Della Terra is a Children's House initiative encouraging kids to grow great food. We will be planting, harvesting, propagating, composting, and more with your children this school year. They will not only learn the art and science of horticulture, but learn the importance of fresh food as a healthy alternative to packaged and fast foods. Kristina, our school lunch director, will work with us to serve lunches and snacks created from our backyard gardens. We will also record the cycles of the garden with our garden journals and attempt some hands on experiments in the greenhouse to illustrate the big lessons in gardening. I will also have a list of recommended books and links on the web page. Some titles will be available in the library at school for the students to peruse.
If you would enjoy reading about gardening with your children, try
this link. The Junior Master Gardener Program and the American Horticultural Society honor engaging, inspiring works of plant, garden and ecology-themed children's literature through the "Growing Good Kids - Excellence in Children's Literature Awards" Program. This award recognizes a select group of children's books that are especially effective at promoting an understanding of and appreciation for gardening and the environment.
I look forward to a wonderful year with your children. You can reach me at wordenwood@msn.com.
Michelle Worden
January 19 - March 2
Upper and Lower El continued their work with the biomes in February. We finished making the dry or "Desert" biomes and moved on to the "Temperate" biomes. Click here for biome recipes.
In the temperate biomes, we learned how to propagate plants three ways. We discussed how vegetative propagation was different from growing plants from seed (sexual). With the Sansevaria or Snake Plant, we took leaf cuttings. With spider plant we planted "plantlets". With Wandering Jew, we learned how to take stem cuttings.
In February, we also discussed how many hours of daylight we had and how plants need 12-16 hours to grow. We observed that the lettuces and kohlrabi that sprouted in December were now starting to grow tall as the hours of daylight increased. Soon we would be starting seeds in the greenhouse.
We took readings on the compost pile in the greenhouse and observed that it has been decreasing in temperature from 134 F to 110 F as the material is consumed and the bacteria slow down the decomposition rate. We also noticed that the bottom of the pile was colder than the top when we took temperature profile readings (top, middle, bottom.)
We bagan potting up mixed bulbs pots for our flowering bulb sale. We are hoping to sell mixed pots of bulbs to raise money for greenhouse supplies. The students potted up Tulip ‘Apricot Beauty' with Hyacinth ‘Blue Pearl'. We also started on a mixed pot of Tulip ‘Calgary' (white) planted with corms of Anemone ‘Blue shades'. Hopefully the pots will be available for sale in April or sooner!
Week of January 18
Lettuce seeds have sprouted in the greenhouse raised bed.
Lower El began a winter DT project - making biomes or terrariums. The students are working in teams of two to make either a ‘dry' succulent biome or a ‘temperate' biome. We have started with the ‘dry' biome, with layers of gravel, horticultural charcoal, and a potting soil/sand mix. Each child picked out plants from the available succulents. We had an array of colors, sizes and shapes. We discussed where succulents live, why the leaves were so fleshy and how the leaves were wet inside. The students decorated their biome with some rocks and sprayed 10 squirts of water into them and closed the lid. They are now the parents or caretakers of these closed environments.
Seed catalogs have arrived. If you have requests for certain vegetables for the spring plant sale, let me know!
Della Terra Wishlist
If you would like to purchase a gift for your child's class, please take a look at the list and call or stop by the front desk at 929-9325 or e-mail Liz at Liz@traversechildrenshouse.org with your selection. We will keep this list as up-to-date as possible as items are purchased in order to avoid duplicates.
- Yellow indicates items that the school will order
- Green indicates items that parents may purchase (please let us know so we can keep the list up-to-date and so we can thank you)
- Pink indicates items that have already been purchased for the classroom
As always, we are grateful and appreciative of the many ways you give to the school during the year.
- 6 pair child size garden gloves $7
4 new child size shovels (Ace Hardware) $7
Water pump for greenhouse $90 (Tractor Supply)
Any contribution towards 200 gallon water tank for greenhouse (total cost ~$300)
Any contribution towards supplemental heating cost of the greenhouse (to keep 50 F)
December 2009
We began the month still very warm. On December 2nd we had a lake effect snow warning. In the nick of time, Upper Elementary spread a warm insulating blanket of straw over the bed of garlic. Garlic needs to be tucked in for the winter.
The kohlrabi planted in the greenhouse bed sprouted and started to grow. Lower elementary planted lettuces in the remainder of the greenhouse raised bed. We planted L. Speckled and L. Cimmaron.
The kids did a great job cleaning and organizing the greenhouse.
As the snow began to fall, we spent the remainder of December in the greenhouse working on our soil labs again. The students never tire of squeezing clay soil between their fingers.
Della Terra had special presentation of the Potato section of the DVD "The Botany of Desire". It was a great way to connect all those potatoes we harvested (5 different kinds) with the concepts of monoculture, biodiversity, and microclimates. The DVD also talked about the impact of the potato on human history. The potato is a New World plant from South America. It is considered to be one of the foods that changed the world; it enabled the industrial revolution and was responsible for (through the Irish Potato Famine) one of the largest migrations of people and culture in history - the great Irish Diaspora.
We closed December by turning off the greenhouse heat for Winter Break. It will be turned on again in February to start seedlings for the spring plant sale. The compost pile chugs away at 120 F internal temperature and adds about 10 F of heat. Dahlias that were growing in the greenhouse were given to the students to take home over the holidays.
November 2009
We had an unseasonably warm November, sunny and in the 40-50 F, so we were able to get a lot done in the outside garden. Everyday we made our weather observations and discussed how plants adapt to the cold and go dormant.
We had a workbee of parent and elementary students and completed the compost pile in the greenhouse. Many thanks to the volunteers! The pile increased in temperature from 80 F to 140 F internal temperature. We added the compost pile reading to our weather readings.
The children finished planting a large patch of heirloom hard neck garlic (varieties Asian Tempest, Georgia Crystal, Purple Glazer, Chesnok Red, Music Pink.) We used a dibble to make the hole in the ground and the kids pulled apart the cloves for planting.
We also planted a large bed of mixed tulips, with occasional discovery of buried potato "gold". (It's hard to find all those potatoes at harvest time.) The tulips will be sold by the stem in the spring as a fundraiser for Della Terra, probably as a U-Pick. Together, we planted 800 bulbs in shades of white, raspberry, yellow, purple, rose and apricot. The varieties included T. Calgary, Bastogne, Apricot Beauty, Negrita, Wildhof, Golden Melody, Don Quixote, Tip Temples, Tip Favorites, Pretty in Yellow, Long Lady, Perestroya, Hocus Pocus, Blushing Beauty. We discussed how delicious tulips are to many creatures and the organic animal repellent that I sprayed the bulbs with prior to class. We also mixed in a generous dose of bone meal to help the tulips grow.
The kids also did a great job of garden maintenance. They made short work of cleaning out and organizing the shed. A seed packet of kohlrabi got wet and resulted in a rapid planting in the greenhouse bed.
We discussed a little bit about IPM, integrated pest management. We treated some scented geraniums "resting" in the greenhouse with organic soap. The soapy spray eliminated some pests on the geraniums and the dahlias we potted up earlier in the fall that began growing.
Week of Oct 26
We took a walk in the garden and observed the sprouting of the annual rye (our cover crop and green manure) and the lettuce we planted the first week in October.
We began building the compost pile that we hope will heat the greenhouse this winter. We have a recipe of 1/2 parts green wood chips to 1/4 parts brewers waste and 1/4 parts coffee grounds. An organization called Growing Power in Milwaukee uses this mix in a 6 ft x 10 ft compost pile to heat their greenhouses; we are trying it as a science experiment!
Many thanks to parent Andy Gale for hauling wood chips and brewers waste; Misha and Jeff Neidorfler for saving coffee for us and North Peak Brew Master Kim Schneider for saving some brewers waste for us. (Folks in the Grand Traverse region line up for these in-demand compost items.)
We were visited by a guest speaker, Brad Morgan of Morgan Composting on Wednesday Oct 28th. Brad spoke to the kids about how Healthy Food Requires Healthy Soil. The students learned that composting is a form of recycling and laughed at the video with the trademark dancing cow of Dairy Doo. It was an impressive and thought provoking presentation and we are thinking of ways to bring him back again.
We also began to plant our garlic. We planted our first heirloom variety, Georgia Crystal, which was donated by local gardener and garlic lover, Dean Bull of Bull Clock Repair. Click here for an informative blog article written by Dean about his beloved garlic.
Week of Oct 19
The week began with beautiful sunny weather. The children had fun just being out in it! On Monday, we prepared the bed by the rose garden for fall planting by clearing out old plants and turning over the soil. We opportunistically harvested forgotten potatoes as we found them.
The remainder of the week was too rainy, so we worked in the Greenhouse on the soil experiments. The student were fascinated by the old analog stop watch we used to time the water filtration rates through various kinds of soil. We also observed that the dahlia's we had planted in pots were growing. Now if only we can get them to bloom!
Week of Oct 12
We began Della Terra with an observation of the weather. We looked out the window and recorded readings from the weather station and talked about how cold it was! We discussed why farmers need to always be aware of and watch the weather to know when to plant and harvest crops.
The kids had fun shoveling out the finished compost and spreading it in the raised beds by the barn. We also distributed a compost/worm casting blend (Container Mix 201) over the beds to replenish the soil. Thanks to Morgan Composting (www.dairydoo.com) for donating several yards of yummy material it to the school.
Despite the cold weather, we optimistically scattered seed for a Green Manure of annual rye seed in the triangular bed. This is a nitrogen fixer and acts as a soil amendment. We also planted lettuce outside - a cold weather crop. Now we only need some warmer weather to germinate - or cover them with plastic.
Potato harvesting (and a few cabbage and radishes) continued in the far east production bed by the soccer field. The students dug with a zest since the top of the plants were long dead and the potatoes were buried treasure without a map! Each child took some home with them and snacked on kale and chives while we worked.
Week of October 4, 2009
Work continued on clearing out the garden beds to prepare for next planting. We discovered a giant radish growing in the raspberry beds and found a patch of spearmint behind the weeds. We had fun tasting the fresh/sharp minty taste and feeling the square stems common to all plants in the mint family.
The children also had the opportunity to draw/diagram some vegetables that I liberated from a friend's garden. They examined the peculiar root structure of a corn plant, examined the runners of a strawberry plant that still had strawberries on it, and wondered that Swiss Chard not only had red stems but red roots. Only a few could recognize a sugar beet; we discussed how it is a major crop in the Thumb region of Michigan and the sugar they had a home could be made from it. Serveral kids wanted to break off the broccoli florets and eat them but we decided to save them to show other children.
Week of September 29, 2009
The children added two large bags of worm castings to the raised bed in the Greenhouse for our fall lettuce production. Many thanks to Eden Hill Greenhouses for donating this wonderful soil amendment and organic fertilizer.
We had more fun experimenting with the soil laboratory set-up in the greenhouse and took the last soil samples. A few children volunteered to take soil samples at home and bring them in to the school. We are planning to compare the analysis from school and home with a county soil map.
We experience our first frost, so we began pulling out frost sensitive plants and preparing the beds for their next planting. We discussed why the basil and tomatoes turned black. In the process, we harvest more carrots, and tomatoes and clipped some kale for school lunches.
Della Terra Donations/Supporters
Worm Castings from Eden Hill Greenhouses (www.edenhillgreenhouse.com)
27" Compost Thermometer from Tel-Tru Manufuacturing (www.teltru.com)
Dairy Doo compost and Container mix from Morgan Composting (www.DairyDoo.com)
Weeks of Sept 15 & Sept 21
Della Terra officially kicked off with soil sampling with a soil probe borrowed from MSU Extension Services. Samples from the school gardens will be sent to MSU Soil Lab for testing. All elementary classes were introduced to a series of soil labs in the greenhouses and we discussed the main components of soil and its physical structure. Some Dahlia's were donated to the school and we opportunistically started potting them up to see if they would grow in the wrong season in the greenhouse. We discussed how in a learning investigation a "No" answer conveys as much information as a "Yes" answer.
Upper Elementary has fun harvesting cucumbers, purple green beans, and potatoes. They commented on the dry and dead appearance of the potato plants on top of the ground and the rich harvest under it the mounded dirt of small golden potatoes.
Week of Sept 8
Della Terra was not yet officially kicked off for the year but the garden waits for no man. Volunteers from Lower Elementary had had fun harvesting in the raised bed production gardens for the lunch menu. We picked a variety of produce: yellow pear tomatoes, Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, luscious purple and yellow heirloom tomatoes. We also dug up orange and white carrots, and purple eggplants.
Each child snacked as they ate (we washed them off) and asked if they could take some home. My favorite moment was when one boy raised a large clump of carrots over his head in victory, with a wide grin on his face.
);)