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

Exploring the Jose Pedro garden

About to try a radish


Exploring


These pictures were taken by Salvador from one of the OPK classes at JP



We've got an unintentional mushroom farm at Jose Pedro- Inky Caps maybe?

Thank you Master Gardeners

I just wanted to say thank you to our master gardeners who volunteered their time to do garden trainings for the teachers at our centers. Elaine Smith of Marion County, Beret Halverson of Clackamas, and Tim Lanfri of Washington County came out between March & May to lead basic gardening classes and answer teachers' questions on caring for plants. They were all very interesting and informative, and came just in time for us to get to work in our gardens- Thank you!!!