Good Night to the Garden

The garden has had a busy season and now it is time for it to catch some rest! All of the arugula, Asian greens, and swiss chard has been harvested and the soil has been covered with blankets of leaves and hay.

Winter rye has been planted to keep the soil intact during the harsh winter weather. Garlic has also been planted to grow deep into the warm earth during the winter. It will be ready in the spring for harvesting its scapes (the flower of garlic) in the spring and its globe in the summer.

Thanks to the hard work of many King/Amigos classes the garden has been a great success this year. Together we planted a Three Sisters Garden and an Asian Garden. We also planted potatoes and sunchokes. Finally, the garden rewarded us with a bountiful harvest of tomatoes and eggplant in September, tomatillos and potatoes in October, and arugula and radishes in November.

Thank you garden for all of your delicious produce. Sleep well during the winter. Goodnight!

Welcome Back to School!

The garden has survived Tropical Storm Irene and is holding its own against the chilly September nights thanks to the work of our Summer Interns! We had a great crew this summer including the following King and Amigos students.

Morgan 6th grade, Rodman 6th grade, Jordan 6th grade, David 6th grade, Isaac 8th grade, David 8th grade

Now that school is in session, activity in the garden this fall has been packed with learning and exploration. Amigos's middle school science teacher Laurie Ferhani has brought her 6th graders out to explore the ecology and work in the garden. King's 2nd teacher, Sarah Healy, has also visited the garden to study the different types of soil and the organisms that live in each.

The garden is bursting with food! There are tomatoes, tomillos, basil, greens, potatoes, and sun- chokes. Amigos Meg Ramsdell will be hosting garden-drop-in-hours this fall afterschool on Mondays. This is a great opportunity to harvest some veggies and do a little gardening work!

I hope to see you in the garden soon!

Today, we went on a field trip to Gaining Ground in Concord, MA. Here are some photos!

Spring into Summer!

Where did May and June go? We have been busy planting in the garden. Students from both King and Amigos Schools have been planting, watering, and making garden signs every week. Together we have planted tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, basil, cilantro, peppers, squash, and eggplant. All this and it is not even a complete list!

The kindergarten, second and first grade classes from Amigos not only planted but they also made scientific observations of herbs, sifted soil, and solved garden story problems. The 7th grade class came to the garden to study asexual plants in the garden including strawberries, onions, tulips, and some herbs.

The kindergarten and first grade classes from King made seed tape, planted seed balls, and measured plants in the garden. The fourth grade planted peas and recorded their growth on a graph. Students in the middle school work in the garden weekly for community service.

The garden looks great and it is ready for the Summer Youth Program. This summer the program will begin next Monday, June 27. Interns participating in this program will take care of the garden over the summer, learn how to cook with vegetables from the garden, and study sustainable food systems.

Thanks for a great spring! I am looking forward to seeing you all next year!

We are waking up the garden!

It is spring and the garden is coming alive! There are hyacinths, alliums, and garlic coming up. The winter rye is a brilliant green. We have cleared a garden bed and started planting peas.

Yesterday a kindergarten class from Amigos came out to the garden in the rain! They helped clear the winter straw from some of the garden beds to observe the garlic that they planted in the fall!

We are excited to continue planting spring vegetables including spinach, beans, beets, turnips, and radishes. The compost is ready to be spread and the seeds are all set to be planted. The garden is full of life!

Happy November 1st! This October there was a lot of activity in the garden. Many classes came out to explore slugs and bugs. Other classes cooked up some delicious dishes with kale, potatoes, tomatoes, and herbs.

The biggest event that happened in the garden was the annual Cider Pressing Event. Classes from all grades pressed cider out of apples using a simple machine and learned facts about how apple trees grow!

Now that it is November, we are planting garlic, tulips, and daffodils. We are also planting rye to keep our garden beds warm in the winter. We hope that when we return, the garden will be full of life in the Spring!

Come out to the garden and help with our Fall planting! I have to run and plant some garlic with a 1st grade class.

Save the date for this Saturday, October 2 from 11 am -4 pm! CitySprouts will be celebrating its 10 year anniversary at the Tobin School. This celebration is a Cambridge Public School wide Garden Fiesta!

MLK School will be set up for students and families to decorate biodegradable pots and plant seeds of vegetables that will grow inside throughout the winter. Summer interns from MLK School will also be giving a demonstration on how to make pesto!

Amigos School will be showcasing and sharing the garden's herbs in sachets made from sage, lemon balm, and lavender. Amigos interns will also be giving a demonstration on how to make tsadiki dip!

Student work from the garden will be on display from both schools. Additionally, fresh produce harvested from the garden the morning of the celebration will be showcased for all to see and inquire about.

This is a great event to learn more about how school gardens are used in the classroom to learn. Not to mention, day full of local-mouth-watering organic food!

I look forward to seeing you there!

Liz

September in the Garden

Wow! I can't believe that October is just around the corner! Where did September go? At least the warm weather is still hanging on! There has been a lot of activity in the garden and school has been in session for only three weeks!

For one thing, there is a new Garden Coordinator and Kaitlin has gone back to school to pursue a degree in education. My name is Liz Anderson and I am really excited to be the new King/Amigos Garden Coordinator! As a teacher and a gardener with some experience working on organic farms, I am pleased to combine both passions working with King/Amigos students in the garden!

Already many classes have been out to the garden to harvest potatoes, kale, herbs, and tomatoes. A lot of this produce has gone home with students, but some have been lucky enough to cook with the vegetables in the garden! This connection between food and the garden has really taken shape during the King/ Amigos Garden Drop-In-Hours on Thursdays from 3:30-4:30. After working in the garden, parents and students enjoy cooking the vegetables that they harvest!

In addition to making observations as naturalists and composters, Ms. Ferhani's Amigos Science classes have also made zesty salads and savory potatoes in the garden. Both King and Amigos Art classes have been out to the garden and drawn sunflowers drooping from the weight of their heavy heads and squash the shape of bottles. Other classes have come out to the garden to begin studying plant life and its natural environment including zebra slugs, pill bugs, and worms!

As a result of these visits, students have made insightful observations like,"if there is a bog in the garden, maybe we can grow some rice!" Students have also had the opportunity to clear up some misconceptions about where vegetables come from, such as the one about potatoes coming from trees!

I am looking forward to welcoming the month of October with the annual Cider Press event! Several students and teachers have asked me already when they can come down to the garden and start making cider! Yummmm, I can taste October already!

Fall Drop In on Thursdays!

It is fall in the garden, which means lots of harvesting and tidying up for the end of the growing season. Join us in the garden on Thursdays, 3pm - 4:30pm this fall to enjoy the fall harvest and help put the garden to bed for the winter. Contact Francey Slater (fslater@citysprouts.org) with questions.

Field trip to Gaining Ground Farm

Today we lent a hand harvesting beans, cucumbers and blackberries at Gaining Ground Farm in Concord, MA. All of the produce is donated to meal programs, pantries and shelters. The land at Gaining Ground has been farmed for over 300 years and is known as the birthplace of Henry David Thoreau.

Our garden mid-summer

Cleaning off freshly harvested garlic!

Up close

Painted flower pots

Kiara working on her garden map

Eggplant flowering

Summer Internship Week One!

The 4-week summer program is off to a great start with 10 fabulous youth and a college intern from Boston College! Below is a group photo in the garden gathered around the pumpkin patch and a few shots from our field trip to First Church Homeless Shelter in Cambridge. More updates coming soon...

Science in the garden

On Tuesday the Amigos school held a Professional Development workshop for teachers focusing on science in the garden. The workshop was developed by the CPSD Science Department to train teachers in using the garden for certain science units. This signifies the first time CitySprouts has influenced Cambridge Public Schools curriculum in a district-wide fashion.


Pictured in front row: Caitlin Rogers, CitySprouts; Jane Hirschi, CitySprouts; Jamillah Bakr, Science Department; Francey Slater, CitySprouts; Lisa Scolaro, Science Department
Back row: Marianne Dunne, Science Department; Dan Monahan, Science Department; Susan Agger, Maynard Ecology Center

4th grade studies weathering & erosion

I took a few photos while the Amigos 4th grade was learning about weathering and erosion in the garden last week. They ran trials on the stream table, set-up an experiment to look at stream speed and examined examples of weathering outside.

Successful garden clean-up

We kicked off the beginning of spring in the garden last week with a clean-up after school. April 8th volunteers came out to help till the soil, turn over rye crop, add compost, prune the herb garden, clear out dead plants and pick up litter. We accomplished a lot and it was great to see everyone's faces again! The next garden event will be Beautification day on Saturday, May 22nd.

Fiddleheads unraveling into ferns pictured:

Check out our video!

Looking back on apple pressing

October was a month of non-stop apple pressing in the school gardens. Classes came out to learn how to make their own apple cider.



To make the apple cider, we used a fruit press. Fruit and cider presses separate fruit solids, such as the skin and seeds, from the fruit juice.

While apple juice is filtered, unfiltered apple juice is called apple cider.





Making cider

1. The first step involved cutting the apples and removing the apple cores.

2. Next, the apples were passed through an apple grinder. This step compresses the apples so that the juice is easier to extract from the solids.

3. The crushed apples were pressed in a cider press. This involved placing the fruit in the juicing cage, laying wooden blocks on top of the apples, and turning the silver ratchet handle to extract the juice.

4. The juice funnels into a the container at the bottom of the press, and we enjoyed the most important step of the process: drinking the cider! It was wonderful to enjoy this 100% fresh and natural apple cider, without any added sugar or preservatives! Read more about the nutritional difference between juice and fruit drinks.

Thanks to Annabelle Ho :)

Summer Internship Recap

During the summer we hired 8 middle school students to intern in the garden with us for 4 weeks. The interns learned about growing food, cooking, nutrition, identifying plants & insects, food safety issues and of course how to care for a garden! We went on field trips to Community Servings in JP, Gaining Ground Farm in Concord, and the Food Project in Roxbury. We also worked with the Urban Ecology Institute weekly and had access to their wonderful knowledge and tools. Overall, it was a great success and a lot of fun!

Cambridge Chronicle Article

The Chronicle published an article about CitySprouts gardens on September 29, 2009. The article profiles the Amigos school and interviews two of our teachers!

Click on the link:
How does your garden grow? Garden program spreads through Cambridge Public Schools."

Garden Update

Hello again! In spite of our absence from the blogosphere, the King/Amigos garden has been tremendously busy over the past year! The current garden coordinators are Francey Hart for the M.L. King and Caitlin Rogers for Amigos. Here are a few photos to show you what we've been up to from April - November, 2009.