Day Four: Tool Time and Seed Starting Round 2

Part One: Tool Time
Today we took the opportunity to introduce our kids to the tools we will use in the garden and to articulate some  rules of thumb for using them. We had each kid choose a tool (or two) and then we went around and asked them to tell us what each tool is used for and what safety rules come to mind.

The kids came up with some great additions to our basic rules (the first three are ours). This was a good short discussion and it served as either a review or introduction to the tools we'd be using in the garden.

List of tools:
Shovel
Rake
Trowel (Hand Shovel)
Hand Rake
Tomato Cage
Watering Cans
Gloves
Twine
Wooden Stakes

Tool Rules:
1.  Only use tools for their intended purpose.
2.  Never raise tools above your hip or head (Demonstrate proper use of gardening tools)
3.  Do not throw tools.
4.  Put tools away when you are done working with them.
5.  Be aware of your surroundings.
6.  Share, take turns, and hand off.

Part Two: Seed Starting Round 2
We had a bit of a problem with our original seed starting. We forgot about spring break... thus our seeds went un-watered for a week. Needless to say, we were not able to revive them when we got back, so today, we did round two using the many egg cartons Lisa and I had lying around our houses.

The kids go really crazy for playing in the dirt and the prospect of putting a seed in soil and seeing it grow - it was a seed-starting frenzy! We brought the seeded egg cartons back to our campus greenhouse and watered them there. We will start the rest of our seed stock in the greenhouse and bring the kids seedlings to transplant into the garden. They won't get to see those seeds grow, but they will get the chance to seed seedlings pop up directly from their garden when we plant carrots, radishes, beets, beans, etc. in the raised beds.

Afterthoughts:
The sheer, unencumbered joy that flows through the kids when they are planting is astonishing. They become completely engrossed in the process and in each other. The rest of the world kind of melted away and they were totally focused on filling those egg cartons with soil and running back to me for a seed packet.

We are still learning how much autonomy each kid can handle. Most of the gardening and preparation tasks can be sorted out for differentiation. I think I'll try to identify in each lesson which tasks are high, medium, and low levels of autonomy/independence so we can more effectively delegate to each kid.

Day Three: Sculpting Dreams

What we did:
So, day three's lesson for the kids was in visualizing the garden space, thinking about what could grow there and we could place in the garden. It was very free-form; the only limitations were the sketch of the four square raised beds and their imaginations.

The goal:
The goal was to get them thinking about what could grow and how they could impact the space. This was a simple activity that was accomplished in an hour but could be adapted for a longer period of time and made more complex for older kids with readings or other lessons on interplanting, biology of plants/ecosystems, etc.


Check out what the kids came up with:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/givinggarden/sets/72157623639166573/

What to do with a hole in the ground

A ten year old boy, enthusiastic about planting seeds and seeming to be just plain happy to be alive: "Miss Lisa...I found a hole over there. Can I use the hand shovel to see what's under it?!" Very excited he digs a little deeper and comes running back over. "Um, can I, um, plant something there? Pleeeease?!". I must have looked doubtful because he said to me in a very committed voice, "I'll water it everyday at snack time! I'll come out here with a cup of water and water it everyday." How could I say no? So, as of yesterday we have a Carrot, I believe, trying to forge a life near our future garden sight, hugged up against a cinder block wall experiencing very little sun. I pray that that thing grows. If it doesn't we'll know that it wasn't due to lack of water!

Materials List for After-School Garden Club

Seeds

• Organic seeds (Carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, pickling cucumbers, beans, peppers, strawberries, basil, collard greens and dinasour kale, onions, flowers, sunflowers, watermelon, flowers)
• Sources: We purchase reliable sources of non-gmo &/or Organic seeds: 
• Johnny's Seeds - http://www.johnnyseeds.org
• Seed Savers Exchange - http://www.seedsavers.org 
• Local Heirloom Seed Swaps - ask around for one in your area, or start one!
• Local Harvest: http://www.localharvest.org

Office Supplies & Craft Supplies

• Large flip chart paper
• Markers (flip charts & permanent)
• Pencils
• Colored Pencils (For making field notes)
• Popsicle Sticks (large) for labeling
• Stencils of plants, flowers, trees, fruits, etc- anything that might look gardeny - perhaps a nature stencil set (for decorating & making signage)

Hardware Store (Garden Section)

• 3 Shovels
• 2 Large rakes
• 6 Hand shovels/trowels
• 4 Hand rakes
• 1 Large Roll of Twine/Baling Twine
• 1 Roll of Chicken Wire (for the top of the compost bin)
• 3 Large Watering cans (Shower head-type)
• 2 Small (single stream, houseplant-type) Watering Cans
• Gloves (with rubber coating on palms (2) 5-packs
• 1 Big bottle of Sunscreen
• Non-VOC Paints (Non-toxic for outdoor use, one gallon each of red, yellow, blue, black and white - all should be the same brand, stick to bright colors)
• Wooden Signs (These could be pine-boards, approx. 12" x 24" or another shape/size - that we can attached to raised beds - we'd need to make at least one sign for the garden name)
• 8 Tomato Cages
• Bamboo Stakes (4 packs of 5)
• 2-3 Large Plastic Storage Bins with lids
• (Ideal Situation...) 1 smallish outdoor Plastic Storage Unit w/lock

Local Home & Garden Store

• Organic Potting soil- 1 large bag (about $11 each)
• Seed Starting trays (open flats &/or divided flats)

Raised Beds

• In our area, we have a community organization that puts together raised bed kits. For our time-frame and purposes, it is easiest to purchase four 4x4-foot raised bed kits and place them in a grid or diamond pattern at our site. Kits cost about $30-$40 each.
  

A possible layout of 4 raised beds

Pictured above: Two 4x4 raised bed kits, assembled.
One is covered with a homemade mini-hoop for season extension.

Other

• Compost/Soil - We estimate we'd need about 4 cubic yards to fill the four raised beds, and 1 full size pickup truck should hold about 2.5 cubic yards  - so we would need to make 2 trips to the compost center. Each Cubic yard costs $7 at the Ann Arbor site.
• http://www.soilbuildingsystems.com/CubicYard.php
• $7/cubic yard up to 9 yards per truck load
  http://www.a2gov.org/government/publicservices/fieldoperations/solidwasteunit/Pages/CompostSales.aspx
• Free! Mulch-woodchips - The city gives these away mulch for free and even delivers for free. We just need to contact them about 1 week before delivery.
  
  
• Free! 4 Wooden pallets - we will re-purpose these to create our compost bin (these can be painted so they look nice) - we just need to find them!

D-Town Farm (Detroit): Compost Bin

 

D-Town Farm Raised Bed made of Recycled Lumber (Detroit)

Giving Garden (Ypsilanti): Compost Bin made of Pallets & Upcycled Wire Shelving

 Examples of Signage at D-Town Farm (Detroit)

Day Two: The Hundred-Mile Pizza

Photo Credit: "Dessertess" by Flickr user: mcbeth 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcbeth/3191521951/
(cc) some rights reserved

Day Two marked the official start of the Garden Club. We have about eight kids, three boys and five girls. We decided that today's goals would be to a) introduce the concepts of local food and the food system and b) introduce the concept of documentation and journaling. Thus, we choose the 100-Mile Pizza and field journals.

l e s s o n    p l a n 



Objectives

• Introduce the concept of food as part of culture
• Introduce the concept of local food (within 100 miles)
• Create Field Journals & Introduce the concept of writing, documentation, and observation



Materials

• Pizza Margherita: dough, tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, flour, rolling pin, pizza stone) 

• Field Journals: scrap paper, scrap cardboard covers (from cereal boxes), string or pipe cleaners, markers/decorations 
•  
General: kitchen, flipchart paper and markers

Preparation 
Gather ingredients 
Preheat oven at 2:45 PM 
Prepare flip-chart




Part One: 100-Mile Pizza

A) Flipchart Chat:

1. What do you think a 100-Mile Pizza is?

2. Why would we make a 100-Mile Pizza?

B) Assemble Pizza!

While making the pizza:

1. Talk about each ingredient and where it comes from… 


2. Talk about food and celebrations: What kind of foods do you eat at family celebrations?

Why do you think we celebrate with food?



Part Two: Field Journals 

A. Show a sample journal; introduce field journals and the craft project.

B. Ask for responses: Why would we keep field journals?

We keep a field journal so we have a place to record our thoughts and observations. When gardening, there are lots of things to keep track of and to plan. It helps to have a journal on-hand so you know what happens from year to year. 


C. Make & decorate journals!


Part Three: Quick Reflection 


In your journals: Why did we make a 100-mile pizza today?



Think about for next week: 


a. What do we need to pay attention to in order to be a great team?

b. What is a good name for our garden club? 



w h a t   w e   a c t u a l l y   d i d

1. We switched the activities in order to use more preparation time for the pizza.
2. We used our pizza and local ingredients discussion as a transition between the two activities.
3. Activity One: Field Journals
• The kids made assembled the journals with the packets we made for them.
• As we made them, we talked about why we used recycled materials and why we would make a field journal. The kids came up with great answers to our question, including:
• to record what we plant
• to record what we harvest
• to make drawings of what is growing
4. Activity Two: 100-Mile Pizza
• Originally, we intended that each student would have a task and each would get a chance to talk about food in their families. 
• However we switched this up, too - due to the short time (one hour), and how long it was taking to make the journals. Instead, a few kids jumped in to help assemble the pizza and later the other were able to help toss and roll the dough for cheesy-breadsticks and chop mozzerella and sprinkle spices. Everyone got to do something to help make the pizza, and we did have some unstructured chatting while we made it, which helped us bond as a team a bit.
• Everyone got a bite to eat! It was DELICIOUS! All the kids and teachers liked the taste! Yay!

w h a t    w e    l e a r n e d

• Differing Levels of Autonomy: In attempting to do the field journals exercise, we realized that each student was not equally interested or capable of sitting down to make the field journals. There were many steps and for the guys, especially, this activity did not seem to meet their expectations
• With One Hour Ticking Away... Just get to the fun: From now on, we'll have to orient our activities around actions and make room for some discussion, listening and dialogue as a natural part of each activity. Less sitting, more doing! That is likely the reason these kids joined Garden Club!
• Start with Establishing Norms: This is like, facilitation & teaching 101, but in our haste, we did not follow the rule. Always start with establish norms for discussion. We did this half-way through, but now that it's done, we'll refer to it and clarify it in the future.
• Quick Reflection could become Quick Review...? Maybe as an opener we can try the quick reflection in the beginning, maybe even as a flip-chart chat... to review and catch up for the kids that missed.

Until next time!

peas,

lindsey

Day One: Intro to Garden Club

the first day we met the kids
was actually set up to be three rotating sessions. Three of the six clubs offered during the week were there with a short activity, so the kids could try out different things and make an informed decision about which clubs they wanted to join. 

Our activity employed soil-blocking with yogurt cups to show the kids how to start seeds and give them a taste (figuratively) of the kinds of veggies, flowers, and fruits we'd be growing. 

We started:

Bi-color Sweet Corn
Onions
Jalapeños
Larkspur
Calendula

Kale & others...

All of our seeds come from Johnny's Seed Company, Seeds of Change, and Seed Savers Exchange.

Almost every kid seemed to enjoy Garden Club; even the squeamish and dirt-shy got their hands in the potting soil. They asked questions and made statements like: 

"Are there worms in here?"
"Could we get worms?"
"Oh! It's wet!"
"This is easy!"

One particular boy had lots of great things to say (I'm paraphrasing):

[Elbows deep in the potting soil] "This smells good! It smells like nature!"

"This is like food!"

[Later, when he was helping make extra soil blocks] "If we grew corn here, then instead of my mom going to the grocery store, I could just bring some home for dinner!


[Even later...] "We could grow extra food and give it to charity!"

Although there are mountains of methods for starting a gardening and food justice program at any school, we can identify a few shared purposes:

1. [Re]Connecting with and understanding food systems and the process of growing. Each student and teacher involved in school-gardening will probably find different places to begin connecting or re-connecting with food systems, but the ultimate goal is to map the local and global food system in which you and your school/community are situated, and to find a sense of each individuals' role in that system. Also, to begin to question, "is this a just system?" "Who benefits from it and who is marginalized?"
   
   
2. Teaching and learning a set of skills that are vital to the sustainability of ecological communities. These skills go beyond the practical skills of growing, tending and harvesting to include collaboration, dialogue, designing with community and sustainability in mind, and problem-solving (or innovating when challenged with limitations). I have begun the process of learning about permaculture/bio-diverse gardening, and I find that there are many principles that overlap with those of EcoJustice education and Place-Based Education.
   
   
3. Providing the opportunities for participants to foster a love for and disposition of responsiveness to their place. The school garden opens everyone involved to experience and discover knowledge about the place in which they live. Soil is a living history - what has grown and will grow in it tells a story of our place that we might otherwise never be aware of. Additionally, when you begin to grow food, you begin to find other people who grow food, people who eat, and cook, and everyone has stories, recipes, opinions, skills, and experiences to share. Just by attending the local market and shaking the hand of a vendor and saying, "We are starting a garden at our school" you begin to make a connection which opens you up to the culture of agriculture.

There are some other consequences for educators who become involved school gardening. We are likely to experience:

1. A re-shaping our definition of what it is to learn and teach at a school.
2. Practicing collaboration in a way that includes the land as both a teacher and partner.
3. A slower pace of working, learning, and teaching.
4. A shift in focus toward process and problem-solving, rather than only on quantifiable results.
5. A difference in our capacity to listen, observation, and dialogue with other people and with natural systems.

I'll be exploring these opportunities and ideas further in future posts and in the curriculum I am creating for my Master's project. I hope you enjoy Youth Gardening Weekly and I look forward to any feedback you have for me or my co-contributor Lisa. 

peas,
lindsey