Monday, October 25, 2010

School Salad Harvest

Time to harvest the cool weather crops in the school courtyard!  Our afterschool enrichment class brought in the goodies that were planted in August and made a salad with them.  Here's what we picked:

Broccoli,

arugula and butter lettuce,

Red Romaine,

fennel and beet greens, 

 

"Sungold" cherry tomatoes,

 
and
“watermelon” radishes!



The kids put on their gloves and pulled the ingredients out of the raised beds.   Each had  their own tub for collection.  They were brought inside and washed in one of the classroom sinks.  Then, we went outside and took the choicest bits, mixing them together in a big wooden bowl, along with our own salad dressing. 

This was an afterschool activity with about  10 children who elected to take “Fall Gardening” as an enrichment class, along with a few middle school helpers who are accumulating community service hours.   Our hope is to expand this with a similar project for the entire school.   In February, we’d like to have the kids start the seeds in the greenhouse, so that we can harvest in June before school ends for the summer.  Here’s more info about the “Seed to Salad” curriculum, developed by Cornell.

Maybe we’ll even get some of these goodies into the school cafeteria one of these days!

This week, I'm joining the "Harvest Monday" group over at Daphne's Dandelions - if you are a vegetable grower, you need to follow this blog!   On Mondays, vegetable growers from around the world post about their harvests and link there.

13 comments:

Joanne said...

Love, love fresh broccoli. There's just nothing like food that goes from the earth, straight to the plate.

TYRA Hallsénius Lindhe said...

Great post and wonderful harvest. It is so lovely to see those happy kids. / Tyra

TALON said...

Those smiling faces say it all - the garden was a huge success!

Ash said...

Wow!!!! Amzing Veggies.... Loved the kids so happy to indulge in some gardening stuffs with all their enthu..... Hugs))))

Happy Celebrations!!!!!

Ash....
(http://asha-oceanichope.blogspot.com/)

meemsnyc said...

What an amazing program for the kids!! Totally awesome.

Unknown said...

How wonderful and the kids are looking like they are having great fun!

Very nice harvest:)

Have a nice week,
Charlotta
Cesar's Garden

Lorilee said...

Wow, y'all had a great garden! That butter lettuce looked really yummy. It is just now time to plant cool weather crops here in South Texas.
Blessings,
Lorilee

Dan said...

Those are some nice looking crops you have growing!

Daphne Gould said...

I love to see kids in the garden. When my kids were little they loved it, but as they aged they decided they didn't. Ah well. I still get my daughter to help me on rare occasion.

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

All the vegetables look so yummy and good to it. The children smile is so infectious and enjoy seeing them happy.

k said...

What kind of temps do you have out there these days? We've had several hard frosts, so I'm thinking I would have to plant sometime in mid-July to get one more harvest.
It's great that your kids get a real idea about food, and where it comes from. I don't know that I saw a tomato plant till I was 20. Which reminds me - I think there's a few cherry tomatoes up next to the house....

Patti Lacy said...

SO AMAZING!! My fresh stuff petered out LONG AGO!!!

LOVE visiting this place and have so missed it while in the writer's cave, which will continue for ANOTHER TWO WEEKS!!!

Blessings,
Patti

tut-tut said...

We are having a great fall crop of greens down here. Those kids look thrilled with their bounty. Good job!