Wrapping up a school year...

The past weeks have been a whirl wind as the school year wraps up! This week's blog post is a quick round-up  of the garden activities that kindergarten, second grade, sixth grade and Garden Club have been enjoying in the last weeks before summer break.

Garden Club has been trying some new recipes using lots of spring crops! This week it was Brussels Sprouts! The stalks were nearly as tall as our students, but that didn't stop them from hauling them out of the ground, picking each little round sprout, and cooking them up. The students shredded the Brussels Sprouts and cracked open fresh macadamia nuts from our garden to make a yummy pasta dish similar to this recipe. Everyone gave it two big thumbs up! Who says kids won't eat Brussels sprouts?!

Garden Club harvested Brussels Sprouts!

Two thumbs up for Garden Club's whole wheat pasta with shredded Brussels Sprouts and Macadamia Nuts (both from the garden!)

 Kindergarten learned more about the garden by singing a song about the 6 parts of a plant. Then they made food art with examples of each part of a plant -- fruits, flowers, leaves, stems, roots and seeds. While snacking on their art, some students drew their own plants.

plant part art

kindergarteners draw and label plants

 The World Change Club came out to the garden and helped with numerous harvests! They washed and prepared kale for a yummy kale salad and lemons that family members will enjoy during the Science Showcase.

washing kale

Students also had the opportunity to learn all about chickens, to visit the garden chickens & give them a snack... and to make their own chicken art! Second grade even used the chicken eggs to make a healthy brown rice & veggie 'fried' rice!

kindergarten students feed the chickens some collard greens

chicken art!

Spring Potatoes & A Kick Off to 'Get Fit, Eat Healthy'

EPACS students spent last week focused on what it means to 'Get Fit & Eat Healthy'.  Garden Club 1st and 2nd graders spent Friday celebrating the week's theme by working up a sweat harvesting gem-like spring potatoes and preparing a healthy Mediterranean soup using the fresh potatoes and lots of other veggies.

Students were fascinated by the way potatoes grow under the ground and by the different colors of the potatoes . Back in January, EPACS 3rd and 4th graders planted four varieties of 'seed potatoes', pieces of potatoes that each contain at least one 'eye'.  Each eye has the ability to grow into a big bushy plant and produce lots of new potatoes.

Garden Club enjoyed the fruits of their labors by cooking up a quick & healthy Moroccan-Style Chickpea Soup using the new potatoes. The soup got two thumbs up all around!

Students enjoying their soup!

A delicious and simple soup! From Cook's Illustrated 'The Quick Recipe'. Garden Club also added 3 cut up carrots!

In addition to providing lots of great fodder for lessons about plant parts & cooking lessons, potatoes provide great lessons about history, biodiversity, health & nutrition. 6th grade students learned about biodiversity with this game from LifeLab, then discussed the value of having a diversity of plants, as well as a diversity within the plants that we cultivate in our school garden.

What other ideas or questions do you have?

It takes a village...

A rose blooms by the back fence

The garden received a lot of love over the last weekend of April! Nearly 200 volunteers of all ages descended on the garden to weed, plant, mulch, prune, build and repair. The volunteers were a part of the Beautiful Day weekend, a multi-church service project that took place at numerous sites throughout the area.

Winter squash seeds that volunteers planted have already sprouted!

Volunteers planted 12 varieties of heirloom tomatoes.

What a change! With a garden this size (nearly an acre!), it is hard to give it all the attention it needs! I certainly can't do it all -- that is why volunteer events like this, plus our monthly garden work day & the help of individuals during the week are crucial! If you have ever thought about doing some gardening, even if you're afraid you don't have a green thumb, let me know! We can always use the help -- and there are lots of different ways to get involved!

The whole EPACS community was astonished by the changes in the garden when they returned to school Monday morning -- in addition to all the hard work in the garden, the school had a new coat of paint, new benches and landscaping, new ceiling tiles and plumbing fixes, new murals and more! Incredible!

Here's a little round-up of what else we have growing in the garden right now -- it is getting more spectacular by the day as flowers open, seeds sprout and vegetables leaf out and grow taller. Come out and visit the garden and tag your photos on Instagram: #epacsgarden.

Lots of artichokes! Artichokes are a type of thistle.

The spring potatoes are almost ready to harvest.

An aloe plant blooming-- hummingbirds love these!

A cactus blooms.

First Signs of Summer

The garden continues to move toward summer! Come visit the garden to see the beautiful flowers in bloom and check out what's been recently planted. 

Columbine is blooming in the garden -- in many different colors

A foxglove flower greets guests as they enter the outdoor kitchen

This past week First and Second graders planted tomatoes in the garden. Have you seen heirloom varieties of tomatoes at farmers' markets or the supermarket -- or grown them yourself? Well, come July or August, the EPACS garden will have some beautiful green, purple, orange and yellow tomatoes thanks to our 1st and 2nd graders hard work. These varieties have interesting names that give us a clue as to their colors -- Pineapple, Cherokee Purple, Black from Tula, German Green, and Sungold. We'll be planting over 20 varieties of tomatoes in the EPACS garden this month!

As we plant summer veggies, we are also finishing up with spring plants. Garden Club students harvested and shelled the remaining crop of peas. And they made a few yummy batches of Kale Chips from our bountiful spring kale.

Kale Chips are easy to make: Heat your oven to 350 degrees. Remove the ribs from the kale, break each leaf into bite-sized pieces. Toss the kale pieces in a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt or a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. Bake on a cookie sheet for about 15 minutes, or until the kale pieces are crisp. Enjoy!

First graders in Garden Class finished up their insect explorations by making and painting their own clay arthropods. Students used what they learned about insects, arachnids, other arthropods...as well as their wild imaginations to craft these creative critters! 

Third and Fifth graders learned about the amazing power of seeds. They dissected seeds, planted seeds, read about seeds, and ate seeds! The grand finale included making some no-bake seed cookies in the outdoor kitchen. Here's the recipe that got two thumbs up all around:

Back from Spring Break!

A belated welcome back from Spring Break, everyone! I hope it was a great first week back. The garden enjoyed the rain -- did you? Come see the wisteria in bloom over the green dome -- it looks & smells magical! And stay tuned, we are getting new redwood stumps for seating in the green dome and we'll be transitioning the pond area into a seating area as well. Our current redwood seats are turning back into soil. They've lasted over 6 years, though! Untreated redwood is a great choice if you are planning to build a raised garden bed at your home -- it holds up well against pests and weather.

The green dome covered with blooming wisteria.

wisteria blooms

This week our students had the opportunity to try out all the different types of citrus growing in the garden. They made observations about the appearance and taste of eight different types of citrus and learned some cool facts. Did you know that the demand for lemons and their scurvy-preventing properties hit a peak during the California Gold Rush? Miners paid top dollar for citrus. As a result, an abundance of lemon trees and other citrus were planted throughout California.

Our garden has a variety of citrus: navel and valencia oranges, Bearss limes, Meyer and Eureka lemons, Oro Blanco grapefruit, Dancy tangerines, mandarins, and more! Citrus are frost sensitive, and we're lucky to live in a climate where they flourish. Come try some from the garden before they are gone for this season.

In other news, first and second graders joined Garden Club this week. They started out with a rainbow stir fry, which featured onions, kale and peas from the garden. They liked the kale in the stir fry so much, they decided to harvest some to bring home to their families! Success.

Kale growing in the EPACS garden

Spring in the Garden

Apple blossoms about to bloom

apple blossoms

The garden is in Spring mode! The wisteria and calendula are blooming, California poppies dot the garden, the apricot, plum and pear trees are sending out green leaves, and the nectarine trees are dropping the last of their beautiful pink flowers. The apple blossoms are just opening. It's pretty glorious!

Wisteria flowers: Wisteria is beautiful but it's seeds are poisonous! A good reason why we have a 'pick only with permission' rule in our garden. Some things look nice, but can hurt us. Want to pick something? Just ask!

What's there to munch on in the garden? Winter veggies have shot up -- kale, collards, onions, arugula and peas are lush. Mint, lemon balm, thyme and chamomile are bountiful. Calendula flowers and nasturtium flowers are both edible -- add some to your salads! And citrus fruits are still on the trees -- lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit. And, believe it or not -- we have macadamia nuts! Our garden has three small but mighty macadamia trees that have produced many pounds of hard-shelled nuts this season.

Calendula flower -- a wonderful edible and medicinal plant. Use the petals of the flower to brighten up a salad!

What's to come? The rhubarb is pushing out, multi-colored potato plants that Garden Club planted are leafy, and the giant fava beans that kindergarten, third grade and Garden Club planted are sprouting. Strawberries are starting to ripen. Next up: summer vegetables! In April we'll start baby tomatoes, beans, basil, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins and zucchini in the ground! Do you plan to garden at home this summer? Now's the time to plant!

Strawberry blossom!

What have students been doing in the garden? First grade went on a compost safari and got lots of inspiration for making their own clay arthropods. Third and Fifth grade discussed classifications of garden critters and drew pictures of their findings. Garden Club has been working on weaving small tapestries and a willow garden fort. They learned about the work of author and illustrator Eric Carle and started their own garden art projects inspired by his work. They also had the opportunity to learn about native plant restoration with local non-profit, Acterra and take a trip out to the Baylands!

 

What do you love about the garden? What would you like to learn or do in our garden? What do you plan to grow in your own garden? Take a walk through our garden to get some inspiration!