Billings School Garden Project Journal PUTTING THE SOIL IN THE BOXES THE VEGETABLES ARE GROWING! BILLINGS SCHOOL CHILDREN HARD GARDENS AT THE SCHOOL AT WORK MAKING RAISED BED BOXES ONE FINISHED 3 X 3 BED! WITH HOOP HOUSES STUDYING THE LETTUCE LEAF GETTING TO KNOW THE TOMATO DRAWING THE CUBAN OREGANO Billings School – 11 April 2008
The school garden looks great. There are radishes to be picked and the plants are getting big and look healthy. Carrots are coming on slowly. The teachers report that the children are very attentive. One will pull back the cover of the hoophouse and another will close it. We’ve had lots of rain and so watering hasn’t been necessary. Hail too – so we’re grateful for the hoop house.
We had planned to plant the plants from the greenhouse – squash, cucumber, tomato. The wind was blowing very hard and we may get a frost the next two nights, so the students will plant the plants next Monday.
We took various plants to the school and worked inside. We taught them how to get to know a plant; to become friends with plants. We introduced the idea with a skit from The Young Naturalist. It showed them that you start with one plant and draw it, which helps you get to know it.
They each had plants at their desks and they drew the plant. We told them it wasn’t about producing a work of art, but getting to know a plant. We walked around the room and showed them how to see. They smelled and touched. We helped them notice that one baby leaf was soft and furry and a larger leaf was getting more prickly. They noticed the hairs on the plants. They smelled chives and lavender and coriander and oregano and tasted these. They smelled other plants that had no smell. They noticed ragged leaves and smooth leaves. Most of them drew more than one plant and began to notice differences. After about 45 minutes of drawing and noticing, we asked them if they’d made friends with a plant. They all raised their hands. We asked them to describe the plant. They all wanted to do that, and did. They especially loved describing the smells. They noticed a lot about the leaves and loved touching the plants. We asked them if the plants liked to be touched. When a girl talked about the chive plant, she talked about its smell and taste. We asked her to describe the leaves and she looked at it and seemed stumped and said, “It doesn’t have any.” Then she realized that its leaves looked really different from the tomato or the coriander.
We asked them why it’s important to be friends with plants. They had been well-taught by their teachers and told us about the oxygen and carbon dioxide change. We asked them if we can live without plants and they all yelled no. We asked them if there was any other reason to be friends with plants and they said “for food.”
Some had been intimidated by the drawing; said they didn’t know how – but did draw the plants. We asked them how drawing helped them get to know the plant and they said it did because you really had to look at it.
We promised them a “salad party” the day before school is out. They cheered!
This article appeared in The Garber-Billings News - March 13, 2008 Billings Elementary & Turtle Rock Farm Partners
To Establish Vegetable Garden
Billings Elementary School students are building raised beds to be installed at the school, where they will grow some of their own vegetables. The project was the idea of Ann McFerron and Pat Hoerth, who run the Turtle Rock Farm: A Center for Sustainability, east of Billings. It is being funded by an Edible Garden Grant from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality.
The students made their first trip to Turtle Rock Farm in January, when they learned about composting and vermicomposting, tasted a variety of fresh vegetables and planted seeds to be transplanted to their raised beds later in the season. They also planted radish seed, which they took with them to grow at home.
Last week, they returned to Turtle Rock Farm and built three three-foot-by-three foot boxes, cut landscape cloth for the bottom, cut heavy wire to lay on top of the raised beds, began building a drip irrigation system and made cloth hoop houses for the beds when the weather is coolest.
In March, the raised beds and the irrigation system will be installed at the school, the compost and soil will be mixed and the beds filled and more planting will be done.
“It’s so exciting to see these students with such an interest in this project,” said McFerron. “They worked hard at building the boxes, shared tools, took turns. And they asked great questions.”
In essays written by the students after their first visit, the students wrote about tasting different vegetables, taking a nature hike and moving the red wiggler worms in the vermicomposting bins into a new home.
“The best thing I liked about going to the Turtle Rock Ranch was the greenhouse,” wrote Alycia McKenzie. “Working with the worms was fun but smelly. When some of us found out that it was worm poop some of us wanted to throw up. It was still fun. I can’t wait till next time.”
“We got to see how to make two different kinds of compost,” wrote Shani Brown. “The first way was to put all the rinds of your fruits and vegetables in a compost bin, and it turns into soil. The other way was, you put red worms in a tote with water and shredded newspaper and their waste makes a nutrient soil for plants.”
Adam Humble wrote about his experience tasting new vegetables. “I’m not a fan of vegetables all that much. But when I tried them they weren’t so bad. The first thing I ate was spinach. I don’t like spinach, but when I ate their spinach it wasn’t too bad. The carrots were delicious. They were better than any other carrot I have ever tried before. There was another thing I tried. I forgot what it was called, but it was spicy. I had to cool my mouth off with water. I can’t wait until we go back.”
Any parents or other volunteers who are interested in helping the students with their gardening project after school lets out for the summer, are welcome to participate – by calling the school, or Turtle Rock Farm (725.3411.)
“There’s so much the children can learn and enjoy by growing their own vegetables,” said Pat Hoerth. “We’re thrilled that the principal, the teachers and the students are eager to build this garden.”
NOTE: The day after this article ran in the local newspaper, we delivered the three raised bed boxes to the school along with the hoop houses and the irrigation system and the plants the children had worked on previously. After dumping peat moss, compost, vermicompost and vermiculite in a big pile on a tarp, the children blended the soil and then carried it in buckets to the raised beds. They then planted the seeds and tiny plants, finished the irrigation system and installed the hoop houses. They worked hard and diligently all afternoon and we were all delighted when their garden was built. Though the children were dismissed for their spring break, several volunteered to come check on the garden during the week. We look forward to happy eating before school is out! --Ann & Pat |