Poop, soil, & the food we eat

Sometimes, while in class, teachers do things they did not anticipate. Today, I planned to review what worms need in comparison to what humans need. After the review, I planned to teach students how to harvest worms. The worms harvested would be traded in exchange for volunteer hours. (I may not be able to pay volunteers in US dollars but trading in my vocation is alive and well.)

During the review of what humans need versus what worms need one of the students asked "Do worms crawl through their poop?" To which I responded, I suppose they do. Although thinking about humans crawling through their own poop sounds pretty disgusting, worms castings are a little bit different because worms have gizzards they grind down "large" food particles. Some of these finely ground food particles are digested into their systems, the rest are excreted and pooped out, creating worm castings. The castings often contain food particles which are likely sensed by the next worm's Prostomium, a sensitive pad located above the mouth which pushes soil out of the way of the worm or pushes food into the worm's mouth. (This comes from my basic understanding, which, admittedly is not very complete or extensive.)

This process is all part of a cycle. Worms, microorganisms, and heat turn poop into soil. In the soil we grow food which is then eaten and subsequently pooped out, which continues the cycle. (This is all rather simplistic but it gets the point across that maybe poop is not really as gross as students initially think.)

What humans need (and some of what humans desire) and what worms need. The lines between indicate commonalities.
Underneath, the cycle of poop, soil, and the food we eat.

Disproving my Least Favorite Myth: Kids hate all vegetables

October was all about kale. In health classes and after school clubs, I introduced students to Super Chips: kale fresh from the school gardens, spritzed lightly with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, then cooked for 6-10 minutes for a crunchy, healthy super treat. (Super Chips because relative to other vegetables, Kale is jam-packed with so many vitamins, minerals, and nutrients.) After introducing around 150 students to Super Chips I've only met two who outright refused to try them, the rest gave them a try. A few needed to spit them out but most were pleasantly surprised. Quite a few students said they taste like popcorn. One student, who had just told me they tasted like one of his favorite spring-time vegetables: ramps on the grill. At the end of each class, and especially after hearing mostly positive reviews, I told each group of students about this myth - a rumor really, that's out there, that people are talking about them and other kids. People are saying that kids hate vegetables. But mostly, my students put that myth to shame and stop up the rumor-mill. Lastly, I leave my students with a challenge: continue to prove that "kids hate vegetables" is a big fat lie.

Well-Composted Manure, Worms, and Vermicomposting

Well, it's been a busy October here in the gardens!!

A blend of composted manure and top soil in the amount of 15 cubic yards was well-received at the larger school I serve last week. Thankfully, I had a revolving door allowing 10-12 students outside to help me during the first 5 hours of soil moving. (These students had finished their current in-class assignments and were waiting on the rest of the class to catch up with them, and had teachers willing to lend me some helpful hands.) During the last hour of work, I had help from an entire class of 25!! (After working all 6 hours myself, I was grateful to have a great number of hands helping me do all of the work, we actually got more work done than I expected!)





Many of the students of farm-owning families were wondering why we were working the hard way. "Don't we have a tractor we can use to haul all of this dirt?"
Regardless of their wonderment over not using a tractor, they all enjoyed being outside and did not seem to mind the hard work. (No wonder, the weather was beautiful: foggy in the morning but the temperature did not reach the mid-70's until afternoon.

A bit about logistics: I had 1 group of students shoveling soil; filling 5-gallon pails with soil, another group carried the buckets to the empty raised beds, and a third group dumped the soil into the raised beds that needed filling.

Rewind: Before the soil blend arrived, students helped me move and stack the leftovers of an addition to the school: red bricks, to create a retaining wall for a new garden bed. 

What a sight: most of our raised beds shown here: ready for one last planting. Now I just need to get an order in to build some low-tunnels to extend the outdoor season just a little bit longer. (And give the students another building project: they can't seem to get enough of them!!)

One last project on soil delivery day for all of these helpful volunteers: filling the greenhouse with soil-filled, freshly cleaned containers. Containers complements of a local nursery.










WORMS! I wanted to start working with worms during the summer months. I had hopes that I would be able to introduce the worms into my raised beds and they would help enrich the soil and provide more readily available nutrients to our plants during the summer growing months.

Well, a hazard of working in the school system is ordering things. I was unable to coordinate my schedule with one of our accounting gurus during the summertime, so I was not able to get the worms ordered in time for the summer school schedule. Finally, I was able to get the worms ordered last week. (I've gotten a bit smarter about working with our finance people; and the produce I have available from the gardens has not hurt one bit!)

Despite company promises that the worms would arrive before the end of the week, I went to bed last night a bit worried. There was no word on the arrival of the worms. I asked the school's secretary to call, if she had the time, when the worms arrived. Yesterday, late in the evening, I realized that I received no such phone call. My anxiety worsened overnight, I planned to teach a science-based lesson about worms and vermicomposting (composting with worms) to two special education classes during first and second periods this morning. (I had no backup plan, ideas, but no concrete plan.)
Thankfully, I arrived at school and noticed a small, unassuming Priority Mailbox sitting on the shelf, on it, a label saying: "LIVE PRODUCT" "PERISHABLE".

There it was: my lesson.

First, I talked to the students about what worms need in their surrounding environment to help make them happy and healthy. The students just finished learning about some basic human needs so this worked itself into their curriculum well. Like humans, worms need water, food, air, and warmth (the temperature range at which we thrive is greater than that of a red wriggler; but we both worms and humans have a range of temperatures that is preferable). The biggest difference in what we and worms need is that worms desire darkness.
One class was much more talkative than the other and found itself more tangents but they were interested. (They may have been paying attention because they were waiting to meet the worms but I am okay with that.)
Before I brought out the worms, I told the class I ordered 2,000 worms. I asked the students to speculate about the size of the worm mailing box. Some students thought it would be large; the size of a filing cabinet, others thought it would be a bit smaller than that, closer to the size of a backpack. The discussion of the size of the package allowed me to segue into talking about the mass our worms lost during shipping. Over the 4-5 days the worms spent in the mail from Pennsylvania, our worms lost 70% of their mass.
(Perfect timing: in math class, the students were learning about percentages!)
On the board I wrote "100 lbs" and posed the question, if one of us weighed 100 lbs and lost 70% of our weight, how much would we weigh? After a few guesses, one shy student said, 30 lbs. (Which was pretty awesome.) From there, with some encouragement, he told the class that 70% of 100 lbs was 70 lbs. Then he subtracted 70 lbs from 100 lbs to reach 30 lbs. (To watch a rather shy student explain this to his peers was pretty great.)
After that, I asked the students to guess at the size of the box again. The students were almost exactly right the second go-around; guessing that the package was a bit larger than a box of facial tissue.

Now for the exciting part: introducing the class to the worms and the worms to their new homes.

Side note: During my after school program this week, we drilled holes in large plastic containers and built boxes out of leftover foam insulation board. (We drilled holes to allow air flow and used the insulation board to help keep the boxes cool in the greenhouse.) Afterward, we filled the boxes with a few inches of the composted-manure/soil blend and moved them inside the greenhouse.

On top of the soil, students added shredded newspaper (remnants of the Social Studies Current Events assignments), and carrot and beet greens from the garden.
The worms came next: students wanted to feel the bag and take a peek inside before taking a handful and introducing them to their new homes, each student gently placed their clump of worms into the middle of the mixture. Although a few students were hesitant to bring forward their hands, many were eager to welcome a fistful of worms and peat moss, which in turn helped the others warm up to holding some Red Wrigglers before introducing them to a new place to live.

The luxury new living quarters for 1/3 of our 2,000 worms. 

Hello friends!

One last look: check out the salvaged foam insulation board! We just need some lids on these living quarters and another couple layers of insulation and we'll be set to go (The thought behind the insulation is to ward off the heat of the greenhouse.)

Teaching the Omnivore's Dilemma

I (finally) started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. The Omnivore's Dilemma was first given it's name in the 1970's but has been written about for years. The dilemma for omnivores is that there is quite a plethora of things out there available for our consumption. So how do we choose? How do we decide "what's for dinner?"

In the introduction, Pollan explains that the question that started his book was, "What should we have for dinner?" We all ask this question on a daily basis, if we're lucky enough to have a fridge, cabinet, or garden space full of food. This question for me, too, is the starting point of it all; for understanding what food really means to us as a culture and people.

In the past, I've approached this heady concept by asking students to "think, pair, share" their favorite meal, dish, fruit, or vegetable. Students begin by thinking about what food is their favorite, then draw whatever it is that they chose. Then students partner with another student and share with their pair. Lastly, students share with the class their pair's favorite.

From the feedback I have received from students and teachers, I have learned that this activity has helped students understand that the food they see on their plate is more than the sum of its nutrients. With everything we eat, there is something more to it than its nutrient values.

While I am getting ready to begin a new school year, I have begun to reexamine all of the lessons I developed in the past. This lesson in particular is one I have been having difficulty rewriting. I like it a lot however, it's inadequate. It's appropriate for some of the work I've been doing, when I do not have several 42-minute class periods with my students. The "Think, Pair, Share" Favorite Food Activity is appropriate for when I know I'm only going to have one or a few class periods with a group of students.

For students I will teach more often, I would like a different lesson. A different introduction to a more in-depth examination of food. One that really gives students the opportunity to examine what their favorite food means to not only them, but what the history and story of that dish or the ingredients in that dish actually looks like as a whole, and what that could mean to their lives.

For example, the tomatoes we eat today (for the most part) do not look like the small yellow tomatoes cultivated and eaten by the Aztecs? Does it matter that for nearly two centuries major Western Civilizations believed that because tomatoes were a nightshade and would be poisonous for humans to consume? Or that Thomas Jefferson grew them and ate them despite society's belief that the fruit would kill humans?

I think it does. These little idiosyncrasies help us learn more about the foods we chose to eat or not eat. I think the more we know about food the more we can understand our relationship with it; why we chose to eat one thing over another; why some societies eat parts of food that other societies would not dream of eating; but really, I think that the more we understand about food will help us to understand why the food we choose to eat, and how it was cultivated matters.


My next steps here, in muddling through the muck of how to really investigate the simple, yet incredibly complicated question, "What should we have for dinner?" for now at least, involves reading the words of Pollan, and I'm sure quite a few others to determine some effective ways to teach children about the Omnivore's Dilemma.

"I HATE ALL FRUIT"

I cannot tell you how grateful I am for chocolate and peanut butter covered frozen bananas.

In my after school program, I was trying to cook or do something nutrition related during each meeting. I have tried many, many things: Yogurt mixed with honey, peanut butter, chocolate chips, and bananas; fresh tomatoes or carrots dipped in homemade ranch, home-made pizzas... Anything that may give these students a fresh look at fruits and vegetables.

Well, after months of this, I nearly gave up; a cook can only take so many "yucks," and refusals to swallow.

Then, the wonderful World Wide Web introduced me to chocolate and peanut butter covered frozen bananas.

Okay, so adding chocolate and peanut butter to anything feels a bit like cheating, especially when I'm trying to teach students about healthy eating habits.

This one student in particular, who "HATES ALL FRUIT!" (Here's where I set myself up for another failure.)

Then, we measured equal parts chocolate and peanut butter, melted and incorporated the mixture together. While the mixture was melting, we peeled bananas, and cut them into small, bite sized pieces. Lastly, we inserted popsicle sticks into the ends of the halved bananas. (The student wanted popsicle-like bananas!) The popsicle sticks helped to coat the banana pieces with the chocolate-peanut butter mixture. We popped them onto a plate covered in wax paper and placed them in the freezer.

Two hours later, we came back.

The bananas had frozen through (lucky for us, the freezer was set to a deep freeze)!

I held my breath as my "HATES ALL FRUIT" student took his first bite.

"I actually kind of like this," he said.

Victory!!

The student even asked to take the leftovers home for his family to try.

Now, it's been two weeks since my victory dance through the school's kitchen classroom. Yesterday, at the end of my after school program, I asked the student if he'd tried making the frozen bananas again. He said that he made them a few times. Sometimes without even covering the banana with chocolate or peanut butter.

So here's where my crazy worry is catching up with what I logically believe. Teaching students healthier eating habits. That's the goal here. That's my goal here.

Additional notes: be sure to note the state of your student's/children/audience's mouths - frozen bananas are hard to bite through and pretty hard on sensitive teeth!

Special thank you for providing me recipe ideas:
http://www.neverhomemaker.com/2010/06/frozen-banana-bites.html
http://www.notenoughcinnamon.com/2012/07/04/chocolate-covered-frozen-banana-peanut-butter-bites/

A Place to Call Their Own

Two weeks ago we tilled up a garden space that is 12'x8'. The students were involved throughout the entire process:

Planning (this plan evolved from a paw print shaped bed, to represent their school's mascot, to something they're more familiar with: a rectangular bed)

Tilling (an adult volunteer tilled up the grass sod, the students raked and collected the sod and then moved it to our new compost pile. In teams of four they carried a 40 gallon bucket of sod, laughing all the way.)




Next the students built a topsoil layer to cover the heavily compacted clay-like soil. (To do this the students carried buckets of leaf mulch to the new garden bed and after spreading these, they shoveled out carefully composted goat, cow, and chicken manure on top of the leaf mulch.)











After covering the area with leaf mulch and well-composted manure, the students took a turn at the tiller (One even sang, "I'm a Cowboy Baby!" while doing so)





Lastly, they covered the new soil with a layer of landscaping fabric and secured this with a border of compost. (While securing the fabric under the border of compost they marched around the perimeter, singing a song they learned in Choir.)

Farmers around the area complain that it's difficult to find workers. I do not have this problem: I have an abundance of workers, who will sing, laugh, and dance while performing tasks many call "work." Sure, they may need constant reminders of the task at hand but in two and a half hours, a group of six students and four adults tilled up a piece of land to create an outdoor garden space fit for planting. A little place my students can call their own.

Last week, after four days of rain, we were ready to plant in our new garden bed. The students narrowed down their list of plants they wished to grow and marked the landscaping fabric to determine where to cut through and plant. Many families in this area have gardens, so this is not entirely new to the students involved in this Garden Project. What is new is that at school, the garden will be their responsibility. They have already been instrumental in the planning process. Next, in their garden, they will learn how to plant, tend and nurture, and harvest.

It's true: May has arrived

Over the past four months, I have patiently awaited promised money for the needs of my two school garden projects.

My patience slowly fizzled out.

During the last week in April, my area's frost-free date came and went with no space to move outside to plant. That was difficult. I did not really mind being stuck inside, behind a desk during the cold and dreary winter months but now we are receiving more than 12 hours of sunlight a day and it usually reaches 60 degrees. The trees are flowering and producing spring leaves. At night, the temperature drops down to the 40s.

For Pete's sake, hearty greens could be sprouting and thriving outside!

Two weeks ago, my anxiousness was readily apparent to those who saw me on a daily basis. A Nurse Practitioner at the school who also farms on her own land, and I talked about options. In less than an hour we devised a plan to create a raised bed using donated time and resources. The money tied up elsewhere suddenly no longer mattered. (This was one time in my life where it really hit me how valuable talking can be to moving a project forward.)

Our plan meant we would till up a plot of land during my next After School Garden Project meeting.

I was so, so grateful!

(Once again, life has showed me that usually, it does not pay to worry and spend excessive amounts of time planning. Sometimes, things just fall into place and being open to that, although sometimes challenging, can bring you great opportunities and blessings.)

If not today, maybe tomorrow?

Well, things have changed here: just a little.

The greenhouse and a couple of conferences have kept me quite busy this past month! We now have tomato plants that measure 3' high (and some stragglers coming in around a foot). Additionally, and possibly better than that, there are actual tomato fruits in the greenhouse! Whaaa-whoooo!!!

Yellow-Pear Tomatoes

All of those tomato plants are quite a bit of work though: I've put in five hours this week just clipping them to their posts or string trellis and pruning their bottom most branches. We've had one snow day plus a 2-hour delay this week so my time with students has been limited. I did have a couple students for an hour on Monday - they made a decent dent on the pruning. However, I am not sure that I am the best communicator when it comes to plant maintenance. Or maybe I'm not explaining the "why" well enough. (Or maybe students are afraid they'll damage the plants.)

All of the bottom-most branches clipped - here's hoping it will help!

Here's what I told them: I wanted branches pruned to prevent leaves from resting or falling into the dirt below. I hope (and have been told) that this will discourage diseases and pests. I told my two helpers this - to no avail. They "finished" but left quite a few low-lying branches. Then, as usual, the bell spoiled any followup on my part. Maybe today, I will have a chance to show them. Otherwise, there's always next week, right?

And this may be my favorite part of horticulture : the never-ending "tend to" list. 

"Do you get high in here?!"

A colleague walked into one of the greenhouses today for the first time. She asked, "do you get high in here?" (Now, in our current political culture, after two states passed legislation related to legalizing smoking marijuana you may be concerned; I assure you, there's no need.) The smell has become somewhat normal to me but it's intoxicating, especially in the middle of January; when the world around us is readying to hibernate, a chunk of my world is entering the first weeks of spring (it's fighting to do so but I feel like that is what nature is all about - a fight to survive, grow, and thrive!)

A colleague brought in tomato plants that are nearly 3' high now. Tomatoes. Smells like a ripe, middle-of-summer tomato. (And I love the smell of fresh, straight from the vine, tomatoes. It's so different from the smell grocery-store tomatoes exude now, after travelling from warmer climes.)

In addition to the tomato, there are between 200 - 300 sprouts shooting up. It smells lush, green: and then occasionally, I catch a whiff of Cilantro, Sage, Thyme, or Basil.

Soil: there is now nearly 300 pounds of it piled neatly into containers here in the greenhouse. Which gives off that wonderful earthy, life-giving aroma.

It's snowing. Outside of the greenhouse, the weather is appropriate for the end of January: snow has arrived. While most of the natural world is slumbering through winter, there's a different smell to the snow in the greenhouse. The snow, a few flakes have scurried their way inside. They've found their way through the spaces between ceiling panels and now that there is  bit of snow inside, it smells refreshing; more similar to a spring-time rain in April.

Today, with all of those smells combined, although it's snowing outside, it smells like a spring rain. Like I have escaped winter's grasp and have time traveled right into spring. Maybe that is why I have had a difficult time being productive in the office lately; I'm intoxicated with the aroma of the greenhouse. 

Wild in the Greenhouse: Hunting for Mushrooms

That’s the title of a new lesson, hot off the presses; seems there is something wild growing in the greenhouse.

I should not be surprised really; from what I have read, the growing conditions in this greenhouse are excellent for Mycelia germination and fruiting (because the mushroom is actually the fruit of the fungi). (I think Mycelia is the type of mushroom that's growing here) The greenhouse is almost always between 70-77F (ideal temperatures for this mushroom), damp, and compressed soil. (It looks as though I had some overzealous soil packers during transplanting. Some of the soil in these containers looks heavily compressed, leading to a lack of air and water flow; the Mycelia Mushroom delights in poorly aerated soils.)

Today’s original plan was a Hydroponics Lesson. Instead, I will take a cue from Nature. With a bit of quick research on my part, I think I have the basics of Mushrooms down. I now know for certain I will never be an expert but I am hoping with a little coaching my students will be able to keep these mushrooms at bay in the greenhouse. We do not want mushrooms crowding out our tomatoes, cilantro, sage, and parsley!

After a few basics on mushrooms, I will let my students loose to harvest wild mushrooms in the greenhouse. I learned that picking does not kill the underground spores but will help prevent reproduction and thus spreading. Thus today, they will be hunting mushrooms, not to eat but to pick fruits in order to prevent them from spreading their spores.

One of my students, scooping up some mushrooms; she actually took these and put them in the lid from a discarded water bottle. She's going to see if she can keep them growing on her own. I'm excited to hear the results!

Additionally, I am going to ask the students what they think we should do to curb mushroom growth in our greenhouse. There are a few methods we can try but would like the students to actively participate in this decision process. We can try: aerating the soil (for better water absorption), applying a nitrogen fertilizer (which will speed decomposition of the organic matter which feeds fungus), or reducing irrigation (creating a drier soil and a less ideal condition for Mycelia growth and fruiting).

**Post lesson update: One student suggested peat moss to help aerate the soil and absorb some of the moisture. We may try that next week, they all agreed that the moss may help us fight the fungus and are eager to get their hands dirty again.

Any other thoughts for curbing mushroom growth?