First graders were busily observing and recording their impressions of our garden yesterday afternoon. Armed with clipboards and pencils they were milling about everywhere and taking big risks, learning about edible flowers, vegetables and fruits. They were so proud of their first attempts at creating a symbolic record of what they saw. I wonder how many of them might one day become scientists…..or writers!
sharing observations at meeting
Using all of their senses to explore and remember.
We met indoors during morning greeting and shared what we thought we might find in the garden now that we were back in school. I asked students to use as many of their senses as possible to explore when we moved from the indoor to the outdoor classroom. There was so much to discover: the crunch of fresh kale when you bite into it, the prickliness of cucumber leaves, the yellows and oranges, purples and reds of the flowers, the yummy combination of flavors when you make a raspberry-kale wrap, the whispered secrets of the leaves when the wind moves through them, the smell of green!
Pepper munchers in September. Pepper planters in June.
butterfly garden
checking out the butterfly garden
Raspberry kale wrap
Who woulda thought most of this class needed to munch on fresh kale while debriefing?
Last week a team of After School students harvested celery for our all school healthy snack program. Usually our daily fruit and veggie snacks are purchased, but we have enough beautiful celery in our garden to feed the whole student body this fall. Were planning to harvest and serve it once a week until we run out. Celery tops are great additions to homemade broth. Notice the teamwork among this great group of kids!
bringing in the celery harvest
washing celery
cutting off celery tops
harvesting corn
shucking ears
sweet corn ready for snack
Garden visitors trying a veggie dip.
If you were lucky enough to come to the community barbeque just before school started, you might have had a taste of our pickles or some potato garlic dip (skordalia). Your family might have had a picnic dinner under the shade tent. Massaged kale salads, pesto and more were offered for families to try. Each family brought a potluck dish to share and children were able to meet their teachers before the big first day!
Sade shelter with scarlet runner beans.
August bounty
Celery, tomatoes, peppers and marigolds.
Anyone for a taste of our school garden?
Berries
In the Morning
spiral poem
Sunflower
Tomato
Two Little Beetles
Warm Rain
Dusk Has Come
In A Park
Cupcake Flowers
Poet Verandah Porche and Collage Artist, Jeanette Staley
poetry kids in the garden
poetry writing in the garden
worked with the summer campers to awaken their senses in the garden. Each child created a garden collage and a poem to express their personal experiences as they walked through the garden. Below are students and teachers hard at work. This will be a two part entry. Their final work is so wonderful, its own blog space will follow in the next entry.
Here are Jeanette and Verandah simultaneously teaching children to express their ideas in two integrated lessons.
Garden art and poetry example
Abby’s garden collage
Sharing Cucumbers Teens and Preschoolers
Olders met Youngers in their garden yesterday when the incoming Kindergarten class took a tour and were offered freshly harvested cucumbers. As you can see in the background, the teen crew took very good care of our garden during their five week stay. Some of them would like to continue working even though their internships are over this week.
We will miss each and every one of them, including their crew leader, Katie Davidson. We hope to welcome them in the garden whenever they can make it to Westminster in the future!
Natalia looking out from the sunflower house.
Katie, Natalia and David help make lunch for garden crews at the Parks Place kitchen. This meal was made with locally raised products.
Crew leaves with Kale bunches and pickles.
ED SHORE’S KOSHER DILL PICKLES
Yesterday our teen garden crew learned how to make pickles—from harvesting to canning. Follow along on this photo journey. Click on the recipe for Ed Shore’s pickles at the top of this entry. Ed was a beloved physics teacher at the Putney School for thirty years. He was so much more, opening the world to his students by leading bike trips around the globe, raising an amazing family in Westminster West with his wife, Joan, and creating wonderful science experiments through cooking. He was the first person who suggested using grape leaves to me as a crisping agent in pickling. I haven’t yet found the chemical explanation for this reaction. Any investigative scientists out there looking for a research project?
Scrubbing Cukes
Dill Head
Grape Leaves for Pickles
Cucumber and sungold tomato harvest.
Filling jars
Pouring Brine into jars
Stirring Brine
Garlic Grape leaves and Recipe
Dill head and Garlic in Jars
cutting saplings for cucumber trellis
cucumber trellis dug
It’s easier to spot cucumbers when they’re vining up a trellis. We experimented with two different kinds of support this summer. Teen crew members love sawing and lashing structures together. Even our older gardeners needed guidance to discover the tiny cucumbers growing behind yellow blossoms. It’s a thrill each time I see the spark of recognition light up their faces!
full sized cuke discovered
tiny new cucumber spotted
First harvest.
Summer campers came out to the garden last week to find sungold cherry tomatoes (arguably the sweetest tomatoes in Vermont), peppers and cucumbers!
Our littlest campers loved the raspberries and discovering kale.
preschool digger
picking raspberries
They were so happy with their discoveries!
sungold cherry tomato harvest
garden harvesters July
first pepper
Vermont School Garden 