Della Terra is an integral part of the Earth to Table Program. In Della Terra, we try to connect your children with cycle of nature, the food we grow and eat, and the art and science of horticulture. This year we are also integrating language and visual arts into our garden journals. We will be planting, tending and harvesting in all seasons as well as working on special projects. And then we will write about it! Check your child's back packs for the fruits of the harvest - each student gets to take something with them when we harvest and they love to share it with their family (if they can resist eating it right there!). Also ask him/her for their ‘word of the day'. At the end of the week we try to combine all the words to make a descriptive sentence or a haiku about our experiences.
You can contact me at wordenwood@msn.com with questions.
Thanks,
Michele Worden
Week of December 5, 2011
Della Terra is officially over for the year, yet the work goes on though at a slower pace. I grabbed some volunteers from Upper El and with Bob Flowers we installed the hard plastic over the low tunnels. Steve has been gathering students during Community Service Time in the morning to finish off the outside chores. This week they harvested and tied up herbs for drying in the kitchen. Steve and Lower El also harvested the last lettuce from the greenhouse for pizza lunch. During friends club we moved all the pots of blubs we are forcing onto the raised bed in the greenhouse and covered it with plastic for the winter. Some of the microgreens seeds we planted in the tabletop bed germinated very late and they are no longer ‘micro' - it will be interesting to see if they survive the winter. We have been snacking on them and some of them made it into pizza salad.
On November 28, I helped the six elementary students harvest and prepare kale for their classroom presentations. We also spoke with Kristina and looked at some kale recipes in cookbooks that she gave us. I loved to see the enthusiasm and diligent hard work that the students put into their presentations.
On November 29, I presented "Food of the Month - Kale" to the primary children. Everyone agreed that the liked kale raw and looked forward to trying the kale chips, kale muffins and kale smoothies that Extended Day would be making this week.
Week of November 28, 2011
Week of November 14
We planted crocus
We covered tulips with straw
Walk the Labyrinth
Haiku created from Della Terra "words of the day"
The week started out overcast and unseasonally warm and finished sunny and snow-covered. The snow on the low tunnels had to be swept off with a broom until the heavy plastic could be installed next week. The Paperwhites we had forced started to bloom and smelled sweet.
This week I also had the opportunity to meet the elementary students that were working on their Food of the Month presentations. Food of the Month is Kale. We discussed what kind of kale we grow at school and how kale is a ‘superfood'.
Maintenance: We pulled the irrigation lines out the production garden and coiled them on the side of the garden for the winter. We finished pulling dead tomato vines off the trellis. Digging up the giant sunflowers was a favorite activity and quite an accomplishment to dig up and move something more than twice as tall as yourself. Sunflower removal teaches teamwork and perseverance.
Planting: We finished planting the garlic - heirloom hardnecks ‘Georgia Crystal' and ‘Chesnok Red'. We also finished planting the tulips, cultivars ‘Princess Irene' (orange with purple flames), ‘Purple Prince', ‘Yellow Purissima', ‘Flaming Purissima' , ‘White Emperor', and ‘Juan' (orange). We had leftover daffodils (‘Sparkling Spring Mix') so we planted them at the end of the rows as row markers. Some of the tulips and daffodils made it into the rose Garden for a spring display. After planting, we tucked our bulbs in for the winter by covering with a couple of inches of straw.
In the greenhouse, we finished potting up the rest of the hyacinth and crocus bulbs that we are forcing for spring.
Harvesting/Snacking: We ate everything we harvest. We snacked on herbs, stray radishes and lettuce in the greenhouse. The last of the mini-carrots were harvested and enjoyed.
We enjoyed walking the Labyrinth at the end of a satisfying week of outdoor work.
Week of November 14, 2011
Crisp crunchy garlic
Pulling squishy tomatoes
Shoveling cold dirt
Haiku created from Della Terra "words of the day"
We had bright sunshine and gray drizzle. The weather was mixed but definitely heralding winter.
Maintenance: We tidied up the greenhouse by emptying pots and seedlings into the compost. We also pulled more tomato vines from the trellis. We tried to pick the cherry tomatoes still clinging to the vines, but the squished in our hands. They were ruined by frost.
Harvesting: We had an accidental harvest of potatoes when we dug trenches to plants tulips in the former potato beds. Everyone took pockets of potatoes home.
Planting: We planted tulips ‘Christmas Dream', ‘White Marvel', and ‘Couleur Cardinal' (purple-red) for our spring tulip bouquet sale. We began planting our first garlic varieties, hardneck heirlooms called ‘Music' and ‘Georgian Crystal'. The music had purple striations while the Georgian crystal was small and white. We also potted up the last of the daffodil ‘Tete a Tete' that we are forcing and several of the red-purple hyacinths ‘Jan Bos'.
Snacking: We munched on broccoli florets and leaves in the garden and picked mini-carrots in the greenhouse raised bed. We also sampled Lemon balm and tingly eyeball plant flowers.
Week of October 25, 2011
Wet, wet, cold gray day
Freezing hail pellets my head
Colorful flowers
Haiku created from Della Terra "words of the day"
This week we had a lot of drizzly rain. On the last day we discussed the ‘hoar frost' that morning, where water freezes on surfaces that are colder than the air and grow tiny threads of ice crystals -making it look like the grass and shrubs are wearing a fuzzy white hair shirt.
Maintenance: We spent a chilly work period pulling up spent tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and bush beans from the garden rows. We also weeded some very persistent perennial weeds that were trying to get a foothold in the empty garden beds. It occasionally drizzled on our heads and then hailed on our heads, but every time we decided to go back inside, it stopped! We also watered the pots that were being forced, and weeded the raised bed in the greenhouse.
Harvesting: We made some bouquets of calendula and random flowers just for the school. Soon the frost will take them all. The colors were brilliant in the dreary rain. After the first hard frost, we decided that the rest of the celery needed to be harvested before it was too late.
Planting: We potted up 20 pots of miniature Daffodil ‘Tete a Tete' which we are forcing in the greenhouse for a March sale. We also planted Tulip ‘Christmas Dream' (rosy-pink) outside for the (hopefully) April tulip bouquets sale. Only 550+ more bulbs to go!
Snacking: We snacked on cherry tomatoes still hanging on the vine and tasty! We sampled spearmint which was trying to become a weed in the garden. We tasted the Kale and broccoli after the hard frost to see if it was sweeter (it was!). We tasted the celery and parsley that had wilted in the frost, then bounced back. The flavor seemed unaffected by the frost.
Week of October 17, 2011
I ate lettuce - yum!
I ate Stevia - awesome!
I cut scented geraniums
Propagating fun!
Poem created from Della Terra "words of the day"
The week started out blustery but warm. We observed the maple tree's now bare branches against a gray sky. This week we had another microgreens sale. The students really enjoy running the sales and is so fun to see their enthusiastic selling.
Maintenance: We unloaded more pea gravel and some scented geraniums (from my home collection) and brought them to the greenhouse. Washing the gravel prior to using it remained a favorite, although wet, activity. We spent some time securing the fabric from the low tunnels that had become loose. We got our exercise for the day carrying rocks to better weigh down the edges of the fabric.
Harvesting: We picked more sunflower seeds off the enormous flowerheads. We cut, washed and bagged microgreens for sale. We dug up red potatoes and a large quantity of fingerlings (which had an amusing shape). We also cut more bouquets of amaranth and zinnias and cosmos to sell with the microgreens. I am not sure what they love more - making bouquets or selling them.
Planting: We finished potting up the ‘Zivz' paperwhites for sale. They are so beautiful for the holidays! Look for them at the Holiday Art Market. On the last day, in the face of driving rain and high winds, we propagated cuttings in the greenhouse. We discussed different types of vegetative propagation, leaf, stem, and root. We took stem cuttings from the scented geraniums (‘Chocolate Mint' and a lemon-scented variety) and potted them up. The students can take them home when they root.
Snacking: When we worked in the greenhouse we snacked on cherry tomatoes, lettuce and the herb chervil (licorice). Everyone was amazed at the sweetness of their first taste of the stevia. And of course, they all got to harvest an heirloom carrot for a healthy snack on the last day.
Week of October 10, 2011
Spicy mouth, juicy tomatoes
Potatoes, pumpkins, bouquet
Exhilarating green!
Poem created from Della Terra "words of the day"
October is National Farm to School Month. The Children's House participates in Farm to School - we source our food from local farmers as well as attend the regional and national conferences. For more information go to www.farmtoschoolmonth.org. On the website you will see events being hosted once or twice each month for students at local Traverse Area schools, where students have an opportunity to sample local, freshly prepared food. I applaud their efforts, and am very thankful that my children and students get to eat local, freshly prepared food every day at The Children's House.
Maintenance: We had fun creating signs for our Microgreen sale. A lot of effort was spent washing, weighing and bagging the microgreens. We dragged watering cans to our poor wilted grape vines (they are still alive). We washed pea gravel to prep for potting up narcissus. We also inventoried the sanitized seed starting supplies and put in the shed until spring.
Harvesting: We harvested microgreens for our sale this week from the 12 flats and the table top soil box. This week we had two different kinds - a mild blend of which consisted of lettuce seedlings and a spicy blend which was primarily mustard greens. We dug fingerling potatoes and filled a bowl of cherry tomatoes for the kitchen. The cherry tomatoes are still flowering and producing to my amazement. We decided to pick bouquets of flowers from our Della Terra pollinator garden (the flowers planted next to and in the garden to attract beneficial insects.) We made stunning bouquets of zinnias, pink cosmos, blue bachelor buttons, orange Mexican sunflowers and burgundy amaranth. The students decided to sell them with the microgreens. We picked sunflower seeds out of the giant volunteer sunflower heads we picked from the garden. We are saving the seeds for spring to start, though I understand that sunflower microgreens have a pleasant nutty flavor.
Planting: We potted up ‘Ziva' paperwhites in pea gravel to force the Holiday Art Market. We hope to sell them there if they are ready in time. Paperwhites are a lovely and fragrant holiday bloom.
Snacking: We snacked on Microgreens! And of course the ever-present and delicious cherry tomatoes and toothache plant. We all stopped to sample Stevia and snack on that perennial kid-favorite - chives. We picked a few funny round heirloom carrots that were yummy. We were still hungry so we decided the broccoli should be pruned into our mouths. Nothing is better than fresh broccoli. Even the leaves taste good!
Week of October 3, 2011
Distracted, sleepy heat
Blue Indian Summer sky
Jackpot! Digging potatoes
Poem created from Della Terra "words of the day"
This week began the start of the warm Indian summer weather. On Monday, we unloaded two virgin wine barrels, soon to become TCH rain barrels. Steve is coordinating this great project with the kids.
Maintenance - we began weeding the garden rows, followed by putting down the last of the spring compost delivery. The dried up pumpkin vines were very picky and we needed our gloves.
Snacking - As we pulled the vines off the trellis, we found several Red Noodle Beans (yard long beans) which we shared. We snacked on Toothache plant and cherry tomatoes. We sampled spearmint and the spicy and mild microgreens (now 3 inches tall in greenhouse). We enjoyed stevia (herbal sweetener) and tangerine gem marigolds (edible flower that tastes citrusy). The broccoli in the triangle garden has many small florets - we snacked on any that looked like they were ready to flower in the heat. The rest we left to get larger for the kitchen.
Harvesting - We harvested the radish microgreens for snack and some mums and tangerine gem marigolds for crafts. We gathered up all the pumpkins (New England Pie Pumpkins) and dug for potatoes. Much of the potatoes had been harvested during the Harvest Festival by the toddlers and primary. It was hard work but out perseverance and thoroughness resulted in three baskets of overlooked potatoes (about 40 lbs). Whenever we found an undisturbed mound of potatoes, the students yelled "jackpot!", and scrambled to put them in the basket.
Week of September 26, 2011
"The bitter bite
Makes drooly spools
In my tingly mouth
Yum!"
Poem created by Catherine Turnbull from Della Terra students "words of the day" written on the board
Snacking - Sampling toothache plant (which the above poem refers to) continues to be a hit with the students. We also tasted some Stevia planted in the garden. I gave everyone a leaf and asked them to taste it and tell me what they thought the plant was used for. No surprise that they asked for more - Stevia is a natural sweetener that is 300 times stronger (sweeter) than sugar but has no calories. It is used as a sugar substitute. Stevia is an herb in the sunflower family that is native to the western North America as well as Central and South America. Next year we will plant more and make tea with it.
We observed the progress of the radish seedlings/micro greens that were planted in the second week of school. They were milder in flavor but still tasted like radish. The student pronounced them "good". We also picked some lemongrass (a scratch and sniff plant), and munched on cherry tomatoes, chervil (licorice), and the mini-carrots in the raised bed.
Garden Maintenance - It started as a warm and rainy week so we worked a lot in the greenhouse and the shed. We washed and sanitized the seed starting trays and covers and the plastic pots used for forcing bulbs. Kids love water work. On the one dry day we had, we cleaned out and organized the shed. More than one word for the day was "dusty". We stacked all the same size pots together and organized like tools together. (The next day they asked to go see the shed again to admire their work - which we did.)
Harvesting - On Friday, the weather turned cold and another frost threatened. We went into the garden and harvested tons of green tomatoes, zinnias, sunflower heads, amaranth, peppers - anything that we thought might be frost damaged. We came up with this haiku:
Gray, freezing cold sky
Muddy soaked wet garden
Race to beat the frost
Planting - we managed to plant some mache (winter lettuce) in the triangle garden between raindrops. We also started 12 flats of micro greens - 6 spicy blend and 6 mild blend. These will be for sale at car line and incorporated into snack when they are ready to be harvested.
Week of September 11, 2011
"The dirty wet brown
Fluffy smelly caterpillar
Under the sweet green"
Collaborative Haiku from Della Terra class
Respect: We always start the week discussing the 5 "things" we need to respect in Della Terra. For most it is a refresher; I enjoy watching the older children teach the younger children. The answer is "each other, the instructor, the plants, the tools and the environment". We all laugh to think up things that would not be respectful like throwing tomatoes, harvesting carrots before they are big enough to eat, or having Jedi light saber battles with long-handled shovels (not respecting tools).
Journaling: Every day we begin by writing a weather observation in our garden journals. We take readings from the school weather station (temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction) and discuss the implications of the forecast for our work in the garden and for farmers in general. This week we discussed an early Fall!
This year, to encourage students to illustrate as well as record their observations and work, I have furnished colored pencils. It has proved very popular and has produced some great renderings of our harvest. Yes, those purple potato drawings are really of purple potatoes! The students also responded enthusiastically to a new language arts activity in Della Terra. Every day we think of a "Word for the Day" that we write on the board. At the end of the week the students can either write a descriptive sentence using at least three words about their Della Terra experience, or attempt a haiku using the words.
Harvest: Our first harvest activity of the school year was harvesting Bartlett pears on a neighbor's property. The pears were originally planted by grandfather Reed Zitting when he owned the property across the street. We had noticed over the years that the pears often where not fully harvested. Thus, on a glorious sun-drenched late summer day, some staff and upper el (with the homeowner's permission) walked across the street and harvest 5 bushels of golden-green pears.
We also picked a basket of yellow and orange calendula blossoms that are drying under books for art projects. We harvested 7 1/2 lbs. of cherry tomatoes, assorted bush beans, eggplants, large tomatoes, purslane, a "weed" very high in Omegas. The celery harvest was a big job (18 ½ lbs. so far) - they had to be dug, trimmed (with knives borrowed from the kitchen) and washed before going into the refrigerator. Potato hunting remains a favorite task (22 lbs. so far). We harvested 6 ½ lbs. of cucumbers and sparked the comment "Hey that cucumber looks like an egg!" The name of the cultivar is "Dragon's Egg", planted for the delight of discovery, an example of bio-diversity and because it is prolific.
Planting: We planted the triangle garden raised beds with lettuce ‘mesculin blend' and transplanted basil plants to the greenhouse since a frost was predicted.
Week of May 16, 2011
Enough shovels of earth - a mountain. Enough pails of water - a river.
- Chinese proverb
We continued planting potatoes and onions this week but ran into a conflict with the tulips that were so late in blooming. We could not move the wheelbarrow into the garden without destroying our beautiful tulip blooms that were still waiting to become bouquets for sale. Thus, we formed a compost bucket brigade. Team Bucket each took a five gallon bucket and shoveled it full of with compost (to the weight they could carry). They hand carried it into the garden row and gently deposited it around the tulips without damaging them. They sang songs while they did this and played a game pretending that they were shoveling coal on the Titanic. This exhausting work was so popular that the potato planting team and the onion planting team kept asking to rotate jobs so that they could shovel compost too. I felt like Tom Sawyer handling a brush and a bucket of whitewash to the friends. Soon the task we had set for the day was done.
The students also really enjoyed helping with the Annual Plant Sale. They helped label the vegetable, herbs and flowers, and made signs. We loaded up the tomatoes and beans and cucumbers and arranged them by category in the front of the school for the car line sale. What good salespersons they were! They sold tulip bouquets, helped customers find plants and made change. We have a crop of budding entrepreneurs.
Week of May 9, 2011
This cabbage, these carrots, these potatoes, these onions ... will soon become me.
Such a tasty fact!- Mike Garofalo
The week started out warm and dry. We discussed the difference between horse manure compost and Dairy Doo cow manure compost (black gold) as we shoveled it on the production garden. Horse digestion is not always very thorough and weed seeds can pass through undigested and end up in your garden. The students toiled diligently to put on the needed 2-3 inches of compost on the garden. The Dairy Doo is a very high quality compost of straw and cow manure which is so rich in nutrients that we put it on as a top dressing of ¼ to ½ inch as a fertilizer. One is a soft brown (horse) and one is a rich black color (cow). Lots of beetles lived in the horse manure which was very entertaining at break time.
We began planting potatoes in earnest. This week planted rows of the ‘All Blue' (makes purple mashed potatoes) and yellow ‘Crinkle Bottom' and the pink ‘Rio Grande' and ‘Mountain Rose' seed potatoes. Kristina wants a lot of potatoes for the kitchen and the students asked to plant more to dig in the fall. We are planting hours of treasure-hunting fun.
One day was rainy so we worked in the raised beds by the kitchen and planted broccoli ‘Bay Meadows' and ‘Purple of Sicily', cauliflower ‘Snowball' and white cipolin onions. We cleaned up and replanted lettuce beds in the greenhouse and outside and added ‘French Breakfast radishes to our spring mix.
The tulips finally bloomed! Our Early April tulips finally were ready for the tulip bouquet sale in mid-May. We are only a few weeks behind schedule this spring due to our cold weather. On Thursday I took a team to cut and bundle the tulips to sell bouquets at the Research Fair.
Week of May 2, 2011
"For every child is born a naturalist. His eyes are, by nature, open to the glories of the starts, the beauty of the flowers, and the mystery of life." R. Search
We started off the week by cleaning out the greenhouse lettuce beds and replanting with lettuce starts - small lettuces we had started from seed weeks earlier. Much of the greens had been harvested for the gala salad and last week's pizza lunch. The students had fun sampling the different lettuces and the mizuna as they worked. We even sampled the weed Purslane which is a salad green in many parts of the world. It tasted "lemony".
The students enthusiastically potted up heirloom tomato seedlings called ‘Carbon' in half gallon pots. We are hoping to sell these at the plant sale for a premium because they will be much bigger. We discussed price points for different sized plants. They decided we should offer them for $12.
We finished off the starting the seeds of the pole beans Fortex and purple podded "Royal Beauty'. These are always fun because they sprout so fast.
Finally we got some sunshine and spring weather. We discussed how all the plants were behind schedule due to the cold wet spring. Our April blooming tulips are weeks away from bloom still! We examined the school forsythia and noted that the branches did not even have bud swell yet.
With exuberance born of sunlight, we moved three loads of mulch to the garden paths and six loads of horse manure compost to the production garden for the potatoes. We paused many times to examine larva and beetles that seemed to be living in the compost, though. Even the oldest children will stop to say hello to an earthworm.
Week of April 25, 2011
"If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders." Abigail Van Buren
This week's group of students was very productive. The weather was very rainy for three days but "April showers bring May flowers" so that is okay.
We began by catching up on our seed starting schedule. This week we started a lot of flowers which included yellow and orange calendula, red and yellow marigolds, a rainbow of zinnias and cosmos, and nasturiums. The students were excited by the interesting heirloom seeds: Cucumber ‘Dragon's Egg' and ‘Lemon', Melon ‘Tigger', ‘Beans ‘Dragon's Tongue' and ‘Beau Beurre de Rocquencourt'. Everyone wanted to plant the weirdest looking plant or seed.
On Friday we broke into work teams. Some students sterilized half gallon pots for planting tomatoes, others moved numerous wheelbarrows of Dairy Doo compost and spread it over the raised beds. Another team spread out donated white plastic sheeting and measured and cut it into 12 inch x 35 foot sections. We will use the plastic as a weed barrier on the paths of the productions garden.
After working them so hard I was afraid there would be a backlash. Instead, it was hard to get them to leave. Some stayed after class to sweep and tidy the greenhouse. One girl who had a very tedious job wrote in her journal "Della Terra Rocks!" all around the margins and joyfully showed it to me.
Week of March 21, 2011
We started the week by taking a tour of both gardens to assess when they would be ready to plant. Everything was still pretty wet. We discussed why we need to wait until the soil dries out, even for our cold weather crops, like broccoli and peas. Plants take up oxygen from their roots and need oxygen to grow. Soil that is very soggy has no air in it - all the space between soil particles has been taken up by water. Nevertheless, some plants were still growing under the snow. We sampled thyme and oregano leaves but did not see evidence of the beets and radishes that we had planted in the fall.
As the greenhouse gets fuller it is taking longer and longer to water it! Hopefully the hose will thaw soon. And hopefully the big winter storm they are predicting will not hit.
In the greenhouse we started flats of herbs (chives, garlic chives, oregano and thyme), vegetables (purple and green broccoli) and flowers (candytuft, sweet william).
The big storm hit! We huddled in our homes for a snow day.
The later part of the week was unseasonably cold and we had 10 new inches of snow on the garden. At least it was warm in the greenhouse. We finished out the week planting flats of Marigold ‘Red Cherry' and petunia seeds that we had harvested last fall from our annual flower baskets. We dreamed of spring and more temperate climes.
Week of March 14, 2011
The week started out cold at 36◦F, but warmed up nicely into the fifties by the end. While recording our daily weather observation in our garden journals, we discussed how cold weather and late a spring could affect the garden planting schedule.
The ground was not thawed yet, which meant that we could not use the buried water hose to water the seedlings in the greenhouse. Luckily, kids love a bucket (or watering can) brigade. Of course, not everyone loves puddles on the floor. Sorry Art!
On Monday we had a car line ‘plant sale'. We offered up pots of forced bulbs of daffodils, hyacinth and muscari for a suggested donation of $4 and $8. Some of the flowers had already peaked so we set them aside to plant in the school garden. The students had fun practicing their salesmanship and learning how to make change on the run. We raised almost $300 to help pay for heating this greenhouse.
In the greenhouse we started flats of Tomatoes ‘Ananas Noire', ‘Great White', ‘Pantano Romanesco', ‘Green Zebra' and ‘Matts Wild Cherry'. We finished starting tomatoes for the year and also did many flats of lettuce and onion "starts" destined for the production garden. We planted seeds of phlox, candytuft, and snapdragons for the school cutting garden.
Steve had fun harvesting lettuce from the raised bed with extended day; the elementary students enjoyed it as an accompaniment to their pizza lunch. To ensure future salads in school lunch, we planted more lettuce in the raised bed. This is called "succession planting".
We ended the week by sweeping and cleaning the greenhouse and taking a walk in the garden. Everything looked pretty dormant but we did see some carrots in the triangular bed that may have been missed harvesting in the fall.
Week of February 28, 2011
It is great to be back in the greenhouse! We are getting a head start on spring.
We took the low tunnel plastic covering off the raised bed and watered the potted bulbs we were forcing there over the winter. The green leaves were just peaking above the soil in the pot. After we moved the bulbs to a table, we watered and raked the raised bed to prepare it for planting. The students planted several packets of Mizuma and Lettuce ‘Sanquine Ameliore', an organic heirloom. We are hoping to be able to have lettuce with pizza on Mondays soon.
We also started a total of 70 flat of seeds this week! The students were extremely productive. They planted 10 flats of onion starts that will be set out in the garden this spring. The onions included Onion ‘Bianco Di Maggio' (a white cipollini), ‘Yellow of Parma' (yellow storage), and Ruby Ring (yellow storage). They also planted peppers, eggplants, herbs (lemon grass and cilantro) and snapdragons.
The spring plant sale will have this spring a selection of hot peppers selected by the Upper El students, such as ‘Habanero', ‘Padron', ‘Thai Red Chilli'. We will have a rainbow of sweet peppers again (red, purple, brown, white, orange) and some miniature eggplants. One new item is Eggplant ‘Thai Long Green', which will be part of our Thai Cooking Garden Collection.
By the end of the week the potted daffodils, hyacinth and muscari were starting to bloom. We were amazed by how fast they started to grow once the greenhouse heat was turned on.
As the greenhouse heated up on sunny days we began to water everything in earnest. Since there is no water to the greenhouse until the ground thaws, we begin each Della Terra session with a watering can brigade to keep everything moist and germinating. We use warm water from the tap inside because many seeds need 70-80 °F soil to germinate. We discussed what germination is and how some seeds, like peppers seeds, will rot in cold wet soil, instead of germinate. We plugged in the seed starting heat mats and placed as many of the pepper flats as would fit. We will rotate flats on the mats to get good germination.
Week of Nov. 15 2010
Once again we had fun forcing bulbs for a spring potted flower sale. The students potted up three different sized and shaped bulbs: Hyacinth ‘Pink Pearl', Muscari ‘Dark Eyes' (blue with white edges), and miniature Daffodil ‘Tete a Tete'. These will be sold at car line in the spring.
We also spent some time cleaning the greenhouse. We pulled weed sand swept the floor. The sweepers were very enthusiastic - for some reason sweeping is a favorite activity. I felt a little like Huck Finn.
Food of the Month was broccoli. Both primary and elementary students enjoyed a hands-on presentation about this "Super Food", one of the super heroes of the vegetable world. We passed around a head of broccoli as well as some broccoli leaves from the school vegetable garden. We discovered that broccoli is one of the few flowers we eat and that the leaves and flowers and stems all taste very similar. We also learned that it is so packed full of vitamin C and anti-oxidants that it's good to eat it when you are sick, and if you eat it all the time you will stay healthier.
Lastly, we made individual planters from cut-off water bottles. We filled these with pea gravel and planted ‘Ziva' paper whites in them. This tender bulb is very fragrant and is often seen around the holidays. We placed them inside the school by a sunny window to force them for December. Each student that planted one took one home to enjoy for the holidays in December.
Week of Nov. 8 2010
This week we continued planting our spring and fall crops of tulips and garlic in beautiful sunshine and warm weather. We were racing against the weather because the weather was about to turn.
We used two sticks with a rope attached to mark out a straight line, then formed a row a hands-breadth apart to dig a 30 foot trench. We had fun singing ‘digging songs' as we worked. One favorite was ‘Dynamite' by a popular singer. The fasted the beat the faster we worked.
The tulips were in colors of rosy-pink (‘Christmas Dream'), red (Couleur Cardinal' and Bastogne), orange and purple (‘Princess Irene'), pale orange (‘Apricot Beauty'), arctic white (‘Wildhof'), yellow with orange flames (‘Strong Gold'), and dark purple (‘Don Quixote' and ‘Negrita').
We also planted the garlic that we had harvested from last year (we saved cloves for this purpose). We had planted 8 varieties but last year but labels did not survive the winter so it is now mystery garlic. After planting, we spread a thick blanket of straw mulch to ‘tuck in' the bulbs for the winter.
Week of November 1, 2010
In the Fall, you can get a jump start on spring by preparing the garden beds. We emptied out the school compost bin and loaded up the tomato bed by the greenhouse with stinky compost. It is not as finished as we would like but we hope it will be by spring!
We harvested the bumpy, warty pumpkins (not edible) to decorate the front of the school. We placed them next to the mums. We harvested most of the red cabbage (we had to taste the leaves as we did this).
We pulled out the plants in the raised bed in the greenhouse. While we did this we had numerous squeals of delight as we found the last of the peppers, tomatoes and eggplants. The students observed the soft velvety texture of the eggplants leaves and the beautiful purple blossoms. They wanted to know why they had to come out and we talked about the winter to come and the need to only keep cold hardy crops in the greenhouse because it would not be heated until spring.
We began digging trenches and planting tulips outside. We planted tulip varieties ‘White Marvel', ‘Purple Prince' and ‘Belladona' (yellow). We talked about the stinky stuff I had sprayed on the bulbs ("Plantskyd", an organic animal repellant made from blood). There are several places in the garden where the ground is soft and springy. We had fun finding them and jumping on them and discussing the voles and moles that were underground making tunnels and causing the soft spots. Tulips are delicious to critters. We hoped that we used enough repellent spray to make sure we had a tulip crop for our spring tulip bouquets sale.
We spread bags of "Dairy Doo" compost on the lettuce bed and the raised bed in the greenhouse. We will be planting them with lettuce and more herbs soon. They will be covered with plastic to give them extra protection. Each layer of plastic provides about 10°F of projection for plants in a cold hoop house (or unheated greenhouse).
Week of October 18, 2010
As the leaves began to fall we began clearing out the garden in earnest. We harvested the last of the ‘Delicata' squash and many eggplants in the production. The students loved harvesting the Cinderella pumpkins so we stretched that out over a few sessions.
We began digging up the weeds in the production garden so that we could plant tulips and garlic without competition soon.
We also began to clean out the greenhouse in preparation for closing it after Thanksgiving (or at least not leaving warm weather plants in it.) We each carried a petunia basket outside to the brush pile. We dumped out some of the pepper plants. I gave each child a choice of a left over small plant to take home. They could choose thyme or oregano if they had a sunny kitchen window sill, or coleus or impatiens for a shady interior. The coleus were houseplants in Victorian dayd and both can be grown indoors in the winter and placed outside in the spring. If your child brings home a small plant, please help them put it in a bigger pot soon!
We also began to clear out the cherry tomatoes planted in the bed by the greenhouse. We found many that were ripe to snack on and many more were green to transport to the greenhouse to ripen on a table. We discussed how tomatoes need heat and light to ripen. We also noticed how prolific the cherry tomatoes were - they were covered with new yellow blossoms as if they did not know a frost was imminent.
We began filling the lettuce box frame that Reed built for us. We lined it with plastic and then filled it with peat moss and potting soil. We are hoping to grow lettuce for as much of the winter as possible for school lunch.
We planted some parsley starts and cilantro seeds in the greenhouse raised bed. We are hoping to cover it with an additional layer of plastic and grow herbs for the kitchen over the winter.
We had fun looking for green lacewing larva crawling on the tomatoes that were left in the greenhouse. We did not see them (they are tiny), but students did comment on how soft like velvet the eggplant leaves were. The students were delighted to pick a miniature white eggplant and a mini purple eggplant to take home. I reminded them that they were called ‘Gretel' and ‘Hansel' and that we had started them as seeds in the spring. "Like the fairytale?" they said. "Yes" I replied. They were part of our fairytale plant collection in the spring plant sale. Spring seems like a long time ago in time and memory!
Week of October 11, 2010
Finally our ‘alligator' bugs arrived! We had fun looking at the hatched green lacewing larva under a magnifying glass and then, with much anticipation, took turns sprinkling them onto the whitefly infested plants in the greenhouse.
We took a look at the experiments we planted the last rainy day. The kale and cabbage planted in the compost was twice as big as those planted in peat moss and the ones in perlite had sickly yellow leaves. Compost rules!
We discussed what an entry in their garden journal could look like - we read one of Cara F.'s entries from last year from when we constructed the Fibonacci spiral herb bed. Cara said "Fun, fun, fun!!!" about that project. We talked about what projects we should do in the spring and what the garden should look like next year. One person asked for a sunflower house like Primary. Please brainstorm additions to the garden with your children! We had more requests for strawberries, black raspberries, ‘monster plants', and celery and lots more potatoes and carrots to dig.
We noticed the beets and radishes had sprouted. We covered them and the strawberries under the apple trees with a light straw mulch. We planted ‘Lolla bionda" lettuce in the outside raised bed. Hopefully we will get a Thanksgiving salad.
We continued clearing the garden for our next crops - tulips and garlic. Pulling out the 10 ft sunflowers was a team effort! We made bouquets with the zinnias and celosia before we pulled out the plants. We snacked on tomatoes, kale chives, eggplants and peppers as we cleared the garden.
We harvested the last of the basil - Genovese, Lemon and Cinnamon. Of course we sampled them and some other herbs while we were at it and discussed why some had brown spots on them (frost damage). The students were also very excited to harvest more of the Cinderella pumpkins - coming to school lunch soon!
Food of the Month was presented to Primary and discussed in Della Terra. Fennel is interesting because it is three plants in one - herb, spice and vegetable. We sampled the licorice flavor of the bronze fennel fronds from the herb garden. Then we sample the seeds and discussed how it was eaten in India after meals as a breath cleanser and is one of the ingredients in Chinese Five Spice powder. Last we sampled raw Florence bulb - it was like crunchy licorice celery. Kristina braised fennel bulbs in vegetable stock so we also sample cooked fennel. Fennel is native to the Mediterrean but was spread by the Romans (fennel is the seed in Italian sausage) and is now naturalized all over the world. Try instead on celery or onion the next time you roast meat or vegetables.
We lamented that our enormous broccoli plants never produced any flowers (broccoli florets) but decided that the stems and leaves were pretty close and made a good snack anyway. (One student told me that the reason he came to Della Terra is because he always hungry and he knows he will get a snack!)
Week of October 4, 2010
We continued to enjoy the cool but beautiful weather outside. We spread finished compost from the school bin over the potatoes that we planted as well as the lettuce and broccoli raised beds. We did a layered planting of radishes over the potatoes. As an experiment, we used half of the radish seeds that we harvested from the garden and half from seed packets - National mix, Saxa 2 and French Breaskfast varieties.
We continued our experiment of planting cool weather crops in fall for an early spring harvest. We planted three kinds of beets - Albino, Golden and Bull's Blood varieties. In the production garden, we planted colorful carrots - ‘Atomic Red', ‘Amarillo Yellow', ‘Snow White', and ‘Cosmic Purple'. We also planted a large patch of parsnips.
We also continued to harvest and clear the beds, sometimes at the same time. We had an accidental onion harvest as we weeded and prepared the bed for the carrots - apparently we had left a lot in there when we harvested last summer! We gathered soy bean pods with ripened seeds for next year's garden. We harvested green tomatoes as we cleared the blackened carcasses of the Amish Paste plants. The children were very excited to begin harvesting Cinderella pumpkins (C. Rouge Vif D'etampe) that we deemed ready. We were also excited to examine a ‘volunteer' pumpkin variety with warty skin. We believe it grew in the corner of the garden from discarded seeds from last pumpkin day.
And of course we snacked! Several hungry students decided to make a salad in the garden. They harvested lettuce, chives, kale, parsley and cherry tomatoes for their salad. We also had fun sampling herbs like mint, lemon basil and fennel.
We discussed journaling about our work in their Dell Terra journals - ask you child to show you theirs! We also talked about what our garden should look like next year. So far we have requests for more potatoes, strawberries, celery and blackberries.
Week of September 27, 2010
The beautiful weather made it a joy to work outside. We began preparing the first row of the production garden for the next crop - carrots and parsnips. We will plant seeds in fall and mulch well as an experiment to see if we get an early spring crop. Using shovels, we weeded and turned the soil to get it ready for seeds. We discovered several garlic cloves that had been overlooked as well as a few onions. We snacked on Kale while worked.
We continued to harvest tomatoes - this time looking for green ones that we could put in the greenhouse to ripen before the coming frost. We found more Yukon gold potatoes to harvest - you may find some in your child's backpack.
We found more beans - red noodle, yellow wax and purple spotted Dragon's Tongue. Some made it to the kitchen but most were a snack in the garden. At the end of each session we grabbed chives to munch on the way back to class.
We also planted seed potatoes left over from the spring that were kept in the refrigerator. In another experiment, we will plant them in the fall to see if we get an early spring crop. Judging by all the potato plants we dug up and transplanted last spring, it will probably work! We covered the potatoes with newly finished compost from the compost bin. The student commented on how smelly it was so we made nose-gays of mint sprigs to hide the odor.
Lastly, we inspected the tomato plants growing in the greenhouse. They have a whitefly infestation, as do some in the garden. We discussed how white flies are like plant ‘mosquitoes' - they drink the fluids from the leaves and transmit plant diseases. Traditionally, farmers spray white flies with pesticide. However, we were going to try to get rid of them using a more natural approach. I ordered hatched larva of green lacewings - a predator insect with a voracious appetite. We will release them soon in the greenhouse and then it is Showtime! (or lunch time). This is called Integrated Pest Management or IPM. Ask you child what animal the lacewings resemble
Week of September 20, 2010
Fall is such a busy time in the garden. We harvested 20 lbs of purple potatoes, which are especially intriguing because they stay purple when you cook them! We also harvest some random beets leftover from an earlier harvest and a small amount of Yukon gold potatoes. We continued to harvest large amounts of tomatoes and located a few peppers. The peppers all turn colors of the rainbow but never make it that far in their growth cycle. The boys especially love to pick the green peppers and eat them like apples. We discovered the last of the beans and snacked on purple-podded pole beans.
On a rainy day we kept busy with work stations in the greenhouse. We took turns collecting seeds from the petunias, washing seed tray lids from the spring, and conducting an experiment. We discussed the needs of plants: air (oxygen) for their roots, water, nutrients and light. We potted up three identical plants in three different mediums - pure perlite, pure spaghmum peat moss and pure compost (Dairy Doo). Perlite and peat moss are the major components of potting soil. Perlite is a heat-expanded volcanic rock used in potting soil to prevent compaction by creating air spaces. Peat moss is organic matter that holds water like a sponge. Compost is an organic decomposition product full of plant nutrients.
Week of September 13, 2010
The first week of school brought beautiful sunny, but cool, weather. We began our Della Terra sessions by talking about the weather and the prediction of an early fall. This means we will be working on getting all our harvest in as quickly as possible.
During the first week, elementary students harvested 14 lbs. of kohlrabi in the greenhouse raised bed. We snacked on long purple sections of this unusual looking vegetable of the cabbage family as we harvested. Some children ate the leaves which they declared delicious. We had a secondary harvest - caterpillars. We collected the caterpillars in a jar to identify later. We recognized the green cabbage worm but there were two fuzzy types that were unknown. Several students volunteered to find out what they were.
We also harvested two kinds of kale growing in the raised beds by the barn for a total of 7 lbs. It was intriguing to observe the differences in the two varieties - Red Russian had red stems and flat leaves while Blue Scotch Curled had very curly green-blue leaves. We also harvested radish seed pods to plant in the garden. Some of the green pods that were still juicy we popped in our mouth (they are good in a stir-fry, kind of like a spicy sugar snap pea). We also harvested the dried seeds of cilantro and discussed how they were now called coriander, a spice used in cooking. Everyone sampled the seeds.
During the week of September 13th, we harvested tomatoes and melons. The primary children and Della Terra students had a presentation on the Food of the Month - Tomatoes. We discussed the origin of tomatoes - the ‘New World' of South America - and the spread of the tomato to cuisines around the world through the Spanish explorers. We looked at the five varieties of cherry tomatoes we grew in the greenhouse, and the 8 varieties of heirloom full size tomatoes. The wrinkled dark purple skin of Purple Calabash was the favorite. In all, we harvested about 50 lbs of tomatoes. We also sampled, in the field, the last of the melons to be harvested. We sampled the orange-fleshed mini-melon ‘Sleeping Beauty' and the rare heirloom watermelon ‘Picnic'. Several children couldn't resist the miniature eggplants called Hansel and Gretel and Fairytale. They grabbed some to take home, though a few were eaten on the way back to class.
);)