WEEK 15: LET'S TACO-ABOUT IT -- WITH TORTILLAS

Tacos are made with tortillas -- many tortillas are made with CORN - an ancient crop of this contentent. For students in person we will get that chance to make our tortillas like you saw me do online in the winter. We will be using GLASS GEM corn CLICK HERE TO SEE A PHOTO. The night before we make the tortillas, the dry kernels are cooked with lime. Not LIME from a tree, but limestone. This process is called Nixtamalization -- when the kernals are cooked the nutrients are more available. Watch the vide to the left to learn more about it.

For those of you at home, let me know any feedback about this recipe on FLIPGRID including if you might be able to stop by to pick up some masa next Monday afternoon!

CLICK HEREto share your family recipe for the Birney Recipe Book!

WEEK 14: THE MONARCHS RETURN!

Each school year in the fall,students at Birney usually join students from around the world in celebrating the amazing migration of the monarch butterflies in the Symbolic Migration program. Students create their own paper butterflies, and we send our butterflies to join others in a symbolic migration, like the real butterflies who migrate up to 2,500 miles to parts of Mexico and other warm locations to spend the winter. Packages were delivered to more than thirty Mexican schools, in the communities in Mexico where the most Monarchs spend the winter months. Click here to watch a news video about the migration. In the spring, when the Monarchs were beginning their migration back into the more northern parts of the United States and Canada, we received a package of butterflies made by students from other schools. Sadly, the Monarchs are in trouble and their population has dropped by 90% in the past 20 years. Because of this, Monarchs might become listed as an endangered species. Click here to read an article about how some farmers are helping, and think about ways we can all help as well!

WEEK 13: BACK TO BASICS -- COMPOSTING:

Students at school are helping to get the garden ready for summer crops -- which we usually would have done in February and March. This last year is different. We adjust! That is what nature does -- ADAPT.

SOIL is the focus of organic gardening -- especially here in this San Diego climate where we always have some amount of sunshine, the temperatures are mild, so we can grow ALL YEAR LONG. If we build our soil with COMPOST - our soil gives more nutrients to plants and ALSO helps the ground hold the water. Good compost makes soil like a sponge -soaking up and holding on to the water! This week is INTERNATIONAL COMPOST AWARENESS WEEK Check out the poster to the right that a high school student made!

You are invited to do the following projects this week:

• Compost questions & Compost experiences -- share about it on FLIPGRID: https://flipgrid.com/98176e1e

• do a trash audit at your place - Here is some categories you might use: WASTE AUDIT SHEET

• hang out on the composting tab here on the garden webpage: Ms. Mindy's Compost Info

ALSO

• Harvest of the month for April (and the beginning of MAY) is LOQUATS. Garden Webpage info here: Loquat Info Help our Birney Family find the LOQUATS in your neighborhood! Put the nearest address into this this google form: LOQUAT LOCATOR FORM and I will help map it - check back to see the LOQUAT LOCATOR MAP!

WEEK 12: FIRST GARDEN LESSON SINCE SPRING BREAK

How are you doing? Have you been doing any gardening or looking out for things in nature?

Here are a few things I encourage you to keep your eye out for:

• LOQUATS - You can read more about this month's HARVEST OF THE MONTH at Birney: CLICK HERE They are ripening all over. See how close to where you live you can find LOQUATS!

• Monarch Butterflies are about. If you see butterflies, there are likely caterpillars about. Do you know which plant to look on? MILKWEED

• For gardeners and farmers summer crops should be in the ground. Would you like to plant some more of our GRASS or LEGUME family for the summer? Maybe some beans or corn like we talked about in our winter classes? I have seeds!!

• STANDBY for Ms. Mindy's OFFICE HOURS coming soon!!

WEEK 11: TORTILLAS HECHO DE MANO

Using our Birney Grown glass gem flint corn, Ms. Mindy demonstrates how to make tortillas by hand. The beginning of this process is taking the corn, that has been husked and shucked and putting it in water with lime (called "cal in Mexico or calcium hydroxide). After boiling this slurry of water, corn and lime leave it sitting over night. This corn is more digestable, has increased calcium and phosphorous due to this processing AND has less toxins from common fungi that grow on corn. Then the grinding part happens. The traditional methods use a metate -- but Ms. Mindy has a metal grinder. The ground corn is called "masa" and this can be made into a ball, flattened by a hand, rolling pin or a tortilla press and then grilled till done. This tortilla day for 3rd graders has been a tradition for more than 5 years.

How do you eat tortillas? Tortillas are nutritious and eaten around the world as tacos and in numerous other dishes. And the history of corn is important to think about. Here is a video that delves into this history in more detail.

WEEK 9: BEANS!

Beans, beans -- the magical fruit. Yes -- beans are pretty amazing...and in our story from the Tutelo people - bean can also SING really well! But more importantly - bean makes the best companion with, drumroll please, CORN! In the story Bean sings " Who will marry me" and the best mate is not all the animals that try to court Bean -- but CORN who comes silently beside BEAN as if out of the earth! Companion planting is an OLD agricultural practice of many native tribes. You can watch more of the history of the larger group of peoples that the Tutelo come from here. Also you can explore more of the various kinds of beans - many from native people. Two seed browsing catalogs:

• https://www.allianceofnativeseedkeepers.com/beans

• https://www.seedsavers.org/category/bean

Do you have a bean recipe in your family? Add it to the Birney Recipe Book LIst here; Birney Recipes!

WEEK 8: INTRODUCING GRANDMOTHER CORN

This week we are hearing the story from the CHEROKEE about THE COMING OF CORN. In the story we are told the directions for planting corn. Can you remember?

The corn we use in so many of our products came from the Indigenous People. Notice how much corn there is in your diet today by not just CORN in the name, but in the ingredients on the label!

The CHEROKEE came from the land we now call GEORGIA. Though the CHEROKEES were forced to leave their land to OKLAHOMA during the journey that was called "THE TRAIL OF TEARS" - the corn seed survived and continues to this day now called WHITE EAGLE CORN. This corn along with others was crossed to make the GLASS GEM CORN we have planted at BIRNEY.

WEEK 6: LEGUMES IN YOUR KITCHEN!!!

Today we will cook up TWO legume recipes! Does your family have one? I would LOVE to hear about it! Birney Recipe Book

Hoppin John is a traditional New Year's food that developed in the south. It is believed that black eyed peas are good luck. That is a delicious kind of LUCK! Here is the recipe I based my version on:

Vegetarian Hoppin John

Hummus is a middle eastern food that can be eaten as a healthy snack with pita or vegetables. This is a recipe similar to what I made: hummus

Notice the legumes in foods you like to eat!

WEEK 5: MUTUALISM AND LEGUMES

We listened to an old story that you may be familiar with, Miss Rumphius Miss Rumphius . The message in the story is how you have to DO SOMETHING TO MAKE THE WORLD MORE BEAUTIFUL. And isn't it beautiful when things work together in nature -- like the lupine and the bacteria to improve the soil for all of us?! (here is the description description of this relationship) This is true for all legumes - big or small -- they give food and shelter to these bacteria who help them get some of the missing nutrients they (and other plants) need. This is why we always plant our fava beans this time of the year. Other serious gardeners want to make some thing beautiful too. Check out one of my heroes, Ron Finley in the video to the right.

WEEK 4: LEGUME AND GRASS SEEDS

This week we reviewed all the plant families we studied from Kindergarten til Third Grade. We started to look at some of the seeds in our kitchen that we might have. For example CUMIN SEEDS are used in cooking and are in the CARROT FAMILY. PUMPKIN SEEDS, you may have scooped out of your pumpkin to carve it, are in the SQUASH FAMILY. Over Zoom I dissected a FAVA BEAN. You can try this at home.

Come to Birney to pick up supplies from your teachers on November 12th and Ms. Mindy will have the following items for you:

• Fava beans with their pods to shell and plant

• A big bean(or 2) to soak and dissect

• A bag of grains to sprout

• Soil/buckets (optional)

WEEK 3:

A KEY MEMBER OF our GRASS FAMILY: SUGAR!

Read your labels and notice the ADDED SUGAR. Go further by seeing WHERE this sugar is coming from by investigating the INGREDIENTS.

Instead of AVOIDING the sugar, see what it is like to focus on eating something more naturally colorful, crunchy, flavorful...How did we get so focused on SWEET?