Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Third Annual Harvest Day September 14, 2011

What weighs 150 lbs and is red, yellow, and white ? Potatoes !! The after school harvest of over 150lbs of potatoes gave everyone a thrill as kids dug and washed three beds planted in Spring of 2011. That produce once again was sent to PPS Central Kitchens where it was prepared and presented - salted and buttered  - at the Maine Harvest School Lunch Program during the week of Sept. 19-23rd.. The goal for the potato project is that kids see not just the results of their planting efforts. By planting, harvesting, and eating what they grow they make a connection to the idea of  gardens and agriculture in general as a source for healthy food-and in fact fun.  Most of all kids love digging in the soil for delicious treasure. Maine growers plant about 57,000 acres of spud seeds annually which adds up to about 1.6 billion pounds of potatoes ! These 150lbs may have been the most valuable crop this year.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

The Garden ... a failure !

Fall is fast approaching along with the start of school on September 6, 2011. With that the garden has reached the peak of it’s growing season.  As many things become ready for harvest we begin to see what worked and what didn’t in this year’s garden. One of the most difficult things for gardeners is having waited all summer long only to have failed crops. The Longfellow Garden is no exception. As much as we try to tend each and every plant over the summer with weeding and watering some of our work produced stunted or diseased vegetables and flowers.  As the students return to the garden they will find some of the squash stunted or rotten.  Several of the sunflowers nearly grown were snapped in half. The Hopi corn in the seed saving bed was completely blown over and had to be strung up in hopes of recovery. This was compliments of the strong wind from Hurricane Irene which hit most of New England on August 28th. This year we are making note of some of the best and worst practices and plants so that next year we can avoid some disappointments.  Several of the spoiled plants  have been left in the garden  so that student gardeners can see failure as a opportunity for  knowledge, adjustment, and future success.
     One of the garden's successes was the first Longfellow Learning Garden Movie Night.  On Tuesday August 30th the garden was opened in the evening for an outdoor screening of the Shaggy Dog (1959).  
Families gathered on blankets and enjoyed popcorn as the garden became a community movie theater. On that Thursday the garden was open for the Annual Back to School Bar-B-Q.  We hope to find more ways to make the garden a public gathering space for Longfellow families throughout the year