SAVE OUR EARTH: Local Schools Sow Edible Gardens

Recently, representatives of Marquez Charter Elementary, Palisades Charter Elementary and Seven Arrows Elementary met and shared highlights of their edible gardening programs.  The schools are teaching their students where their food comes, how to plant, grow, harvest and cook. Other areas of the curriculum–e.g. science, art, languages and social studies–are integrated with the gardening lessons.  The schools are motivated by research that indicates that students involved in school garden programs have higher self-esteem and tend to learn more when they are actively involved in the learning process, which in our case also involves eating . The garden brings science to life.

SEVEN ARROWS

Seven Arrows has an edible garden curriculum for each grade level. In addition, signs about vegetables and menus are printed in both English and Spanish.

The program includes a garden-to-table experience component.  This emphasis on a seed-to-table focus is partially due to input from British chef and restaurateur Jamie Oliver and others during his daughters’ tenure at the school. The harvest-cooking-eating-planting sequence takes place over the span of two days and some grades plant after others harvest. The planting, harvesting and cooking is coordinated by one of the school founders, Steven Kiralla, a Master Gardener, with assistance from parents and staff at the school. This sequence happens at least six times a year.

This week children at Seven Arrows harvested and prepared a meal that used food from their garden.

The menu included pomegranate lemonade; butternut squash and black bean soup; rice with coconut milk, cilantro and green beans; pineapple with coconut meat and salad with mango, papaya, lettuce and kale.  The menus at Seven Arrows have been designed by a parent, Amy Sweeney, chef of AMMO, with Steven Kiralla.

PALISADES CHARTER ELEMENTARY

Two parent volunteers, Lisa Taylor and Tracy Judah, teach gardening here. Each class, K-4, gets garden instruction once a month. Grade 5 has a garden club. Future lessons include making bread from wheat that they’ll grow and planting a Peter Rabbit garden. Children visit the garden at recess.

At Palisades Elementary, children recently made pesto from their basil and salsa from tomatoes, onions, peppers and limes grown at school. During the salsa lesson, children sat at different stations. They diced onions and garlic, cut cilantro, squeezed limes, chopped tomatoes, measured olive oil and assembled the salsa.  The meal was served on reusable plates. Stems and other edible trash were added to the compost bin.

MARQUEZ CHARTER ELEMENTARY

As a Master Gardener volunteer, I teach gardening here with vital help from community and parent volunteers. Most of the children will garden once or twice a month.  Last year’s grant from Raw Inspiration (sponsors of the Swarthmore farmers market every Sunday) has helped expand the program.

Currently children are planting cool-season crops in the 14 raised beds. The fifth grade will be planting Thomas Jefferson’s favorite vegetables. Children visit the garden at recess, often to look at caterpillars and ladybugs in the butterfly garden.  Updates about the program are at www.marquezschoolediblegarden.blogspot.com.

Children in three grades have had cooking/eating experiences this year. Second graders made a nut-free basil pesto after visiting the garden and harvesting basil. Everyone had a job in the preparation. Third graders made salsa using the Palisades Elementary recipe after harvesting tomatoes and peppers that they’d planted. In addition, Chef Johnny Prep made pasta sauce for the fifth grade using ingredients from the edible garden.

The garden teachers at these schools welcome questions and visits. For information, contact Fran at Seven Arrows, Ms. Marie (Steckmest) at Marquez and Lisa Taylor at Palisades Elementary.  Contact Steckmest at info@palisadescares.org for information regarding the next school gardens meeting.