School Yard Garden Program 2013-2014 IS UNDERWAY!

For the fifth year in a row, Labor Day comes and we set to work in our schoolyard gardens.  As tradition has it, the past few years, these beginnings start with undergraduate volunteers early in the morning, attending a meeting about teaching and farming.

This year we began with the story of the Lakewood Garden (since we started here) and shared with a new class of students the story of our origins and some of the vision that has grown out of that original experiment.

Volunteers learned about huegelkultur and compost and pineapples and natives and soon their brains were swimming with plant names and growing strategies that they could only barely imagine.

As is tradition, we began pulling the endless growth of sedge, torpedo grass, that loves our beds and seeks every piece of open ground.

This year we began a new tradition, as well.  I had student volunteers each take a starter pot and fill it to the top with dirt.

Back at the shaded picnic table, volunteers had their selection of seeds and each of them chose something to plant, encouraged to read the instruction on the seed packet and place only one seed in the hole.  We watered the starter pots and everyone took one home.

Each volunteer is charged with tending to their seeds until next week, when they will bring them back to garden for our second meeting.  How many will sprout?  We wait.

As always, I am deeply grateful for the ongoing support of this program by community and college volunteers and, this semester, including the course being taught by Dr. Erika Spohrer at Eckerd College.

The growing season is upon us.

Kip Curtis

Founder and Executive Director

The Edible Peace Patch Project

Fall 2013 HERE WE COME!

Friday afternoon 8/23, for the fifth time since 2009, local college freshmen volunteered to help open the Lakewood Peace Patch Garden.  We had fifteen volunteers who turned our solarized summer garden:

into a planting-ready fall garden:

Our soils appear rich and we enhanced their growing power by amending all of the beds with compost that had cooked all year long.  The plastic had to be folded and stored.  In places, the plastic had blown free and so we had several thick stands of grass to remove (although nothing like years past).  Once everything was cleaned up, the students got a chance to put some starters int the ground.

We planted chives, heirloom tomatoes, and parsley.

The large plants is oregano, a healthy stand.  Kenny's Lawn and Landscape Service was kind enough to sell us a bunch of herbs wholesale and we got them right in the ground..

We also planted red sweet peppers and two other varieties of heirloom tomato.  They watered and everyone said goodbye. 

We are thrilled to be starting a new season.  In the next two week we will begin to have our college and community volunteers offering the academic mentoring and garden educational lessons in all four schools. This year, we also add a wellness kitchen in some locations.

Stay tuned!

Kip Curtis, Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Director

Harvest Festival 2013!

For the fifth year in a row, we hosted the annual Peace Patch Project Schoolyard Gardens Harvest Festival.  We rented space at the Enoch Davis Recreation Center at 1111 18th Avenue South.

Board member Chelley Tighe sets up our outdoor live music cafe

The space was full of light and perfect for the occasion.  In years past, we have held individual harvest festivals at each of school where we grow gardens.  This year, with four schools, we decided to hold the harvest dinner at a single location.

Alix Brett, Robin Gipson, and Chelley set up the tables with lovely lime green table cloths.

Slowly after 6:15, families, teachers, and community members began to trickle into the auditorium, while Eckerd College student volunteers put final touches on their dishes in the nearby kitchen.

Before we knew it, a line stretched to the door, as kids and families and others waited to get a sampling of the Peace Patch Harvest.

Local musician, Jun Bustamante (left), played acoustic guitar in the Cafe.  Board members Joe Esposito (center) and Andrew Chittick (right) shmoozed with the talent before the show.

By 6:30, table were filling up and the auditorium was filling with the joyous noise of feasting people.

Volunteer teens from the Carerra After-School Program dropped by and helped serve some food.

Muhammed, Daisha, Cameron, Meoshea, Christon, Zion, Freeman, and in front,  Martin.

We raffled ten plants including this corn.

Founder and Executive Director, Kip Curtis, with the lucky winner of a corn plant.

After the food was devoured and the prizes given out, student volunteers and volunteers from Missio Dei helped clean up the dishes, straighten the kitchen, and put the hall back in shape.

It was a lovely evening and a fine ending to another successful semester.

Blooming!

Sunshine daze

Today was officially the last day in the garden for the semester and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful time! Our kids were the most well behaved that we have ever seen them and they were practically oozing joy and curiosity to be outside and tell us all the things they've learned this year, I've never seen them so happy or work together as well as they did today. They were kind, helpful, and supportive of one another. They explored the garden for the last time and many of them scrambled to tell us that their parents had signed the RSVP for the Harvest Fest. It's sad to say goodbye, but just like my students, I am so geeked for the Feast next wednesday and to see everything the Peace Patch has in store for me next year!

Cheers!

Liz

They Love climbing on the compost pile to be taller than me!

Tomatoes on the way!

papaya!

Group shot with Miss Early's class (:

Happy Hug Day!

Gorgeous Okra Flower! 

Today was a scorcher out in the garden at Lakewood! As usual Julia, Emily, and I, began our shift by wandering around the garden and looking at the changes from the week before. It was a bittersweet day because it was the last time we will be seeing our classes for the school year, so it was sad to say goodbye but we had a great time hearing about the kids favorite memories from the garden. Both classes came to the conclusion that picking and eating the green beans was by far the greatest experience, but searching for bugs was a close second!

Julia Hard at work..

 We drilled the information regarding the harvest festival into their heads and they were all extremely excited about getting the opportunity to share the garden with their families (and the food)! We told our second graders that we would be cooking for them, one of our feistier girls replied “Good. As it should be!” Not sure what to think about that, but i'm looking forward to it either way. We had some great conversations about favorite foods, snacks, and what everyone was hoping would be at the feast. We were also able to send our classes away with some green bell peppers, some sweet peppers, and some tiny yellow grape tomatoes.

Tiny Tomatoes were a big hit! Radishes, not so much.

 It was sad to say goodbye, with lots of hugs and well wishes, but it is obvious that these kids have grown a lot over the past few months, and I know us volunteers have as well, and that is something I am truly thankful for.

Can you believe our corn is growing??

Happy Planting!

Liz

Small Lakewood Wonders

Our day at Lakewood began with walking into the garden and admiring all the growth that has come up within the past few weeks. Neither Liz nor I have been able to make it to Lakewood in a little while, so we were awestruck with the greenery. 

We were particularly amazed at the size of the corn stalks, and even more impressed that we have actual corn growing

Our first grade class came out right on time and they were very excited with the bug lesson. It is seldom in the children’s curriculum that they are told they may dig in the dirt and catch a bug, so we got a lot of enthusiasm and participation from them. 

By the end of our lesson the kids became familiar with identifying the bugs as predators, pollinators, or decomposers. They were also extremely enthused with the growth of the vegetables, begging us to let them take all the baby cucumbers. When we explained to them that we have to let the plants grow bigger before harvesting, one of the girls protested that the cucumbers would go perfectly on her salad. It was music to our ears to hear that a child of her age was even at all interested in eating salads, let alone actively thinking about what to add to them to make them even healthier. 

It is moments like these that make you truly believe that this garden is having an impact on the children’s lives, no matter how small. Whether they become interested in gardening themselves, or simply adding cucumbers to their salads, the garden has become a fixture in their education and a lasting memory of their childhood.