Winter Hill Garlic Planting

Tis the season for putting gardens to bed and planting garlic! School gardens around Somerville are planning fall garden clean-up days. Some schools are also planting garlic this month.

A second grade class at the Winter Hill Community Innovation School helped to plant 20 cloves of garlic. That means, when we harvest the garlic, we will have 20 bulbs of garlic!

We prepped the beds by removing all of the plants and large pieces of debris. Then we raked the soil to loosen it up. We wanted to make it easy for the students to plant the garlic, so we dug 3 trenches for them to plant their cloves.

Trenches for garlic

Cloves planted 6" apart

Carefully placing their garlic in the soil

Watching other plant their garlic

After planting the garlic, we took a peek at what was still growing in the rest of the garden. Eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, zinnias and chard are still hanging on! We even found a lethargic bee resting on a pepper plant.

Bee visiting a pepper plant

The students were very interested in the bee and had many ideas for why it wasn't moving. The garden is the perfect place to observe nature and develop hypotheses. We hope these exciting conversations will continue into the classroom!

Observing the bee

Content provided by Karyn Novakowski, Somerville Farm to School Project Director

Comments

Put your best FORK forward during National Nutrition Month

March is National Nutrition Month! Each year the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics develops new topics to celebrate National Nutrition Month. This year's theme, Put your best fork forward, encourages us to consider that every bite counts. Even "small shifts in our food choices, can add up over time." Here in Somerville we are celebrating National Nutrition Month in a few ways. ~ We are releasing Veggie of the Month kits in each school's library! The kits contain books, taste testing supplies, and a binder with lesson materials for each month! ~ We are visiting a few PreK-2nd grade classes to "taste-test" the veggie of the month: leafy greens! In the classroom, we are reading Sylvia's Spinach and making a simple salad dressing to drizzle over spinach! (Be sure to check back later for the results of our visits!) ~ Our Wellness Champions and Farm to School Staff are posting bulletin boards and fliers around the schools!

Farm to School Month Kickoff - Corn Shucking Day 2015

It's October and that means Farm to School Month! We have a busy month of real food activities planned from Salad Bar Day coming up on Thursday, October 8 to School Garden week. We kicked off our celebration with our annual Corn Shucking event. Three thousand ears of corn were shucked during an intense 30 minute time frame. Corn was sourced through our produce vendor, Russo's and grown at Taveres Farm in South Dartmouth, MA. With hands and husks flying, students, staff, community partners and parents all helped to get the job done quickly. At the Capuano Early Childhood Center, our youngest students took their jobs very seriously. Some peeling on piece at a time. Over at the Brown School, the chilly weather didn't deter the volunteers and students from shucking outside. Even our leaders, Superintendent Mary Skipper and Assistant Superintendent Vince McKay lent a hand at the East Somerville Community School. At each school,

Mindful Eating: Part 1

In order to digest your food properly, your body must be in parasympathetic mode, or in a state of non-stress. Kindergartners know this. Well, they might not know the scientific term yet, but during lunch they participate in 6 minutes of silence; a period they call "Mindful Eating". When asked why they like mindful eating, the children replied, because "it’s quiet”, “I can enjoy my food better”, “I get peace and quiet”, and "it’s calmly”. Kindergartener teacher Ms. Scrima, and other Kennedy School teachers have been implementing mindfulness in the cafeteria and their classrooms since last year. They are proud to have a lunch period that looks and sounds quite different from the chaotic cafeteria rush other classes often experience. While the students sit silently at the lunch table checking in with their emotions, their digestive systems are also benefitting. Physiologically, only when our bodies are in rest mode can the brain trigger the release of digestive

Somerville Farm to School Project

Search This Blog