Chicory Flowers

Chicory has proven quite successful at St. Anne's. We planted it over a year ago and it thrives and in fact has become hard to get rid of as it sends up shoots from forgotten roots after you think you've pulled it out. We grew a variety called Italiko Rosso. The leaves are reddish green. The chicory family includes endive as well as radicchio.

Chicory produces amazingly beautiful corn-flower blue flowers.

Chicory is a dandelion relative. Many of my volunteers ask if this chicory is the same as the hot drink. This is the same family, but the drink is made from a variety called "root chicory". This is a cultivar that grows a large root, rather than focusing on the leaves. 

I find the most palatable way to enjoy chicory is to saute it, with a sweet balsamic sauce for example. You can eat the leaves raw, but it is bitter so complement it accordingly.

The Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Jr Middle School in Berkeley

I've been wanting to share several images from my week at the Edible Schoolyard's summer institute. I can't recommend this program highly enough! I was lucky to be selected to attend the Institute, and then made even more grateful by receiving professional development funds from SFWS to cover the fee.

King is my alma mater. I graduated 8th grade there in 1982. When I was a student, the area now graced by the Edible School Yard was a dilapidated asphalt dirt space that we used for sneaking off campus or taking a short cut home. Nearly 20 years ago, thanks to the wisdom and inspiration of then principal Neil Smith, and of course Alice Waters, the space was transformed into a lush, productive, first class school garden.

An important component of the Edible Schoolyard's success is their amazing kitchen classroom and dedicated kitchen teachers. The students enjoy both gardening and cooking classes over the course of their three years at King. Supporting the head garden teachers, gardeners, and kitchen teachers are AmeriCorps members and local volunteers. Also, the Edible Schoolyard has a strong administrative staff that oversees its successful operations.

Take a look at their webpage to learn more.

I took away important lessons about the administration of my program, particularly concerning my volunteers and their training. I also was inspired to incorporate more tasting and cooking into my students' days. I met fellow garden teachers from around the world, and many here in California I'm sure I'll see and learn from again.

If you'd like to apply to the 2014 Academy, click here.

One of Alice Waters' major accomplishments has been the building of the Dining Commons on campus. Ironically this is built on the site of the old snack bar where I bought glazed donuts, ice cream, and hot fries (spicy, bright red "fry" chips in a sealed bag). Now, it's a gorgeous, open two-room dining space with large communal wooden tables and an open food preparation area where all district hot meals are cooked. A very important tenet of all experiences at the Edible Schoolyard is that the environment be beautiful. There are vases of fresh cut flowers on every table, colorful cloth napkins under each place setting, and a back door to the dining commons that is inviting as the front - to welcome the farmers of course who drop off the all important produce to the kitchen.

rolling tool cart 

School Dining Commons

Mulberry bush with a hidden interior

At the end of every day we listed satisfying moments in the day, and, what we we still wanted to cover the next.

Garden Manager and Teacher Geoff Palla

Sunflowers!



I love sunflowers and eagerly plant dozens of them around the garden. This is the first to bloom. It's located at the Waldorf School. It's a volunteer growing in a compost pile, actually. Last year I brought over a barrel of compost from St. Anne's and dumped it in a half wine barrel intending to spread it around the raised beds. Before I got to that task, there were a number of volunteers coming up. Over the past year I've let flowers and greens grow. Now we have the sunflower and some breadseed poppies I transplanted there.

If you look carefully, you'll see a bumble bee on the flower's face.

Do you know, a sunflower's "face" is actually comprised of 100's of individual flowers? Despite how it looks, a sunflower is not a single flower at all. Every one of those 100+ flowers can develop its own seed. Examining a dried sunflower seed head is a great way to teach pollination in fact, because students can discover the difference between a shell that has a true seed in it, versus one that is empty. Only the flowers that are pollinated will produce a seed inside the shell.

Wheat Follow Up

I was able to harvest the wheat from St. Anne's. Pulling out half the plot that was infected with rust seems to have protected the remaining crop. The wheat is not obviously rusty, although the seed heads are small. I am not sure whether the rust caused that, or the generally shady location of the planting.

I haven't harvested the crop at school yet. I am allowing that one to fully ripen in place as there has been no threat of disease, happily.