The planting has started!

 After a long couple of weeks of weeding and mulching in the garden the beds were ready to get some seeds and plants to start the fall growing season. All of the beds needed some supplementing of manure and soil to boost their growing potential. Katie and I picked up manure from a local horse farm and added it to the beds and ALL of the soil came from our compost! I was amazed at how much soil we created from last semester.

Last week Katie and I planted a few starters of okra, corn, squash, broccoli, peppers, and eggplant. 

We also planted all of the small sweet potatoes and their leaves have already started to sprout out of the bed.

The okra came up very quickly too in our starters, and all over the garden in random beds. These beds also have some random sprouts coming up from seeds of last semester’s veggies. 

 I've had a great time fixing up the garden this month and can't wait to get started with the kids!

Peace,
Ethan Mauger

Before

After!

 

Into the Street 2011!

For the past two weeks Ethan Mauger, an Eckerd College senior, has been laboring away on the Edible Peace Patch, clearing overgrown grasses and weeds, transplanting bushes, planting seeds and getting starters started.  He's done a fantastic job, but, except for one or two of the days, he's been completely on his own sweating it out in the Florida sun.

This past Friday, however, we got some major assistance from a group of 14 Eckerd College freshmen participating in the annual "Into the Streets" service day where Eckerd College sends its students into St. Petersburg to help out wherever it's needed.  From what I saw, the class of 2015 is an impressive group!

The day was almost unbearably hot, in the nineties with a thick humid air and a burning summer Florida sun, and we asked them to turn sod, pull weeds, and lay mulch.  Without a complaint, they set to work.  The joy I get as an Eckerd College professor listening to the quiet conversations of working students cannot be measured.  Here they learn about each other and begin to make friendships that will last four year and then a lifetime.  

I had to convince them to stop and rest under the shade of a nearby oak tree after two hours.  They seemed unwilling, persistent, driven, dedicated.  In the photo above you can see the large area they had already cleared and after twenty minutes of cooling down, they went right back to work unprompted.

I had expected to complete maybe 1/4 of the garden area last Friday, but these students completed almost half of it, and laid a lot of mulch to boot.  They were soaked with sweat, and sunburnt from the pounding rays of sun, but joyous in their own way and when I told them it was quitting time, they asked if I was sure.  "Have we done enough?" One of them queried.

These young adults were amazing.  They impressed me, and further reinforced my belief that the future will be in good hands.  Thank you all and thanks to Brian MacHarg and the Service Learning Office who organizes this event every year.

And thanks especially to Ethan Mauger, who has picked up again where the freshmen left off last Friday and has turned a tangle of weeds and overgrown beds back into the beautiful garden we will tend this semester.  I am grateful for all that you do.

Kip Curtis
Director, Edible Peace Patch

The first week back

It has been about three months since I’ve been to the peace patch and I’ve missed it. The first thing, or things, that I saw were the weeds. It looked like an over grown meadow to the point where I couldn’t even find the beds!

So I spent the first two days weeding all the beds and managed to fill two of the compost piles up to the top of the fence. I was definitely surprised at the amount of time that it took me to find the bottom of each bed. I also managed to get myself sun burnt during the first few hours of work. During the first day I was lucky enough to find about a dozen sweet potatoes to harvest and another dozen that will be replanted when the bed is ready. I made some delicious sweet potato fries for my roommates as soon as I made it home. 

I spent most of Wednesday picking up mulch from the local recycling center and piling it up at the edge of the garden. It seems like I picked up a lot of mulch, but I’m sure I’ll be making a few more trips before the end of the month to make our garden look great.

Thursday was my favorite day because the garden finally looked more like the peace patch. I mowed all of the grass that had crept up over the summer so all of the beds could be seen. I also pulled up all of the weeds from our three sister’s plot (squash, beans, & corn). This was a task that took about three times as long as I first expected, but now looks great. Friday I prepared the beds by raking up all of the roots that did not get pulled out the first couple of days. Now all that the beds need is a little bit of horse manure and they will be ready for seeds!

Next week I have to weed the pineapple area, which has about five that made it and start planting seeds!

 Peace from the peace patch,

Ethan

Today was my last day of teaching for the spring semester 2011, but definitely not the last time I will be teaching at the Peace Patch. The kids came out and ran into their groups, excited for this week’s lesson. Unfortunately it was not a lesson today, but a little test on all of the lessons that we have taught throughout the semester. It seemed like we hid the fact that it was a test from the kids pretty well because they were so excited to do the worksheet and got started right away, no complaints! It also could have been because we told them that if they were good they would get to play a game at the end of class. Anytime the kids were having a little trouble with one of the questions I would mention a game or activity that we did over the semester and they would remember the answer. This semester has helped me realize that this active teaching style works really well with kids and I’m pretty jealous that I didn’t have a program like this at my elementary school.

Once the worksheet was completed we played the compost game and a few rounds of the butterfly life cycle.

After the students left Jamie, Sarah, and I were visited by a preschooler whose pet butterfly had hatched around 9:00 this morning. It is the second one she has released into our garden this year! These preschoolers have not yet experienced the garden lessons, but they already have a fascination with butterflies and nature so I’m excited to teach them more next year.

It was a little sad leaving the garden and saying bye to all of my students, but I know we will all be back next year for more garden fun in the Peace Patch.

Ethan Mauger

Harvest Festival 2011!!

Another season passed.

What a blessing to be a part of this community, to be a part of Eckerd College, where students care about making the world a better place and actively do something about it, to be a part of Lakewood Elementary School, which has welcomed us and allowed us to spend time with all of the beautiful children there, to be able to build and plant and cultivate and harvest a garden...and a community.  What a blessing it is.

We had visitors tour the garden in the late afternoon, croon at our sunflowers, admire the tomatoes, peer into the compost.

Our kale and collards and sweet potato and beans all welcomed them with bright green leaves and food for the picking.

There were samples to try in the garden, nasturtium flowers, basil leaves and dill seeds.

There was okra the size of small children.

There was a palpable feeling of joy as we all shared our landscape with the community.

Inside, Eckerd College students had prepared a feast.  They each made a dish based on the vegetables we grew in the garden and the food was stupendous and healthy.

Everyone filled their plates with pasta and salad and a host of dishes like lasagna and eggplant and sweet potato.

There was more than enough for everyone and everyone was well fed.

We even spotted some elementary kids actually eating their vegetables.

Two of my project coordinators, graduating senior Jamie P.  and phenomenal sophomore Katie S. greeted folks as they came through the door, welcoming them to our celebration.

Kaylie B., who was a big part of the garden before she graduated last year, came to visit her old and new friends, sharing a laugh with Tommy L., Cheslea E., Ethan M., Sydney C., and Jamie P.

There were seconds, and thirds.

And everyone readied themselves for some entertainment.

Three of the fourth grade boys from chorus agreed to sing The Garden Song led and accompanied by Lakewood Elementary's fantastically talented music instructor Mrs. Alfaro.

Three fourth grade girls from strings then serenaded us with four songs on the violin and viola.

We had an opportunity to thank Alpha Kappa Alpha, whose generous support helped us get started in the fall and serve up full dishes in the spring.

We also had an opportunity to thank Sarah T., who brought her mom, and whose work developing the Wellness Kitchen and teaching nutrition from our garden was perhaps the most generous gift we received this year.  

We will MISS Sarah!!

The Eckerd students enjoyed the show.

We even raffled off eight eggplant and pepper plants to several lucky winners who were excited to bring them home and see how much they could grow.

It was a wonderful evening with a lovely community,

and I am truly one of the luckiest people in the world.

SEE YOU NEXT FALL!!

Kip Curtis

Project Manager

Planning and Cooking up a Storm!

Today was spent making final preparations for the harvest festival... making posters, buying last minute groceries, and gathering pictures... everyone is so excited! Despite some initial organizational confusion (as is the case with most big events), everyone left the meeting with a sense of preparedness and anticipation. I'm excited to see how the parents respond to all the hard work the kids have been doing this semester... I think they will be pleasantly surprised!

I have been spending my afternoon cooking up a storm! I am making eggplant lasagna, and so far it's coming out as planned... let's keep our fingers crossed!

In other news, everyone was quite amused with the plight of monk parakeets that frequent our garden. They showed up this morning, despite the mass of people, and tried to attack our sunflowers. We managed to shoo them away (for now), but this introduce species definitely enjoys munching on the flowers pretty regularly. Here they are pictured perched on the power-line, waiting for us to turn our backs!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's update from the Harvest Festival... you won't want to miss it!

Getting Ready and Growing Strong

Every day is literally a new day for me in the garden. Things grow so much in a weekend's time and although we are battling fungus in some of our beds, the others are doing phenomenal! Our Okra is so delicious and healthy. I've never grown my own food so I'm learning a lot - my favorite fun fact is that when the flower of a plant (like squash) dies, that means it's ready to be eaten! What great communicating mother nature is capable of :)

The most amazing thing I've seen when it comes to fast growing are our sunflowers! They are my favorite flower and it is so welcoming to see this giant leaves and flowers every time I visit the garden!


Just so you have an idea, Max (pictured) is about 6'2'' and most of the sunflowers are taller than him! It's been such an incredible journey watching them go from tiny stalks to illuminated flowers. I cannot wait for the Harvest Festival next Tuesday and I know the kids are just as excited to show off the garden.

We have put a lot of hard work into the garden this year and I cannot wait to cook food using the veggies and show the parents what the kids have been up to at school! A lot of my Lakewood lovelies have been talking about wanting to start their own garden and so maybe if their parents see the success of ours, they'd be willing to start one of their own! Although, a large majority of my children's families already have gardens which is great! 

This semester has been so inspiring for me and I hope it is as inspiring the children. Above is a picture of our baby watermelon growing into a young adolescent :) (pictured above with the sandal). I remember a couple weeks ago when it was the size of a grape! Our tomatoes (pictured below) are also looking quite delicious. I'm getting so excited for all the delicious foods we are going to have and all the wonderful company that we are going to be surrounded by!

We spent the day prepping the garden for our visitors as well as reviewing all of the cycles and lessons we've learned over the semester with our kids. Next week will be our final goodbye :(

Next Tuesday @ Lakewood Elementary!
"Be there or be a rotten cucumber"
(as one of my darling first graders exclaimed when I told them about the Harvest Fest) 

Peace,

Jamie P.

Growing and Progress!

 April 28, 2011

        Today was one of the first days I started to notice the hot Florida temperatures, as the temperature is normally pretty moderate at 8 AM in the morning. Upon arriving, we had some time for maintenance. I did some weeding of various areas, while Joanisa worked on removing the beetles from the sunflowers. We also made some kale chips for the kids with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. They were delicious.

           This morning we noticed that the birds had chewed off a sunflower from its stem, and it had fallen to the ground. We took this opportunity to dissect it and teach the kids about the anatomy of a flower, and how each part is beneficial. We used terms like seed, stem, petal, and leaf to help them identify each part.

         When the kids came, we reviewed everything that we have learned this year. We went over the life-cycle of a butterfly and its importance (with kale chips as a reward), and the water cycle. Additionally, we discussed the different elements plants need to grow such as soil, water, and sunlight. Finally, we covered the topic of the insects' role in the garden, which is by far the kids' favorite topic. It is very rewarding to see that the students are starting to recognize which plant is which, and where each plant is growing.

The pumpkins (above) are coming along very nicely, as does the corn (below). 

            Today's lesson was about watering the garden. We filled up several watering pots and allowed each student a chance to water some produce. However, things quickly turned chaotic when the students got carried away and began to get very wet. It was at this point that we reconvened to have a discussion about how to safely and correctly water a garden without getting wet.

            Tommy spent a lot of time collecting seeds from the wildflower and herbs area. The process looked extremely tedious. However, this process is the most beneficial when teaching about sustainable gardening. A lot of the students seemed surprised that the seeds are produced by the flowers. It was a good visual for them to actually see this happen.

Dill seeds have been collected on the left in the clay cup, and cilantro was collected in the plastic cup to the right. 

            All in all, the day was very successful. With the help of the students, the garden is fully watered and the weeding and seeding seems to be under control. We are very excited for the Harvest Festival, and are looking forward to sharing the food with the community, sampling all the dishes, and enjoying the garden.