Edible Schoolyard Journal

Harvest to Home

By Shaina Robbins | Published: November 25, 2009

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving marks the Edible Schoolyard’s annual Harvest to Home. The Harvest to Home is a chance for students at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School to bring a little piece of the Edible Schoolyard back to their homes. Our garden staff harvests the garden and creates bunches, bags, and bouquets for students at the school to share. When the bell rings on Tuesday afternoon, signifying the Thanksgiving break, everyone is invited to meet on the front lawn to collect their free garden goodies. Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to give thanks to the people we care about, and Harvest to Home is a very small way we can show our appreciation for our wonderful and inspiring students.

The crowd gathering to grab their veggies

The crowd gathering to grab their produce harvested from the ESY garden

One of our beautiful tables arranged by the students

Strawflowers that we dried and gave away

The chard was the first thing we ran out of

We also did a little tasting

The rosemary permeated the air

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Mesopotamia Walk

By Benjamin Eichorn | Published: November 20, 2009

Every fall in the Edible Schoolyard garden, sixth grade students participate in the Mesopotamia Walk, a virtual walk through ancient Mesopotamia. The ancient Mesopotamian people were the first in history to domesticate plants and animals, and they are also given credit for the creation of the first wheel, plow, and sail. Ten thousand years after their civilization began, we still depend on their technologies and inventions in our very own Edible Schoolyard garden.

The Mesopotamia Walk consists of three different stations: brick making with clay, sand, and straw; irrigation and dam construction in a giant sandbox; the walk and talk, where students are led through the garden looking at early tools and food plants first domesticated in Mesopotamia that we still grow and depend on today (some examples of this are leeks, cucumbers, figs, apples, and olives).

This activity is a real highlight of the sixth grade garden and kitchen curriculum. When our seventh grade students are asked what they remember most from the previous year in the garden many talk about the Mesopotamia Walk. We usually have science classes in the garden, but this activity is a great example of how any subject can be taught in a garden. We are deeply grateful to Beth Sonnenberg, one of our dedicated sixth grade teachers, for the development of this lesson.

One of the students collecting the dirt-hay mix to make bricks

The mold to form the bricks

Forming the bricks

The finished product

The irrigation sandbox

Students creating dams

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Knife Skills

By Joyce Lin-Conrad | Published: November 13, 2009

In their second class after the kitchen orientation, the sixth graders baked pan de muertos in honor of Dia de los Muertos. The sweet, brown sugar-encrusted rolls were formed into the shape of each student’s choice, to commemorate someone who has passed on. By far one of my favorites was a mini-loaf in the form of a hamster. As they waited for the bread to finish baking in our convection oven, the students wrote a message on a piece of brightly colored paper about what shape they chose and who their bread memorialized. The notes were then rolled up and placed into a memory wall we displayed in the kitchen along with our Day of the Dead altar!

This week, the sixth graders finally got to use their toolboxes. The students learned about the difference between paring knives, chef’s knives, and bread knives, and that we have special green and white cutting boards that are reserved for garlic and onions. The dish they prepared was a heavenly sautee of garlic, dinosaur kale, and collard greens, finished with a little soy sauce and sesame oil. Some students had the chance to peel and mince garlic, while others stripped the greens of their stalks and then cut or tore the leaves into smaller pieces before cooking. The wonderfully fragrant end result served over a bed of brown rice and quinoa was so popular that almost everyone asked for seconds.

The memory wall on the Day of the Dead altar

Collard greens in our garden

Dinosaur kale

The finieshed greens over brown rice and quinoa

The finished greens over brown rice and quinoa

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The Olive Harvest

By Sasha Harris-Lovett | Published: November 6, 2009

We have waited in eager anticipation of the olive harvest, and this week the majority of the olives have reached the desired plumpness, color, and maturity. Olives are fun to pick, and many students enjoy climbing into the lower branches of the trees to harvest the firm, round fruits. The ripe olives are a beautiful, dark purple hue, with tiny whitish speckles. One student described the color of the olive as looking “like stars in space.”

We were excited to find that many of the olives this year had not been hit by the olive fruit fly, a pest whose larvae has decimated our olives in the past. Since the beginning of the school year, 6th grade students have been monitoring the olive fruit fly traps which we have hanging from each tree–a yeast-based solution that attracts the flies and then drowns them. All their hard work paid off, and now we have a hefty quantity of olives that students will be able to eat.

Olives are extremely bitter when eaten raw, and there are numerous ways to cure the fruit, ranging from caustic chemical baths to packing the fruit in rock salt. We decided to go with a saltwater brine method to cure the fruit and to draw out the bitterness. We stirred vast quantities of non-iodized salt into a jar of water–enough salt to make a raw egg float! The olives were added to the saltwater and they will soak in the brine for many weeks before they’re ready to eat.

The olives curing in brine

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The Edible Schoolyard at Greensboro Children’s Museum

By Marsha Guerrero | Published: November 2, 2009

Last month, Alice and I traveled to North Carolina for the groundbreaking and related festivities at our Edible Schoolyard affiliate at Greensboro Children’s Museum. Three days of events celebrating the formal launch of the ESY program included an outdoor community breakfast, donor lunches in the kitchen classroom, and a dinner hosted by Dennis and Nancy Quaintance at their LEED Platinum Proximity Hotel. Every meal highlighted local, seasonal, and organic produce and products from local purveyors.

On launch day, the Guilford County Superintendent, “Mo” Green, and Alice put their heads together and Mayor Yvonne Johnson presented a key to the city, declaring Alice “the Magic Johnson of edible education.” Children placed their shovels in the soil, sampled fruit from the garden, and were happily engaged with the many learning exhibits. We visited the Peeler Elementary and Greensboro Montessori School gardens, the UNC Weatherspoon Museum, and the North Carolina State Extension Gardens, and managed to squeeze in some time at the famous, fabulous Curb Market on Saturday morning.

The Greensboro Children’s Museum is the first museum in the country with an Edible Schoolyard program and expects to serve as a model for museums and educational institutions nationwide.

Breaking ground

Mo Green, Gilford County School Superintendent, and Alice

Mo Green, Guilford County School Superintendent, and Alice

Lunch, prepared from local ingredients

garden1

garden2

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The Sixth Grade Kitchen Orientation

By Joyce Lin-Conrad | Published: October 29, 2009

We can truly feel autumn in the air now as the sixth grade math/science classes finish their eight-week introduction to the garden. The students, who will return to the garden in January, will spend the rest of their time before the winter recess exploring the kitchen classroom with their humanities teachers.

On their first day in the kitchen, the sixth graders meet Ms. Cook and Ms. Thomas, then fill out a short hand-written survey:

1. What is something you already know how to make by yourself?

2. What is the most unusual vegetable you have ever eaten?

3. What is your favorite and least favorite chore in the kitchen?

4. What is something (not a dessert) that you would love to learn how to make?

5. Please tell us one interesting fact about yourself.

On the backside of the survey, there is space for each student to write and draw in more depth about one of his/her favorite fruits or vegetables. We receive many delightful and illuminating responses. (The students are small, but their personalities are big!) One student wrote: “Mangoes are my favorite fruit. They are so good, especially dried mangoes. I could eat one million mangoes because they are so yummy. They taste like heaven.” Another wrote: “My favorite fruit is the tomato, because you can make salsa with it. Another reason I like tomatoes is because they taste good plain. Also, I like tomato sauce. One more reason I like them is because they have a lot of vitamins.”

Ms. Cook teaches the students to line up quietly outside the kitchen door before class, to store their things in cubbies, to put on an apron, and to wash their hands before the opening chefs’ meeting. She takes the students on a visual tour of the convection oven, the recycling and composting area, the cooking stations, the storage cabinets, and the spice table. Ms. Thomas introduces them to the flat-top griddle, the metro shelving, the bussing station, the refrigerator, the piano, the washing machine, and our industrial-strength dishwasher. The students have a chance to marvel at all the wonderful new things to look at and ask questions about tools or other objects they have never seen before. After a garden snack and a closing reflection, the sixth graders are ready to begin cooking on their next visit!

A message from Alice above the dish station

A flag from Alice hanging above the dish station

The aprons students wear during class

The bussing station

Dried strawflowers decorating the piano

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Beans, Beans, Beans

By Jonah Mossberg | Published: October 23, 2009

This year, we planted more beans than ever before. During our summer program in June, we sowed over 10 varieties of beans with the intention of saving them for seed or using them to make delicious meals in our kitchen classroom. Some of the varieties we grew this year are Scarlet Runner, Cannellini, Anasazi, Gigande, Cranberry, Cherokee Trail of Tears, Kosovo Pole, Jacob’s Cattle, and Calypso.

We allow the beans to dry in their pods before plucking them off the plants and then shell them together and organize them accordingly. Typically, beans need to be laid out for a few weeks after they are shelled to ensure that they are really dry–any moisture left in them can cause unwanted rot or diminish the length of seed viability. The bean harvest has been a popular job amongst the sixth graders over the past few weeks, not only because they get to delight in uncovering the vibrantly colored beans hiding inside their pods, but also because shelling beans is an activity that brings us all together to work and creates lots of space for conversation.

Growing beans is a great way for students to understand the cycle of life in the garden from seed to seed. Many of the varieties that we grow have been cultivated in the Americas for thousands of years and we use the bean harvest as an opportunity to familiarize students with the important histories of the bean varieties we grow. For example, we grow the Anasazi bean, a delicious, non-hybrid black bean that is a descendent of the beans the Anasazi people of Mesa Verde, Colorado grew thousands of years ago. We know that the Anasazi disappeared from this part of the world, but it is unclear to anthropologists why they mysteriously vanished. Archaeologists discovered the Anasazi beans in food storage containers found in Anasazi cliff dwellings and we have the honor today of sowing this bean year after year.

anasazivine scarletrunnervine

Cannellinis

Red Calypsos

Jacob's Cattles

Scarlet Runners

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Alegria and the Rain

By Sasha Harris-Lovett | Published: October 15, 2009

We had our first real rain of the year this week, an all-out storm that dumped fat droplets of water on us for nearly twenty four hours straight. The streets in Berkeley flowed with rushing water and the blacktop at King transformed into an enormous shallow wading pool. The garden, however, loved the rain and soaked it right up. All the vibrant shades of green glowed in the mist, and many students commented on how good the garden smelled after the rain. “It smells like things are growing,” one student said.

Cultivated vegetables are not all that responded well to the rain. We have gotten a flush of fungi in the garden since the storm, some of them magically appearing over night. The most bizarre fungus I have ever seen popped up next to a garden path, emerging as a delicate reddish net from a white, egg-shaped base. (I overheard one student explaining to her friend that “it hatches just like an alien.”) Not only is the form of the mushroom strange and fantastical, but the smell is unbelievable. The fungus (which we identified as Clathrus ruber, commonly known as a “stinkhorn”) emits a potent, rancid stench that brings to mind rotting flesh. Witnessing this freakish fungi always elicits comments of disgust and amazement–there is always something new and exciting for students to observe in the garden.

Aside from the thrill of the rain, students this week have been cooking a snack in the garden–a tasty treat called “Alegria.” Alegria is made with popped amaranth, honey, cinnamon, and sunflower seeds, likened by a student to a “healthy rice crispy treat.” It is eaten as a street food in southern Mexico, India, and Pakistan. Here in the garden, it’s served on an amaranth leaf and enjoyed at closing circle of a garden class.

The captivating and grotesque stinkhorn mushroom

Stirring popped amaranth, honey, and sunflower seeds for Alegria

Students pressing Alegria into shape

Dividing the Alegria into portions

Alegria served on amaranth leaves

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Harvest, Thresh, Winnow, Repeat…

By Jonah Mossberg | Published: October 8, 2009

Fall is a beautiful time to be in the garden. These days, we are busy trying to harvest all that autumn’s peak brings, as well as cultivate and plan for the winter season. Here at the Edible Schoolyard we grow several different types of grains: in the winter we plant wheat, barley, and oats; in the summer we cultivate millet, quinoa, and amaranth. Right now, the grains we planted in the summer are ripe and ready for harvest. Students will help with all aspects of the harvest and processing of our grains, but through a special lesson, we focus specifically on amaranth with our sixth graders.

Students learn that amaranth has been grown for 7,000 years and was of particular importance to the Aztec people in Mexico, both as a food crop and for ceremonial purposes. Through this lesson, we talk about what staple crops are and why they are relevant to our lives. Many of our students have never heard of amaranth before, even though it is seriously high in protein – higher than any other grain with a whopping 18%.

There are several steps to preparing amaranth and each sixth grader has a chance to do them all. After harvesting several plants, students gather under the oak tree to thresh the seeds off of the stalks onto a tarp. The falling seeds sound like pattering raindrops as they fall. We pass the seeds and the remaining plant material, called “chaff,” through a series of screens to separate out the seeds. Our final step is to winnow the grain, which requires great concentration to gently blow away the chaff from the seeds. The gathered seeds look like tiny jewels in the sun.

Our students get a good sense of how much hard work goes into collecting and preparing grains to eat by engaging in the process. Collectively, we are able to amass enough of the tiny seeds to make something with the amaranth. Next week, we will make a delicious snack called “alegria,” or “happiness” in Spanish, with amaranth. Stay tuned…

Red and golden amaranth beds

Ripe amaranth ready to harvest

Students threshing the amaranth stalks after harvest

A screen used to winnow the amaranth

Crushed amaranth chaff turned to die in the mortar and pestle

The beautiful amaranth dye

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2009 ELL Dinner

By Joyce Lin-Conrad | Published: October 2, 2009

On Monday night, members of the Edible Schoolyard and King Middle School staffs hosted a dinner in our kitchen for students in the English Language Learner program and their families. Earlier in the school day, ELL students prepared in class a garden salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, summer squash, bell peppers, and fresh herbs to contribute to the spread. They made a refreshing watermelon-lime agua fresca, filled vases with fresh-picked garden flowers, designed and drew a large welcome banner, rolled utensils in napkins, and set the table. They also created bookmarks for their families with pertinent school phone numbers and contact information.

We gathered around 6:00pm and shared a meal of chips and salsa, oven-roasted padron peppers, the salad, enchiladas, rice and beans, tomatillo salsa, the agua fresca, and freshly baked lime-pepita cookies. Needless to say, no one left hungry!

Administrators and teachers from the school mingled with King students, their siblings, and parents – some of whom have attended the ELL dinner in previous years. Families received information in English and Spanish about how to access school services and how to join an advisory committee for parents of ELL students. It was a lovely evening for all, and we look forward to hosting the dinner again next year.

board

thankyou kitchen

The padrons coming out of the oven!

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Harvest to Home

Mesopotamia Walk

Knife Skills

The Olive Harvest

The Edible Schoolyard at Greensboro Children’s Museum

The Sixth Grade Kitchen Orientation

Beans, Beans, Beans

Alegria and the Rain

Harvest, Thresh, Winnow, Repeat…

2009 ELL Dinner