather, as it has been distressingly warm here in Southern California. Shed your jacket and join me as we take a look around the garden in the past few months.

I’ve seen school gardens that add holiday decorations throughout the year, so I’ve been keeping my eyes out for ornaments and wreaths at garage sales. At the end of my church’s rummage sale, everything was on sale for $1 a box. I walked away with big plastic ornaments and wreaths. Students help me put it all up at the end of a garden class (building ownership!), and we added bunches of freshly cut incense cedar.

A modest radish and broccoli harvest was enough for a treat on a whole grain cracker in Mrs. Younce’s class.

Parent, friend and native plant guru Art Cole planned and purchased natives for the area to the side of the Kandu Gate. Plants include creeping snowberry, “Joyce Coulter” Manzanita, monkey flower, sedge, yarrow and currants. Garden Ambassadors helped me dig holes and excavate rocks.

Later I added red mulch and plant markers to help keep students from walking over them.

Our November Backcountry Collaborative marked the end of our 1 year USDA Farm to School grant. Pictured below are a few of the seasonal crop banners we had made to decorate our lunch area. Also pictured are two eight grade students (confession: the boy is mine) who are introducing the food film they made for their elective class, Food Justice. The title of their film: Pie-oneering, The story of the first commercial pie restaurant in Julian.

“Garden Beneficial” Harvey and Mr. Copeland worked with students to build 3×3 beds to increase our edible space, a goal of our Farm to School planning grant.

Our harvest of the month for November and December: beautiful broccoli! Notice the hoops and the agrobon, which we’ve used a bit with a few cold/snowy nights.

Mrs. Dawson’s class harvested the rest of the broccoli for their holiday party, and the irrigation box has been stored inside in anticipation of freezing nights. (Cross your fingers!)

Wreath making with herbs (primarily rosemary) and cedar was a successful holiday activity. And the classrooms have never smelled better!

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to more stories flowing from the school garden….

New cameras, same ole magic

Posted on November 14, 2013 by kidsingardens

Kid with Cameras 4.0 just came to a lovely close. Through Julian United Methodist Church’s Gallo Fund, we were able to purchase ten “teaching cameras” for the project. Formerly, we worked with whatever cameras the kids had access to, and we spent a lot of time fiddling with each one. It worked, but everything is now so much easier–the cameras are always available, batteries are charged, instruction is given once to everyone, and we don’t need to download images at the end of every class.

Over seven weeks, we had a classes taught by various local photographers. Jeff Holt and Bill Bevill taught camera fundamentals:

Then Anne Garcia took us through principles of composition, using her own work as examples as well as a few photos of Graham Wilder’s.

We headed out to shoot in the school garden, with the objective of using some of the best images for a Garden Club photo card fundraiser.

Photo courtesy of Bill Bevill

Another class was held at Down the Road farm for farmer/chef portraits. Enlargements of some of the day’s best photos will be hung in the school cafeteria to help children make connections between their lunch and the people that had a hand in growing/preparing it.

Dave Pierce taught a class on still life, described here.

Graham Wilder, a new instructor with Kids with Cameras, showed the students some of his images, encouraging them to find the “extraordinary in the ordinary.”

Then we walked to downtown Julian to do just that.

Another new addition to the class was the process for choosing the “best photo” to exhibit. In the past, the instructors got together to look at film to pick the image. This year, each instructor took home the memory cards for two students after our last day of shooting. From those photos, the teacher narrowed them down to the best 10-12 images. Then during our last class, they sat with the students for 1.5 hours and talked through each photo, discussing them at length and asking the kids for feedback. Ultimately, the student picked their favorite. I think this approach worked great: the student had ownership of the photo to be exhibited, but they chose from a small pool already screened by the instructors, drawing upon their expertise. As educational experiences go, I think this class was simply incredible.

As is now our tradition, we ended with an evening reception at the public library. Instructors spoke about the class, students talked about their photos, and everyone enjoyed refreshments while milling around with the artists.

Photo courtesy of Bill Bevill

All photos remain on display for two weeks, and then the students get to take them home, along with a CD of all of their photos. Thanks to everyone involved for making this program an unqualified success!

Photo courtesy of Bill Bevill

Photo courtesy of Jeff Holt

Photo courtesy of Jeff Holt

Farmers are outstanding in their field, being photographed

Posted on October 11, 2013 by kidsingardens

Kids with Cameras, our afterschool photography class, is off and running again (I’ve written about it here, here, here and here if you’d like to know more.) This semester we’re focusing on food, so we took kids to “Down the Road” Farm–one of the places sourcing Jeremy’s on the Campus with fruit and vegetables. Farmer Josh, Farmer Bob and even Chef Jeremy were on hand to be photographed. The idea is that we will enlarge some of the day’s best shots and use them in the cafeteria to help students make a connection between their food and the people/farms that grow it.

The farm is set at the base of Volcan Mountain–a stunning site.

A student chats with Chef Jeremy.

The greenhouse provided nice, diffuse light on an otherwise very bright afternoon.

We found that the kids were a bit shy about approaching the farmer/chefs so one of the instructors set them up in stations, so kids went down the line, interacting with them while shooting–a bit more directed approach. Here Eva talks with Chef Jeremy by the amaranth.

Chef Jeremy by the amaranth.

Farmer Josh had a surprise: extra 2 inch models.

Photo courtesy of Anne Garcia

A van full of happy children loaded down with flowering root vegetables!

Coming soon: what the children photographed that day. I’ll leave you with something that caught my eye! Ah autumn!

Another Big (and Yummy) Idea

Posted on June 5, 2013 by kidsingardens

Although we have used our Whole Foods-funded cooking station for simple food prep, we recently used it for one of our Big Ideas—full-fledged cooking classes in the garden. Chef Greg from Healthy Adventures, through California School’s VEBA program, provided an afternoon of cooking instruction as part of our staff wellness program. He made white bean hummus, Greek salad with swiss chard and kale, and spring peas with dates and walnuts.

Best part? We harvested many of the ingredients on the spot!

And look! Harvest of the Month! Thanks Chef Greg for an awesome afternoon.

Farm to School and gardening in San Diego

Posted on May 17, 2013 by kidsingardens

I should have just pitched a tent at the San Diego County operations center last week because I was there for two different events, three days in a row. Both make me glad I live in San Diego County where good things are happening in the farm/gardening world.

The first: Let’s Go Local! Showcase. This was a “meet and greet” between school district food service staff and local farms and distributors. As I’ve discussed before, creating a Farm to School program is challenging because there are so many disconnected pieces to connect. This innovative, model event sought to make the process easier by bringing the two sides of the conversation together—buyers and sellers in the transaction over school food. Or as the Union Tribute* put it:

San Diego County has more than 6,000 small farms, including one-third that cultivate produce. But with no single broker between the growers and schools, the first step can be a logistical maze for districts. The San Diego County Farm to School Taskforce, a subcommittee of the Childhood Obesity Initiative, helped bridge that gap on Thursday with a showcase at the county operations center in Kearny Mesa. Representatives from about 30 school districts met with distributors and growers who set up booths that overflowed with produce in a farmers market-like setting on an upstairs patio.

Then on Saturday, I was a plant schlepper for the San Diego Master Gardeners Spring Seminar. This is a full-day of workshops, lectures, cooking lessons (there was a singing chef!) and a marketplace of plants, gardening tools and garden art. It was incredible, and I was proud to be a small part of it as an MG.

Master Gardeners are known for their birdhouse gourds

Master Gardeners also has a committee that makes birdhouses from recycled bits and pieces that they sell at events

Official t-shirt? Check. Name badge? Check. Broad-brimmed gardening hat? Check.

Union Tribune article

Harvest of the month: peas

Posted on May 11, 2013 by kidsingardens

Next year I will be leading the effort to introduce a Harvest of the Month program at our school. To get it started, we’re doing a pilot this month.

The backbone of this program is a set of excellent resources provided by a Network for a Healthy California (http://www.harvestofthemonth.cdph.ca.gov). For each fruit or vegetable, they provide an educator guide, a parent newsletter, a community handout and a menu template on which you can print your school lunch calendar.

I attended the all-district staff meeting at the beginning of the month to introduce the program and pass out information to the teachers. These multi-page guides have lots of information about the selected fruit or vegetable: nutrition, history, botany, recipes, science, literature links, etc.

During a University of Wednesday class, the children rotated to three stations related to peas. Here’s a craft template I created for an indoor station. (It was windy that day!)

Tip: Michaels has a single pack of cardstock greens in all different shades.

At another station, the students did a set of drawings of peas, which were planted in succession so that they could observe them at different stages of growth—also, to stretch out the harvest.

At my station we sampled sweet pea hummus, and we talked about all of the ingredients. We also did a fennel taste test because I had some to use from our donated produce box.

I’m going to teach more pea-themed lessons this month so I’ve been checking out every children’s book I can find with the word”pea” in the title and creating a working annotated bibliography. I’d love to find a grant to eventually purchase every title on the list.

We also made some decorations for the garden to announce the monthly harvest. Here our 8th grade PLUS leadership kids are finishing up a banner started by the fourth grade.

This is a banner I had printed locally.

And finally, a taste test! Snap peas were in our Be Wise Box this week, and I supplemented them with 2 lbs. from the Warner Springs Farmers Market I visited last night. An ambassador took data (“”Do you like it?”), and once again, the peas have it!

Big ideas, big events in our small town

Posted on May 8, 2013 by kidsingardens

If you are a Julian/San Diego local, consider yourself invited to the following events that relate to gardening, Farm to School and environmental activism/awareness. If you’re not, consider this a window on some of the super cool stuff coming up in the next four weeks in our little town.

Wild and Scenic Film Festival

For the last eleven years the Wild and Scenic Film Festival has kicked off in its home, Nevada City. After that, it travels. Local committees organize to bring the films to their city, and Julian is lucky enough to have a group of visionary folks (read Nancy, Brian and Terry!) and a supporting organization (Volcan Mountain Foundation) who successfully brought it to Julian last year and are bringing it back again this year, bigger and better. From Friday to Sunday (May 17-19), our little town will show 44 films about the planet—from gorgeous nature films to inspiring environmental activist stories to thrilling adventure documentaries. Along with the films, there are hikes, naturalist-led children’s activites, food, receptions, chats with the filmmakers, and more. I can’t wait! This year, the committee has also arranged for films, all featuring children and the environment, to be shown at assemblies at the elementary schools and junior high the week before the festival. (See list of kid-related films below.) And during the festival itself, Cafeteria Man will be shown and the director will be present to discuss the project. (Remember, we got a chance to talk with Cafeteria Man—a charismatic chef who revolutionized Baltimore’s public school lunch program— at our recent USDA conference.) To top it off, the event benefits the Volcan Mountain Foundation which I’ve written about here.

Learn more about the festival, buy on-line tickets and/or drool at the general awesomeness of this event at: www.julianfilmfestival.com

Julian Garden Tour

As a fundraiser for Julian’s Farm to School program, the Julian Garden Tour will be presented on Saturday, June 1st from 10:00-4:00. Presented by the Julian Triangle Club and supported by the Julian Educational Foundation, this self-guided tour will feature seven gardens with their resident gardeners on hand to chat with visitors. The gardens will range from an ambitious permaculture project in Pine Hills to an integrated waterwise residential landscape in Kentwood to our own charming school garden. A $20 ticket buys a map to all locations and can be purchased at the elementary school or Julian Town Hall. Seedlings donated by Heather Rowell and Julian-specific gardening handbooks, compiled by Sally Snipes, will be available for sale. (Many, many thanks to Sunday Dutro—the dynamo behind this incredible effort.) More info? Check out the Julian Garden Tour Facebook page.

Family Fun and Fit Day

This Farm to School fieldtrip is the first in a series which will help Julian families explore our local food economy. We will be visiting Cook Pigs Ranch, a family-owned farm that specializes in sustainably raised heritage pigs. To learn more about their passion for happy animals and good food, please visit: http://www.cookpigs.com (This is just for Julian families—please r.s.v.p. to me directly if you’d like to come along.)

All together now: Goooooooooo Julian!

SAMPLE FESTIVAL FILMS

Young Voices for the Planet, Citizen Scientist

13-year-old Anya, an indigenous Siberian girl, sees her world literally melting away. She joins Arctic scientist Max Holmes’ research team, learns about her ecosystem and shares what she learns with her schoolmates. (4min)

Young Voices for the Planet, Olivia’s Birds and the Oil Spill

Olivia loves her New York forest and the Louisiana gulf coast where her grandparents live. When the BP Oil Spill devastates the coast, Olivia creates 500 paintings of her feathered friends to raise funds for Audubon’s bird rescue. (7min)

Watermelon Magic

Richard Power Hoffmann

International audiences will delight in this nearly wordless burst of color and music that draws inspiration from film classic “The Red Balloon”. Weaving together documentary and narrative elements, “Watermelon Magic” chronicles a season on the family farm, as young Sylvie grows a patch of watermelons to sell at market. The film employs a dynamic visual style that uses high-resolution stills at varying shutter-burst frame rates with stunning time-lapse sequences to trace the journey from seed to flower to fruit. When harvest time arrives, Sylvie must decide if she will share her precious watermelon babies with the world. www.springgardenpictures.org (USA, 2013, 38min)

How The Kids Saved The Parks

Andy Miller, Robin Moore

You know those movies where the kids get together and do something awesome? When they unite to overcome insurmountable odds? Maybe win the championship from the favored bad guys. Maybe embark on an epic quest to stop the grown ups from doing something stupid. This is one of those movies, except this one really happened. This is the story of a group of great kids that worked day and night to save the California State Parks that they love – this is ‘How The Kids Saved The Parks’. www.plusmproductions.com (USA, 2012)