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Here's what was going on in our school gardens in Spring 2020!
Here's what was going on in our school gardens in Spring 2020!
June 1-13, 2020: HARVEST TIME!
June 1-13, 2020: HARVEST TIME!
We have now completed our first school garden harvests of 2020!
We have now completed our first school garden harvests of 2020!
In the past two weeks, we have harvested almost 450 bunches of fresh produce from the school gardens - that's almost 100 pounds of food! We harvested lettuce, kale, spinach, bok choy, tatsoi, radishes, hakurei turnips, oregano, sage, mint, thyme, and chives! All of this food was taken to the Amherst Regional High School cafeteria where our School Nutrition Director, Michael Gallo O'Connell, School Nutrition Assistant Director, Julia Burdick, and the fantastic School Nutrition staff packed it up, wrote recipes featuring this produce, and delivered it to our 14 school lunch pick-up sites so that our ARPS families could take it home and eat it! A real school-garden-to-table experience!
Did you get to share in the bounty? If you took school garden veggies home with you, we'd love to hear about it! Please share any thoughts, experiences, recipes, ideas or questions to Leila at tunnelll@arps.org and Jen at reesej@arps.org!
Farmer Leila and Jen bring in the first harvest of the year! Look at all the beautiful Fort River lettuce that Jen is harvesting and those incredible radishes from Crocker Farm!
Red and green cutting lettuce
Bunches of sage, mint, thyme, and oregano
Bunches of spinach and Red Russian kale
SPOTLIGHT:
SPOTLIGHT:
HOW WE HARVEST
HOW WE HARVEST
Follow along below for a step-by-step look at how we harvest, wash, and pack our school garden produce so that it is ready to be used by the school cafeteria or by ARPS families!
Follow along below for a step-by-step look at how we harvest, wash, and pack our school garden produce so that it is ready to be used by the school cafeteria or by ARPS families!
STEP 1: We wash our harvest containers, barrels, and harvesting equipment well with soap and water
STEP 2: We fill large, cleaned plastic barrels with cold water and keep the water cool by placing the barrels in the shade.
STEP 3- - BUNCHING: Once all of our harvest containers and tools are washed, we use clean, sharp knives to cut produce like greens and herbs close to the base of the plant. Radishes and turnips we carefully pull out of the ground making sure to leave the edible stems attached to the tasty roots! We then form bunches of each type of produce and wrap it gently with a rubber band so that the bunches stay together.
STEP 4: We place finished bunches into a clean harvest container and put the container in the shade so that the veggies don't wilt in the sun.
STEP 5 - WASHING: After we are finished harvesting a particular type of produce, we dunk the veggies in the barrel filled with cold, clean water. This helps clean the produce and keeps it nice and fresh!
STEP 6: After our produce is washed, we put it back into clean harvest containers. Now our clean bunches of veggies are ready to be delivered to the cafeteria!
STEP 7 - STORAGE: We bring our harvested, cleaned produce to Wheelhouse Catering, a local, farm-to-table catering business, at their new kitchen located at 383 Main St, Amherst (in the old Lumberyard restaurant space) to store our produce in their walk-in cooler before delivery to the ARPS cafeteria! THANK YOU WHEELHOUSE!
STEP 8 - DELIVERY: Finally, our veggies are harvested, cleaned, and ready to be used! Here is our wonderful School Nutrition Director, Michael Gallo O'Connell, receiving all of the school garden produce from Farmer Leila outside of the ARHS cafeteria where he and Assistant School Nutrition Director, Julia Burdick, pack up all of our delicious veggies to send out to families in our community!
THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL THE SCHOOL NUTRITION STAFF FOR HELPING US GET OUR SCHOOL GARDEN VEGGIES FROM OUR GARDEN TO THE TABLES OF ARPS FAMILIES! WE COULDN'T DO IT WITHOUT THEM!
THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL THE SCHOOL NUTRITION STAFF FOR HELPING US GET OUR SCHOOL GARDEN VEGGIES FROM OUR GARDEN TO THE TABLES OF ARPS FAMILIES! WE COULDN'T DO IT WITHOUT THEM!
Here are some easy and delicious recipes created by our School Nutrition Department featuring produce grown and harvested in our school gardens!
Here are some easy and delicious recipes created by our School Nutrition Department featuring produce grown and harvested in our school gardens!
Bok choy at Wildwood after the first school garden harvest.
DID YOU KNOW?
DID YOU KNOW?
Some of the food that we grow in the school gardens can only be harvested once while others can be harvested multiple times! Radishes are an example of a food that you can only harvest one time. Since we eat the root of the radish, once we pull the radishes root out of the ground, they will not regrow. Other types of produce that you harvest for the leaves or stems will grow back if harvested carefully! If you cut off some, but not all of the stems and leaves of many edible plants like chives, lettuce, kale, tatsoi and herbs, the leaves will re-grow, allowing you to harvest multiple times! This recently-harvested bok choy we will hopefully get to harvest at least 2 times before we will plant something new. These chives, which are a perennial (a plant which survives through the cold winter and comes back year after year), we will be able to harvest many, many times for years to come!
Chives with a buzz cut! These plants will put out new, fresh and tender stems and leaves once they have been harvested.
CROCKER FARM'S GARDENS
CROCKER FARM'S GARDENS
A young tomato plant with the top nibbled off (probably by a bunny, woodchuck, chipmunk, or squirrel)! We will need to replant some of the crops that have been badly damaged by hungry critters!
Here is another look at the beautiful, juicy radishes which were harvested out of the Crocker Farm garden. Look at that amazing color!
In the past two weeks, we have harvested radishes, tatsoi, chives, mint, cilantro, dill, and lettuce from the Crocker Farm garden - a total of 87 bunches of produce which were distributed to ARPS families! Soon, it will be time to harvest swiss chard as well as re-harvest lettuce and herbs. It looks as if there is some kind of critter that is nibbling on a lot our plants (watch the garden tour or take a look at the photo of our chopped-off tomato plant on the left to learn more!) so in the next few weeks we will be re-planting a lot of the crops that have been eaten. More updates soon!
In the past two weeks, we have harvested radishes, tatsoi, chives, mint, cilantro, dill, and lettuce from the Crocker Farm garden - a total of 87 bunches of produce which were distributed to ARPS families! Soon, it will be time to harvest swiss chard as well as re-harvest lettuce and herbs. It looks as if there is some kind of critter that is nibbling on a lot our plants (watch the garden tour or take a look at the photo of our chopped-off tomato plant on the left to learn more!) so in the next few weeks we will be re-planting a lot of the crops that have been eaten. More updates soon!
CROCKER FARM GARDEN TOUR PART 2! (NEW!)
CROCKER FARM GARDEN TOUR PART 1:
CF Garden Tour.MOVFORT RIVER'S GARDENS
FORT RIVER'S GARDENS
Over the past two weeks, we have harvested a LOT of food out of the Fort River garden! 17 bunches of bok choy, 35 bunches of radishes, 35 bunches of mint, 11 bunches of kale, 11 bunches of spinach, 8 bunches of thyme, 12 bunches of oregano, 7 bunches of sage, 6 bunches of cilantro, and 8 bunches of dill, and a whopping 96 bunches of lettuce, to be exact! That's 242 bunches of produce out of this one garden alone - over half of all of the food that we have harvested in total over the past few weeks! Wow! Thank you, Fort River soil! An up-to-date garden tour will be coming soon, but take a look at the last tours of the garden to see what was and is still growing!
Over the past two weeks, we have harvested a LOT of food out of the Fort River garden! 17 bunches of bok choy, 35 bunches of radishes, 35 bunches of mint, 11 bunches of kale, 11 bunches of spinach, 8 bunches of thyme, 12 bunches of oregano, 7 bunches of sage, 6 bunches of cilantro, and 8 bunches of dill, and a whopping 96 bunches of lettuce, to be exact! That's 242 bunches of produce out of this one garden alone - over half of all of the food that we have harvested in total over the past few weeks! Wow! Thank you, Fort River soil! An up-to-date garden tour will be coming soon, but take a look at the last tours of the garden to see what was and is still growing!
Jen harvesting our bumper crop of lettuce!
Here is just some of the bountiful food we have harvested out of the school garden; lettuce, kale, spinach and bok choy!
WILDWOOD'S GARDENS
WILDWOOD'S GARDENS
Tomato plant with the top nibbled off!
Radishes, chives, bok choy, sage, and oregano harvested from the Wildwood school garden!
We harvested some really great food out of the Wildwood gardens these past few weeks! The highlights were definitely the baby kale and chives, but we also harvested radishes, bok choy, turnips, sage and oregano - a total of 91 bunches of produce, total! All of that food was distributed to ARPS families or used by School Nutrition in free school meals! Another big update is that Woody, the Wildwood woodchuck, seems to have started a family! There is a whole pack of woodchucks living under our school garden shed (we have tried to snap a photo of the baby woodchucks, but no luck yet! We'll keep trying!). While these critters are a joy to see, they also are very hungry and have been doing a lot of garden snacking. Because of this, we have put up some wire fencing around a few of our particularly tasty crops, like our lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and sunflowers. We will need to replant a lot of the crops in this school garden, as well. Stay tuned for an updated garden tour coming soon, but take a look at the most recent tour to see what was and is still growing in the Wildwood garden!
We harvested some really great food out of the Wildwood gardens these past few weeks! The highlights were definitely the baby kale and chives, but we also harvested radishes, bok choy, turnips, sage and oregano - a total of 91 bunches of produce, total! All of that food was distributed to ARPS families or used by School Nutrition in free school meals! Another big update is that Woody, the Wildwood woodchuck, seems to have started a family! There is a whole pack of woodchucks living under our school garden shed (we have tried to snap a photo of the baby woodchucks, but no luck yet! We'll keep trying!). While these critters are a joy to see, they also are very hungry and have been doing a lot of garden snacking. Because of this, we have put up some wire fencing around a few of our particularly tasty crops, like our lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and sunflowers. We will need to replant a lot of the crops in this school garden, as well. Stay tuned for an updated garden tour coming soon, but take a look at the most recent tour to see what was and is still growing in the Wildwood garden!
Jen plants baby kale into the bed that used to be peas... before they were all eaten by the family of woodchucks living under the garden shed!
BROOKFIELD FARM
BROOKFIELD FARM
SLOW & STEADY!
SLOW & STEADY!
After a slow start to the growing season at Brookfield Farm due to the cool temperatures, Brookfield Farm is now full of delicious food! These carrots and beets that took so long to germinate are now growing quickly! The challenge now is to make sure that these crops get enough water - it's been a very dry late spring!
APRIL 14th
APRIL 14th
On April 14th we got a big rain storm that eroded, or washed away, a lot of the soil from this field and made deep river-beds through the newly-tilled soil.
APRIL 16th
APRIL 16th
Two days later, the soil was smoothed back out by a machine called a harrow, and rows of carrots and beets were newly seeded! See those long, skinny, straight lines? A tractor called a "Seeder" drove over the flat soil and deposited seeds evenly into the soil in long, thin furrows.
MAY 23rd
MAY 23rd
Over one month later, those carrot and beet seeds had only just started to germinate, or sprout! You can just barely see the faint, green lines as the plants began to emerge from the soil.
JUNE 13th
JUNE 13th
Finally, these beets and carrots are really starting to grow! The Brookfield weeder crew, a group of mostly ARHS students and alumni, carefully pulled all of the weeds from in between these rows of crops and now the tap roots of both the beets and carrots have lots of space to grow! They should be ready to harvest within the next month.
You can still see a wavy line cutting through the carrots from where that big rain storm back in April eroded deep trenches into the soil. Because the soil wasn't flat where it had eroded away, the harrow couldn't completely smooth out the soil and the seeds didn't germinate evenly in that section!
The power of erosion!
Farmer Leila painted these planters on the back porch of the Brookfield Farm shop to show what those beet and carrot tap roots look like as they grow underneath the soil! See how the edible roots grow underground while the stems and leaves grow above ground? See all the different shapes and sizes of carrots? See the long, skinny root hairs coming off of tap roots?
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