Beds to Rest and Starting Fresh

My name is Laura Harrison and I am the new AmeriCorps Farm to School Coordinator for OCDC. I am extremely excited to continue the efforts initiated by my predecessors, Jeremy and Kaitlin, and to develop some of my own ideas for the program.

For those of you who are visiting the blog for the first time, this is a place to share information, pictures, and updates about the gardens. Please feel free to post, ask questions, and give suggestions at any time!

As I begin my position, my main goal for the next few weeks is to get more acquainted with the gardens and the classes. I will be maintaining six garden sites from 2009-2011 at the Silverton, Settlemier, Cornelius, Linden, Jose Pedro, and Mulino schools and teaching nutrition and garden education at each place. Cipriano will also be added to the list this year, though due to space limitations their program will primarily consist of container gardening.

I was able to speak with some of the teachers and site supervisors recently and I got some great feedback and lots of enthusiasm which makes me even more motivated to make the program a success this year.

My discussions with the staff as well as information from my Oregon Tilth Organic Garden Class (thank you to Oregon Tilth for the generous scholarship), have given me some great ideas for lessons and as well as ways to improve the gardens.

I have lots of thoughts about what I want to accomplish this year and some of the goals I have come up with so far include:
-Develop garden programs at the Independence, Concordia, and
Gresham schools
-Increase family involvement with the garden projects
-Offer garden training for employees as much as possible
-Expand the Silverton site (more than an acre not being utilized!)
-Obtain fruit trees for the sites
-Get grants and donations for tools and materials
-Bring worm bins into the classroom (what kid doesn't like worms?!)

When I think about all of those goals at once I get a little overwhelmed as there is a ton to do and limited time and money! Being that it is fall though, I have some time to plan before the gardens really get going.

In fact the only maintenance that needs to be done right away is putting the beds to rest which is an activity I hope to begin next week at all the centers.

As I learned in my Oregon Tilth class, I will be planting cover crops to replenish the beds and prevent weeds from growing. I am choosing this method instead of mulching or composting because it will be nice to see the cover crops growing in the garden during cold winter months. I will post some pictures of the beds once the seeds are ready and in the group.

Before I end this post and get back to working on the gardens, I want to mention some wonderful donations we have already received. Burpee Seeds & Co., Home Depot, New Seasons, and Portland Nursey have all been very generous. I am truly thankful that the program is getting so much support from the community.

Looking forward to a great year!

Its hard to believe that 11 months have flown by since I started working on the garden project with OCDC. Today is my last day at the OCDC office and my Americorps term is officially over this Friday. The last activity I was able to do with the children at the centers was to harvest the garlic that we planted back in September; this was the first thing we planted in most of the gardens so it was a good wrap up for me. The children and I had fun digging the garlic up, cleaning it, and bringing it to the cooks for use in the centers' lunches. Some kids even took bites out of the whole garlic without even peeling it, they didn't even care that it was spicy, they were just so excited to harvest something from the garden. I will sure miss the little ones. This whole garden project has been such as positive thing for me and I have learned so much through my work in the gardens and with the classes. Based on all the feedback I have received it has been an equally positive experience for the children, teachers and staff at OCDC; I have been so pleased with the amount of support and gratitude I have received here.

The children have, without a doubt, been the most rewarding part of the program. Seeing them light up when they are engaged in the garden and get so excited to eat anything they have grown themselves makes me really believe in the value of the school garden movement. I believe the garden project will have a lasting impact on the children who have been apart of it. I hope these memories stick with them in some way and help them development a preference for healthy natural foods and a respect for their food sources.

Furthermore, the impact of the school garden movement extends beyond those who it immediately benefits, and address many of our society's most challenging and pressing problems. The local food movement is social justice, food security, nutrition, fitness, environmental and economic sustainability, and it is fun!
I am excited to see how the garden project here grows and expands in the future. There is so much potential and enthusiam here that I believe the gardens at OCDC will only continue to improve. Thank you everyone for such a positive experience.

Happy gardening!!!

~Kaitlin

Tomato trellising and building hoop structures

Our tomato plants are growing fast! Most of the plants have gotten big enough that some kind of support is necessary, so I have been busy trellising the plants when not working with the kids. At Mulino the tomatoes (as well as everything else) are growing so big so fast that I was hardly able to fit them into a trellis! We got our first ripe tomato today, which is not too bad considering we are still experiencing cool and cloudly weather at the end of July.

At Silverton, the deer are back. Over the winter and spring they only caused a mild disturbance, but during the summer they have been out in full force. Thus far our harvest out there has been pretty limited because the deer seem to come take a few bites of each thing the kids plant. Last week I decided to go ahead and build a hoop structure to hold up the deer netting in the summer, it will also work as a cloche over the winter, which is exciting because it will extend our growing season. The pictures are from our gardens at Jose Pedro and Silverton.

Gardening with toddlers at Mulino

The gardens at our Mulino center are growing really well and we have had a couple great experiences taking the toddler classes out to help me plant and water. The toddlers are just as interested and engaged as the preschool age children; they were a little more timid at first, but now that they have been to the gardens a few times they get just as excited planting, watering and sampling the garden produce as the older children do. Additionally, we have had enough radishes and spinach ready for harvest at one time that I've been able to bring it all to the cafeteria to use in the center's lunches. Here are a few pictures from our last garden activity:





The teachers at Mulino have also started a gardening activity on their own, which I thought was an excellent idea and wanted to share. They used a mobile table to make a sensory learning garden, where they planted beans, cilantro, carrots, and peas. Since the table is on wheels, they can keep it inside some of the time, so the children can watch the plants grow and so they may protect the plants from the cold when necessary, and they can move it outside when it needs sunlight and warmth. Many teachers at other centers have approached me wanting to know which vegetables they could grow inside and I have reluctantly replied that most won't grow well indoors, especially without a grow light set up. This mobile garden idea is a great way around that- the children are still able to get to see the plants change from day to day, while the plants are able to get what they need to be healthy and strong. This is a wonderful idea for a scientific learning gardens as the kids can closely observe and monitor the plants and then speculate as to how much sunlight they need.
I hope to see this idea catch on at the other centers; I think the children and the teachers would love having a mobile garden of their own.

Digging for Potatoes

Its hard to believe that its already Mid July, we are well into the middle of our growing season as well as our Migrant Head Start program, and I have only a few more weeks before my Americorps position is over. The garden project has taken a little different shape over the summer and our activities have been less structured- I show up during the classes outside and the kids come hang out with me, water the plants, plant new seeds, and sample the different vegetables. We have had all kinds of greens to sample: radishes, peas, strawberries, and everyones' favorite- carrots. Last week we had a great time at Jose Pedro- one of the teachers mentioned her class was making potato salad the next day with her class, which happened to be absolutely perfect because the potatoes were ready and I was going to have one of the classes help me dig them up. We harvested almost 30 little red potatoes from the one little corner of the garden. The kids loved the potato salad they made the next day. I was so happy the class was able to do this- these are the kinds of moments that make the school garden movement most worthwhile. The kids happily took part in every aspect of growing, harvesting, preparing and eating healthy delicious food, which I believe will help solidify their taste for healthy foods in the future. Here are some pictures from our potato digging adventure.

Making spinach smoothies on the last day at OPK

Well the Oregon PreKindergarten program is over at the centers, which means I had to say goodbye to the little ones I've worked with all year. I sure will miss them, they are so excitable and loving; it has been a blast getting to play & explore in the garden with them. There wasn't a ton of food ready from the garden. We ate some radishes, which most of the kids loved. The teachers and I heard all kinds of funny exclamations after the kids tried the radishes, my favorite being: "It has tapatio in it!, I like it!" We munched on some cilantro, lettuce and arugula, and the kids chowed down on the baby chard as I thinned it. The last day at each center I used the gift card donated from the Alberta Street Coop to make spinach smoothies with the kids. The classes loved helping making the smoothies, they all took turns measuring out the ingredients and laughed and laughed when we turned on the blender. Most importantly, the kids loved the drinking the smoothie and were excited about spinach (which they had also grown earlier in the year). We made this recipe at Cornelius, JP, Linden, Silverton & Settlemeier and the kids, with the exception of maybe one or two, just loved it and wanted more.

Here is the recipe I used:
1 c Orange Juice
3/4 c Pineapple Juice
3/4 c Vanilla soymilk (can use regular milk or yogurt)
2 bananas
2 cups fresh spinach leaves

more spinach smoothies!

Making smoothies at Cornelius





Making smoothies at Jose Pedro