Welcome to the 2023-2024 Middle School Farm
Welcome everyone to the middle school farm! I am excited to share this website with you as the year progresses. Come here for information on what we have been learning and doing on the farm. Some of you ask for the recipes of the various treats we make. You will be able to find them here. Have fun exploring!
October 23-26, 2023:
Fall is apple season and the students always look forward to the pressing of apples to collect fresh raw apple cider. Apple cider is also known in the United States and Canada as sweet cider or soft cider which is unsweetened, unfiltered, and nonalcoholic. We use the term "hard cider" for the alcoholic version. In other countries, to make the topic more confusing, the word "cider" usually means the alcoholic version. And instead, refer to our sweet cider as "cloudy apple juice". Apple juice is another term that refers to the filtered and pasteurized, bottled juice one finds at the local grocery store. We had to figure all this out because, over the last two years, our kids have asked tough questions! Regardless, they all enjoyed tasting the apple cider which is pressed from a combination of Waverly orchard apples and apples from the store since we have a mini apple orchard. If you have not seen the apple trees, they line the east side of the farm running parallel to the sidewalk. Happy investigating!
October 9-12, 2023:
"Dancing Corn" was the focus of this week. Students who chose to participate looked at the phenomenon of dancing corn by watching the effect of mixing baking soda and vinegar on corn kernels. The dissolved baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, reacted with the added vinegar forming an eruption andmillions of bubbles filled with carbon dioxide. These tiny bubbles lifted the corn up the water column until it reached the top. Once at the surface, the bubbles popped enabling the kernel to fall back down to the bottom of the mason jar. Then, the process repeated creating an image of corn bobbing up and down in the jar, in other words --dancing!
Follow the link for instructions and a video!
October 5, 2023:
After a season of watching the Three Sister's Garden grow, we needed to clear the plot and make room for future gardening ideas. The middle school students love getting into the dirt and helping out as much as they are able as in this instance, pulling weeds and removing netting.
October 2-3, 2023:
In mid-September, the middle school students took a trip to Descanso Gardens to see the "Living in a Wildlife Corridor" exhibition where photos of reptiles taken by Nicholas Hess, a former Waverly student from the Class of 2020, were included in the curated displayed. After seeing the exhibition, students enjoyed a stroll through the garden. Those folks with Grace saw some Prickley Pear (Opuntia) cactus fruiting. The purple-red bulb-like fruits covered in glochids (barbed hair-thin spines or prickes) make a fantastic drink. Afer seeing these at the gardens, Grace found some at the Montrose Farmer's Market and made a thick drink made of filtered pureed prickly pear fruits, with a combination of lime and lemon juice and essential oils, plus water and agave syrup. Don't worry, fruits for sale have no glochids. Imagine the work that goes into removing the glochids! The price reflects this intense labor as they are not cheap. However, the deep magenta color of the drink was mesmerizing and very tasty.
September 25-28, 2023:
Bonding middle school students with elementary school students over kale? Yes, that can happen on the farm since both campuses share the farm at times plus the overabundance of kale growing in the middle school plot --kale has a two-year growing cycle! Who knew, since most people generally tear out the kale plants after their first season!? So, our kale plant kept producing leaves even after a bout with heat. It remains in our plot to watch it go through its two-year cycle. These biennial plants take two years to complete their cycle of seed, to leaves, to flower, to the formation of seeds. The average gardener has probably not seen kale flowers if they traditionally pull out the plant after one season. So we look forward to the spring to see if we will observe a kale flower and see it produce seed. In the meantime, we still harvest the kale leaves and the students love to eat them alone, or with either poppy seed, balsamic vinegar, or ranch dressing! At times, the younger students get brave enough to ask for a taste from middle schoolers; or the middle schoolers decide to share some with their younger friends. Other middle school students feed the chickens. Students enjoy looking for dandelion or chickweed in our plot, a lovely treat for our fowl friends. At all times, students relax and nurture friendships at the farm during downtime.
September 18-21, 2023:
This week students had the choice of participating in a herb-tasting contest. Grace gathered various herbs off the farm and students, with their eyes closed, placed a sample in their mouths and tasted the herb. It was trickier than one anticipated since the visual clues were no longer available. Students solely relied on taste. They were all good sports about it, made many funny faces as they tested the samples, and they did a great job playing along. The farm has multiple types of herbs to choose from including mint, oregano, sage, rosemary, and thyme. As an added treat, a fig beetle (Cotinis Mutabilis) came to visit. A gentle creature, it welcomed student curiosity! Check out the link highlighting this beautiful beetle!
September 11-14, 2023:
Students took a tour through the farm. The tour highlighted the various trees and plots on the farm. We looked at the citrus family including the orange, grapefruit, and lemon trees. Only the grapefruit had some young fruit, but we also found two very old grapefruits which we sliced and tasted. It was very sweet and most students said it was sweet -as long as you do not bite into the pith! We saw the pomegranate tree though we saw no fruits on it, this year. The apple trees had some fruit but they were quite small and definitely not ready for picking. We also spotted the stone fruit trees which include peaches, nectarines, and cherries. We also have a red pepper tree, plus plum trees, the giant avocado tree, and a tree of figs -that are not edible. The persimmon tree had a few young fruits as well. We took a look at the quince tree but saw only a couple of unripe fruits on the tree. The farm also houses grape vines, passion-fruit vines, blueberry, and blackberry bushes if you look carefully. We saw the last of the tomatoes and Mexican sunflowers. During this week the students also tasted some of the purple pole beans and kale leaves with Lemon-Poppy seed dressing (from the French store Targét). The sweetness of the dressing was loved by most students! Interestingly, the Dinosaur (aka Tuscan, Toscano, Lacinato; scientific name: brassica oleracea var. palmifolia) kale plant is still giving and has yet to bolt. This variety happens to be a biennial plant meaning it takes two years to go through its full cycle of seedling to seed. That explains why we are still harvesting kale. It will begin to slow down in the middle of the winter as the plant's energy begins to concentrate on reproduction. These kale plants will be left in the ground to observe so we can observe its two-year cycle! The purple pole beans were not a hit raw. But with lots of dressing, it was better!
September 5-7, 2023:
During the first week of farm class, and during the last week of August, temperatures were in the mid 90's. So, instead of going to the farm, we watched a video on the origins of the Three Sisters Garden and discussed the planting of the Waverly School garden. Three Sisters gardening is a historic and traditional indigenous agricultural practice that originated in central Mexico and spread throughout the Americas around 1000 CE. It relies on companion planting of corn, squash, and beans, and is more widely known in the US as a technique still in use among Native American communities. The two plants that survived the heat were the patty pan squash and the purple pole bean. Students will get a chance to taste these veggies as soon as new produce develops.
Summer 2023:
In mid-June, granted a little later than the usual May planting, Grace planted corn, squash, and beans plants in the hope of having a traditional Sisters Garden. Even with the help of consistent watering from a dedicated team of folks, plus the auto-sprinkling system, only the squash and beans plants survived the summer. Various theories abound regarding what may have gone wrong. It did not help that over the first night before fencing was erected, the corn was stomped by possible raccoons or squirrels!
