Last week we tried a lot of new and exciting foods.  A few classes tried our yellow cucumbers and corn.  But the real hit was our okra.  Sauteed with salt, pepper, and olive oil.

I was shocked by how everyone enjoyed it so much.  

and I didn't even have to pan fry it for them to like it!

The above photo of our okra next to store bought okra speaks volumes. 

When you buy or harvest organic produce locally you impact our environment in a positive way, as it does not have to travel 1,000 of miles to arrive on your plate.  

You are also eating produce that is highly nutritious as it does not lose nutrition value on its way over to your market.

This weeks menu will consist of Okra, nasturtium cucumber salad, and a recipe for our pumpkins!  

Take Care,

Sarah Tucker

School Lunch Initiative

On Friday State Commissioner of Agriculture, Adam Putnam visited the Edible Peace Patch.  Commissioner Putnam is promoting an initiative to address good nutrition through the school lunch programs in Florida public school by encouraging the purchase of locally grown foods and the integration of healthy eating into the life of public schools.  

He was very interested to hear about the contribution of Eckerd College students to the gardening and education effort.  He seemed equally interested to hear about our Wellness Kitchen being run by Ole Miss Gradate Student, Sarah Tucker.

Thanks to the hard work of student volunteers and Lakewood students, the Edible Peace Patch was just coming into full development.  I was able to show Commissioner Putnam arugula seeds, collard greens, two kinds of cucumber, green beans, yellow squash, pumpkins, dill and dill seeds, corriander seeds, and a growing number of okra.

Several officials from the Pinellas County School District's Food Services Division visited along with the Commissioner.  They were impressed with all the work that everyone has done and they promised me that they would help us find ways to get the Peace Patch food into the Lakewood Elementary School kitchen.  They were thrilled to have a project like ours to show to Commissioner Putnam.

After his tour of the Peace Pacth, local news and pinellas county school tv interviewed Commissioner Putnam about his impressions and I tried to eavesdrop.  But I could not hear what was being said.

He marvelled at our okra before heading north to visit another school in the county with an extensive hydroponic gardening project.  Makes me think we need a SWFMD grant...  

Kip Curtis

Project Director

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch!

Today was crazy! We had a few classes and we seeded arugula, which the kids loved eating! The seeding lesson led the kids to think about foods that have edible seeds in them like pumpkins and tomatoes, and the kids got super excited thinking about the harvest festival!We also used the seeding lesson as a chance to reinforce decomposition and the importance of composting... I think they have these concepts down!

 The class was a welcomed distraction, because we spent the majority of the time tackling the sedge monster...

 and spreading MULCH! We are lucky to have a recycling center right across the street that supplies us with mulch. It's a great way to keep the garden looking great without spending a lot of money. I was amazed at how much work we got done today. It was hot and tiring, but the finished product was definitely worth it!



  Happy Thursday!!
-The Edible Peace Patch

Today the star of the garden was the okra (pictured right)... they are getting so big so fast! I was lucky to snag one to take home for dinner and boy, was it yummy! I was also surprised to see how much the kids liked the okra; most little kids I know would not touch okra, but the Lakewood students love it!

We spent most of our time weeding the squash and pumpkin patch and pulling out dead leaves to create more room for

growth. Since the arugula has so many seeds, our classes helped us harvest the arugula seed pods again today. The classes really liked pretending to be seeds, then buds and flowers, and seeds again. 

Sara also fixed the hose today and we were able to water the garden very easily. Instead of watering for 1 1/2 hours, it only took 45 minutes!  The garden's getting huge, there are a bunch of pumpkins, squash, cucumbers..and a baby watermelon!  

Cooking with root vegetables

Hi There!  

Last week was a fun one in the wellness kitchen.  We learned all about root vegetables!  Specifically radishes, turnips, and beets.  They were delicious but a harder sell for the kids than other vegetables.  The radishes and Turnips have a bit of a kick to them, which some kids love and others are not sure about.  The beets were a hit with most of the kids though. 

Our recipe of the week was:

Beet and Turnip Chips 

turn the oven to 350 degrees

put beets and turnips in food processor to cut up after washing them

baste them with olive oil 

place on a cookie sheet

salt them

turn them over 20 minutes.  baking for an hour or longer.

...

For an appetizer we had  cut up radishes with sea salt.  The kids that liked spicier foods loved this!

{they loved using the food processor}

{radishes and sea salt}

{preparing to go in the oven}

{We also composted the waste - always good to reiterate what they've learned in the garden.}

{One of the kindergarten kids drew this beautiful picture of a radish.

  The students at lakewood are very talented artists!}

More notes from the wellness kitchen coming soon!  

Take Care,

Sarah Tucker

Seed Saving

This week we are focusing on seed saving and the life cycle of a plant in the garden. Each day we are seeding a new plant, and today the kids saved seeds from the broccoli! We have so many seed pods (pictured below) on the broccoli that need to be harvested, and the kids were a great help. They learned about the how plants start out as seeds and how they produce seeds when fully mature... we even found it helpful to mention the role of bees in the garden.



It was helpful to have broccoli in several different stages in the garden so the kids could see the life cycle first hand. One of our plants was even flowering:

Our pumpkins are starting to get large and colorful. I think I might delve into the world of pumpkin culinary dishes for the harvest festival... they look so good!

Stay tuned for more seeding updates!

Peace!

- Erin Stockdale

 Independent Study

Water, Water, Everywhere!

I haven't seen the garden since before spring break (March 24th), and BOY does it look good! I was mildly surprised by how much everything has grown, and it's only going to get bigger! The kids were just as excited to be back at the garden, especially when they got to get their hands dirty and wet with the water cycle!  Elria, David, and Julie creatively thought to hide watering cans in the garden, which became a sort of scavenger hunt, but only after we finished our activity of course.
They all LOVED watering the plants, and it helped them understand and visualize the water cycle and the terms:




                                                            EVAPORATION

CONDENSATION

PRECIPITATION 

They got to see the water on the leaves, and understood that the water would evaporate into the air, and the clouds would eventually get full and swollen with water and have to precipitate.

Some of the kids were barely bigger than the watering can!

And although 1:00pm is not the best time to water the garden, I wasn't going to stop them from learning some good old fashioned gardening!

All in all, this lesson plan was excellent and everyone loved getting their hands dirty!

Happy Gardening & Keep Smiling :D

         Sara Head

   Independent Study 

Waters up?!

This morning before the kids came out, we changed the fencing around the three-sisters plots in the garden by making one fence around the three plots rather than having three different fences set up around each one.


We also started making terraces for the beans to climb up as they grow with some of the wood and roping we found in the shed.  Before the kids came out we also get together some of the poles we didn't use for the fencing around the three-sisters plots that will be used for the tomato plants to grow on as well.

The kids learned about the water cycle today! With the creative idea of using sponges to represent the water cycle we explained the cycle with the key vocabulary consisting of: evaporation, precipitiation and collection.  After explaining what the water cycle is and why it is important we discussed where the water we use in our homes from by use of aquifers and water treatment plants and pipelines, the kids got to water the garden.  This allowed them the chance to use the lesson to interact with the garden.  On closing the lesson we got the chance to do a rain dance with the kids and a quick game where all the kids were spread out and represented water droplets, Katie was the sun and would tap each kid and they would "evaporate" and run to the middle where they represented a cloud.  One the cloud was to fulll with all the kids in the class they would "rain out" and spread out again.  They kids enjoyed it and it pulled together the lesson well in a fun way.

- Chelsea Ehmann





Look how tall our sunflowers are!

Wednesday: Week of the Water Cycle

Today was a beautiful day at the garden. In the morning, a tree that was being cut down across the street became a new sitting area at the garden. The pieces of the tree were set up in a circle near the entrance to the garden.

Our first class of kindergardeners did not come out today for the lesson. Our second group, the EBD class, were the first to try out this new sitting area. Since majority of these students are in 5th grade and are familiar with the water cycle, we asked them questions and had them tell us what part of the water cycle was which. The discussion worked well and they filled out their worksheet with ease. Then they enthusiastically helped water the garden, which they had a lot of fun with. After watering the garden and observing it we all came back to the circle. Christina shared with the class fun facts about where St. Petersburg's water supply comes from... 60 miles away!

We found a new friend in the garden today too!

Classes Canceled

Due to sever thunderstorm's over the Saint Petersburg area, classes had to be canceled in the Peace Patch today.  Tuesday crew was ready to teach this weeks lesson on The Water Cycle, however with the threat of storms approaching the decision was made to cancel classes.  A good thing because by 9am the rain was coming down in buckets!!

A quick scan of the garden led the Tuesday team to replant and stake a fallen tree.  With cell phones and blackberries warning us about the weather, we had only ten minutes before the storm was going to be over us.  With lightning fast speed we all worked together to get the job done.  Hopefully the tree will stay put now!

Storm moving in.  Enjoy the drink Peace Patch.

Enjoy the rest of the week and sunnier days:)

Elizabeth

Monday Monday!

As you can see from Professor Curtis' last post...holy cow! The garden exploded into a lush greenery over the past week! Since many of the Eckerd student volunteers were still traveling from spring break, or arrived late last night, our numbers were much smaller at our weekly morning meeting. Yet, for those of there we were able to see the garden truly in all it's glory! With all of the new growth we have a lot of work to do this week. The bed of beans need a trellis to climb, the cucumber trellis needs reinforcement so the vegetables don't become to heavy for the vine, we are still struggling with keeping some of the pineapple plants alive, we need to put mulch around the watermelon and expand their area so they aren't mowed over, and lastly we need to pull sedge. Unfortunately as wonderful as last week's rain was for the plants, it was also great for our worst enemy: sedge. Thankfully, we have a Saturday work morning coming up so we can get the garden back into tip top shape!

Today's lesson didn't quite go over quite as planned since the kids were still struggling to get back into school mode after a week of vacation. We had to stop several times in order to regain complete attention, and we used several different techniques to keep their focus including moving from one end of the table to the other so that none of the kids were at the "back" for the entire lesson. The water cycle is a tough concept to get through with many vocabulary words including evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. Last semester's lesson was thought to be too simple for the older grades, yet this lesson almost seemed to complicated for the classes. I'm sure that throughout the week we will adapt and find a successful and interesting way to convey the concept of the water cycle to the students. This trial and error will help us for future years, and truly shows the reasoning and rational behind putting lessons through rigorous testing with the students before they can be published.

I see this project flourishing already and I am extremely sad I only have 6 weeks left to be a part of it. I truly hope that wherever I end up I can continue working with an edible schoolyard or create even take what I've learned over the past two years and create a new one!

Until next time!

Stephanie - Senior Volunteer

 A beautiful Okra flower!

 A Monarch on the Milkweed!

A Black Swallowtail caterpillar on the carrots!

Spring Break

Three and a half days of rain and a few visits by its tenders and the garden has grown with remarkable persistence (click on the photo to see the full-sized panorama).  We encountered this caterpillar crawling across our dill plants this afternoon when we visited the Peace Patch.

We have a butterfly bush growing in the pollinator garden and I am quite certain that monarch caterpillars eat nothing else.  This one appeared to be looking for other sources of food, and in particular, seemed quite happy on the dill.  The coloration is similar to a monarch.  But this is a Black Swallowtail caterpillar.  When it's done, it will look like this.

Elsewhere in the garden, the papaya has sprouted at its top and appear to be quite healthy.  It will grow for several more seasons before it it large enough to produce fruit.  But we anticipate that one day it will grow meaty papaya.

At long last the gourd garden is growing.  Six plants that will soon cover the fence and decorate the west side of the garden to the north.

It is also the season of seeds.  These are some of the hundreds of broccoli pods that contain the next generation of broccoli all over the county.  These will be collected and dried in the weeks ahead, and given out at the harvest festival in May.

Our cilantro has also bolted and seeded.  Here you can see both the flowers and the resulting seeds.  These can be dried and are delicious in cooking Indian food.  They are commonly known as coriander seed.  We will save some for food and some for next year, sending the rest out into the county landscape, into hands of other growers.

Our nasturtium has also begun flowing.  Delicious yellow and pink edible flowers with a hint of spice.  Elsewhere cucumber have begun, okra is taking off, sunflowers are shooting sunward, and the arugula has also gone to seed.  We will begin a slow harvest and measure our way into May.

I am proud of the beautiful garden being grown here by Eckerd College and Lakewood Elementary students.  We will have much to share in a little over a month.

Kip Curtis

Project Director