Garden Club: 5 AMAZING Things We Did In Garden Club This Year
With the COVID-19 updates, we’re learning that we will likely not have Garden Club again this school-year. While we miss our Garden Club students dearly, we are all so happy that they are safe at home. To celebrate the work we’ve done in Garden Club in 2020, here’s a little list of the great stuff we did together!
Here’s a celebration of 5 AMAZING things we did at Garden Club this year:
1. We Cooked & Tried a LOT of new foods
Garden Club students made cabbage wraps, Ethiopian sweet potato stew, herbed butter, spinach fried rice, and more. Meals in garden club are always made with fresh, whole ingredients and use produce from the garden.
Garden Club students use the instapot to make a cabbage & sautéed radish fried rice.
Everyone loved it!
Cabbage wraps made with fresh cabbage & carrots from the garden
Sisters Brazil (left) and Cheyanne (right) peel sweet potatoes from the garden for an East-African inspired sweet potato stew.
Imani & Jetzaly making a dressing
2. We made the garden more beautiful
We painted rocks, planted flowers, and picked up trash in the garden.
Professional Rock-Painter extraordinaire makes a masterpiece to line the garden beds
Daffodils in the garden
3. We Worked in the garden
Garden Club students did the exciting, and sometimes challenging, work needed to make a garden grow. They planted many, many seeds (and learned about germination along the way), helped cover the high tunnel rows during cold snaps, and harvested crops like sweet potatoes, cabbage, kale, lettuce, carrots, cilantro, & much more.
Along with their garden projects, they also answered “Questions of the Day,” which ranged from “Do radishes grow above ground or underground?” to “What is germination” and “how do you prepare a garden bed for planting?”
Green Teen Luul and Garden Club Students learn about spacing and measurement while planting seeds
Imani and Barbara cover the high tunnel rows using row cover before a cold snap
Out with the old, in with the new! Jade is clearing out old crops to make way for new plantings
Green Teen Courtney and Garden Club students figure out the stages of germination using a felt board model before planting seeds
4. We learned about our creepy-crawly friends that live underground
We spent a whole Garden Club learning all about worms: We read books rented from the library, had “worm stations” with boxes of worms students could investigate with magnifying glasses, and worked on posters in groups. Students surprised us because even big-kid-5th-graders enjoyed being read to, and everyone had a blast learning about these amazing creepy-crawlies and what they do for our garden.
Green Teen Nasro reads to her group while everyone works on their worm poster
Worm examinations in the garden
5. We welcomed Spring
The weather had finally turned in early March, and we spent all day outside in Garden Club: Something we hadn’t been able to do since fall.
Though we didn’t know at the time it would be our last Garden Club of the year, students had a blast gardening in the sunshine: We worked together to pull old cabbage plants that they harvested from so many times in the high tunnel and laid fresh compost (and maybe hauled a friend or two in a wheelbarrow) in it’s place. We also celebrated spring by making fresh produce signs for the garden and harvesting a ton of lettuce to take home. By the end of the club, everyone was able to explain the steps needed to prepare a garden bed for spring planting.
Baby sprouts in the seedling room
Spunky, creative signs made by students. We’re always amazed at their creativity!
Garlic pushing it’s way past the crusty snow- a sure sign of spring!