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.

Roses

We strive to keep the patio area beautiful and interesting for the residents of St. Anne's. The patio is easily accessible to most residents as it's located just outside the back doors to the Home.

A few years ago the gardeners planted a row of splendid white roses. I don't know their name, but the roses bloom robustly from spring until fall. The first graders prune them each winter and then have the satisfaction of admiring their flush of blooms come June.





The children enjoy cutting the blooms and making vases for the Home. The children pass the gorgeous cut flowers out to residents, the front desk, and use them to decorate various table tops around the Home.

Herbs and Flowers



As the school year ends this week, there is a lot going on.

The Third Grade had their annual thank you celebration at St. Anne's. They sang three lovely spring songs to each dining room, and then passed an assortment of garden-inspired dishes. The menu included iced herbal tea, lavender and rosemary short breads, chocolate brownies with fresh mint, herbed couscous salad, green salad with herb vinaigrette, spinach dip, leek and chard quiche, and fresh vegetables with fava bean dip.

Two students became particularly adept at flowered wreaths this year. They made two for me and my parent helper, Julia,  to wear during the celebration.

I have been enjoying the herbs so much, I've started using them in bouquets. Here's one I made for my mom with two breadseed poppies.

Live Power Community Farm
Covelo, CA
SFWS 3rd grade May 21-24, 2013

Last week the third grade spent four wonderful days in Round Valley, 60 minutes NE of Willits, CA. Every year the third grade visits Live Power Farm as a culmination of their four years in the garden and as part of their practical activities work. Live Power is a biodynamic farm run solely with horse, human and solar power. http://www.livepower.org

Gloria and Stephen Decater, the farmers and owners of Live Power, strive to ensure our students have days filled with important and meaningful farm work. The children participate in the morning and evening animal chores (feeding, moving, and milking) and during the day rotate through a series of farm tasks. These included harvesting dry corn, splitting wood, digging up fodder carrots, planting beans, weeding garlic, and washing burlap sacks.

In addition to these regular chores the children sheared a sheep, plowed behind the draft horses Pete and Laura, and frolicked in the near by river.

This trip is an important opportunity for the children to put their garden skills to work and sharpen their overall strength and stamina. On our last night the children performed parts of their Noah and the Flood play as a thank you to the apprentices and then we all enjoyed a bonfire and singing together.

looking for a wedge 

 making a wall so the animals run the right way into the pen

plowing a field for the first time in 40 years 

 discing in cover crop

Stephen explaining horse team work 

 the children pulling a sled as horses do 

 scenes from Noah and the Flood 

 how to herd animals

shearing 

 splitting wood

the river! 

 ready, set, go

working together as horses do

 the plow

Pete and Laura

Milking Bess

Splitting wood 

 on the sled

 the herding wall

how to split wood 

 milking

splitting wood 

shoveling manure for the compost pile

crank turn corn kernel remover

 running behind the sled

Gloria 

 collecting logs

feeding Gypsy

 plowing

taking off the kernels 

 gopher snake

Pete eats some cover crop

dinner time!

 mowing cover crop

corn 

plowing

Joy's calf

animal chores in the morning

getting ready to plow

 bringing in the animals

wood splitting