Garden Reflections: October 16, 2008

Harvesting Salad
“We made salad with spicy flowers and a little broccoli and a little lettuce. The flowers made the salad lovely. I enjoyed cutting the flowers. The flowers were a deep red and orange.”

Installing Erosion control & Walkways
“In garden program today we started to make walkways to keep the dirt from getting eroded. To do that we had to put big pieces of wood where people kept squishing the soil. To keep the pieces in place we used short lengths of rebar. To put the rebar into the wood we drilled big holes in the wood. I thought that gardening today was really awesome!”

“Today in garden time I helped drill holes in wood that we put in the garden to step on. I can’t wait until tomorrow because I get to see them done. [Our school custodian] Kevin, [some other fourth graders], and I all helped drill the holes. We had to drill four holes altogether. There were two pieces of wood and each piece got two holes. I had sooooooooo much fun! Because I’ve never used a drill before and they’re very powerful.”

“Today in garden time I helped [our school custodian] Kevin drill holes….I was helping Kevin it started to rain. I also used a sledgehammer to hammer rebar.”

“Today at garden time I drilled a hole in a wooden block. The blocks were as long as a lunch tray or a little bit longer. The drill I used had a handle and a trigger on it. The wooden block that I drilled had one hole on each end of the block. “

Building a Composting System
“Today in garden time I got to use a post hole digger and a really big drill. I dug out a lot. I dug out a huge brick. It was really fun!”

Exploring the Herb Garden
“Today in garden time I got to see the herb garden. I got to pick cosmos and zinnias. I got to pick lemon balm. I got to put the flowers in two vases. I got to draw two cosmos flowers on one stem. It came out pretty good. The flowers were a light pink. I colored my flowers pink.”

Counting Farm Stand Money
“I counted [our farm stand] money with [another boy]. I got really wet because I didn’t bring my raincoat. Our garden teacher helped us make room in the shed so we wouldn’t get the money wet. The total is $156.05. I’m pretty sure it’s not right. In school I am going to check on the calculator.”

“Today I counted money [from our farm stand] to send to [our partner school in] Haiti…”

Building a Composting Box
“Today in the garden we made a compost box. It was so fun. I used a big thing called a post hole digger and a spade to dig holes. It was surprisingly treacherous and hard for just getting dirt excavated and transferred into piles away from holes and ditches.”

Making Green Tomato-Apple Crisp
I was surprised when Ms. White announced that we could make green tomato and apple cobbler. I helped make a crumbly topping. It had cinnamon, oats, butter, maple syrup and flour in it… Maria pre-heated the oven to 350 degrees. Then she helped my friends and me with our jobs… Then we wrote the directions for the [crisp]. This was a great experience and it makes me think of all the foods that don’t seem like they would go well together can make something delicious! I feel so lucky that we have people to help us in this field of education!

“My group made some apple and green tomato crisp. We got to do it ourselves . It was fun because we cut apples… We made a [recipe] so we could make it at home.”

“Today at garden time Maria took four people to make apple crisp with green tomatoes. The apples were from Deer Ridge Farm. We used about 25 tomatoes in the crisp. I thought the topping was the best. The topping was made of maple syrup and oats… I really enjoyed garden time today!”

“Today in garden time I made green tomato apple crisp with [some other students]. First we washed and cut apples. Then you chop and wash green tomatoes. We put the apples and the tomato in a small bowl. We mixed the apple and tomato and then put it into a short glass pot. [My friend] made the topping with maple syrup, cinnamon, oats and something else. Then we put it in the oven.”