Great Time to Fill in Your Seed Order

Gourd Stamp

There’s still plenty of time to buy seeds for your own garden. If you live in a climate like we have here in Maine, a great place to look for high quality seeds is at the School Garden Project’s seed site. The school only carries local heirloom and standard varieties that are best suited for the cooler climate of Maine. Just print out an order form or send an e-mail and the students will fill your order the week it arrives

Dakota

Seeds are also for sale at Mr. Paperback, EBS, Belfast Coop, Wildflower, the Middle School and the Aarhus Gallery. Seedlings of heirloom tomatoes, onions and herbs are also available at the THMS greenhouse by early May.

April vacation is when we put our peas in the garden and some of the best are the Early Frosties, which are also available through the school’s seed program.

We owe a great thanks to the hundreds of supporters/ volunteers that have helped over the years. The School Garden Project would not exist without you

Recent garden news: The THMS Garden Project is featured in Downeast Magazine which documents a year in a school garden.

The SAD34 Garden Project was recently used as an example for President’s Obama’s Service Learning Initiative in the magazine “Generator”. Please read about it here ReadMe

Noah Ready to Canoe 740 miles of Forest Trail

Working on a residency at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor sounds like it’s time to put on the white lab coat and begin taking notes, but not so for student Noah Kleiner. Noah has designed a project that affords him the opportunity to canoe 740 miles on the northern forest canoe trail, from Old Forge New York to Fort Kent Maine while blogging with Maine students.

His Traveling Blog is designed to exchange information with students that have questions about his water travels. Noah will be traveling in a strip red cedar canoe that he built in preparation for this trip.

Students at our school are looking forward to talking to Noah as he travels the waterways of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine and are planning to map his route the best they can. We appreciate the power experiential education has in reaching young people and are excited to share Noah’s adventures through digital communication.

Noah was in my advisory group at Medomak Valley High School for four years. I have canoed with Noah in pursuit of stripers but this trip is going to be a real adventure. We wish him luck . Steve and I only wish we could make the trip with him.

Outdoor Clay Oven- A Service Learning Project

Cody demonstates cement pointing to Coleman

Spurred on by community members donating books and ideas on the subject and our desire to increase our cooking ability, the students began to design and build a traditional clay oven in October. With classroom pizza projects in full swing the desire to have a pizza oven for community and classroom use came to the forefront. The students were intrigued by the idea of cooking pizzas in record time and cooking breads and other items as the oven cools.

The following is a sequence of events with pictures which lead to the completion of the oven:

1. The project began in late October with the area being prepared by digging down past the organic layer and filling it with gravel.

The Base is Complete

2. A 4 foot by 4 foot piece of bluebird was placed on top of the leveled gravel.

3. A perimeter of cinder blocks was dry laid four high and filled with gravel. This base was filled with rocks, old cement , gravel, and sand.

4. The entire top was packed and leveled with granite dust.

5. Four two by two foot pavers were placed on top of the granite dust.

6. Cody and Chapin then built a brick archway which will be the opening for the oven.

Jayson helps Chapin Finish the Arch

7. Fire brick was dry set on the stone dust very tightly so no gaps appeared.

8. A form for the oven was packed out of wet sand and covered with wet newspaper.

9. Using clay donated by Ms. Hartkopf the students mixed up a concoction of 20% sand and 80% clay in wheelbarrows.

Noah Smooths the Mud

10. This mix was used to form wet bricks four inches thick to be placed over the top of the form.

11. After this had partially dried another layer of clay mixed with sawdust was mixed in 5 gallon buckets. This would form the insulation layer.

12. Four inch bricks of the insulation material was laid over the first layer

Second Insulative Layer

13. The last layer was the same as the first but only two inches thick. This clay was also used to shape the chimney hole which we had been keeping open with PVC pipe and could now remove.

14. The sand was partially removed and a heater was used to began to dry the oven.

Now We Wait

15. When it was safe we removed the sand and kindled a fire to dry and harden the oven. During this time a few pizzas were cooked as a test. They turned out great!

16. The final layer was an outdoor durabond substance similar to stucco.

Hand crafted Oak Door by Chapin and Family

17. Darcy and Walter Lamont fashioned a great oak door for the oven and we were ready to fire up

18. The first real firing was a success and pizzas were cooked anywhere from 3 minutes to 6 minutes. Some had pretty black bottoms! Experimentation is needed to obtain the proper heat. for cooking various items. The thermometer donated by Henry Buochard indicated a 600 degree oven immediately after firing.

Another Satisfied Customer

Prepping the Pizza Toppings

Preparing the Dough

5 Minute Pizza Cooked by the Garden Girls

“Junkin’ It Out”

Dragging Out the Tips and Tree

Hard to believe but some of the students can’t wait to get outside to work around the garden after they have finished their classwork . This past week students were inspired by the fresh snow and the approaching holidays to get out in the woods to do some tipping for wreath making,cut some fallen wood with our bow saws to heat up the pizza oven, haul out the Christmas Tree and cook some of our potatoes over the propane cooker in our lodge pot.

GreenThumb meets with Student Council After School

Of course when you are working in a different environment you need an alternative set of usable words, new vocabulary words for the job at hand. And you’ll find no shortage of those words when you’re out in the trees with a few of our Maine boys.

Starting the Wreath

Today after Grant, Caleb, Tommy and Curtis were felling a cherry tree by notching the base Grant yelled out to his teachers that they were “Junkin it out”.
When asked for a more thorough explanation the boys responded with impatience in their voice,”were pulling the dead…you know the junk wood out so we can buck it up for firewood to burn in the oven”.

Darcie helps Alec start his wreath

Well, who can argue with that. “Off the hinges”, Mr. T. replied. Tommy shot back, “Oh Mr. T. , that is so old school. Hey watch out, that tree looks wambly. “

Now that’s Groovy!

Hauling out the Dead Wood is Serious Business

“I Left My Homework, in San Francisco”

Hello Seven Green Students,

Sending you a note to let you know that I had a fun trip to the west coast, passing over snow covered mountains and posing with some of the presidential candidates.

I’m getting ready for the Bioneers conference and hope to share all of the great things we do in the Garden Project. If you have any ideas for me to share or just want to

say hello, reply to this post below (I.m sure Mr. Horton will give you a few minutes).

I know your working hard for your teachers and are going to do an awesome job on your pizza reports. Remember Pizza Day is next Tuesday and we need parent volunteers to help in the afternoon. You’ll want to have the reports done before then, no excuses. Wish you could all be here to listen to the sea lions.

Keep up the good work,

cyl

Mr. T.

The sea lions are barking up up a storm at Pier 39 as the Navy Ship approaches harbor.

Farm-to-School and Seed Swap

Mr. Thurston and Mr. Tanguay, just got back from presenting their garden team’s work at the Statewide Farm to School Conference at Chewonki Institute in Wiscasset. They had the honor of presenting with a panel of school Ag. experts including Jon’s former teaching partner and seed saving legend, Neil Lash of Medomak Valley H.S.’s Heirloom Seed Project

After lunch, Jon and Steve presented their team’s own work in the THMS Garden Project to around 140 snow tough New Englanders, all interested in bringing local food and the learning that comes with it to their own school communities.  They showed 500 slides of students learning/ working in the garden through the past year, shared their successes with Hoop House growing and made a strong case for bringing local, fresh food into our schools. They were followed by Tony Geraci, Executive School Food Service Director, First Course presented his talk on “Sustainable Collaborations: Building a Successful Farms to Schools Program.” Tony turned his district’s financial food problems around into a large profit center by serving local and/or fresh foods also making the case for strengthening your school through buying local programs.

Maine Harvest Lunch

The next day was 2008 Seed Swap and Scion Exchange at MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center in Unity. It’s called the most wonderful flea market in the world. Not only that but most of the best stuff is free! We got some new willows and grape vines to try. The Maine Tree Crop Alliance, the Maine Seed Saving Network, Fedco and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association host the annual combined Seed Swap and Scionwood Exchange. This year they offered a selection of interesting educational workshops such as grafting techniques and basics of seed saving.

All are encouraged to bring any seeds, scionwood, or cuttings you have to share freely with others. It’s a great way to keep the old varieties going and to catch up with some of the top growers in the State. We even got some T-shirts for the students

Restoring the buy local mandate

Growing things is the greatest way to learn that every action has a consequence: ….”Besides its gardens own unique gift of health and happiness, growing things…has the same moral values that belong to craftsmanship. It takes the nonsense out of you, and the egoism. It makes you settle down and work patiently with things as they are. It brings home as nothing else does…..that every act has a consequence, that whatever happens to you to-day follows, as the night the day, from something you did formerly. At any time in gardening, what you get to-day, or suffer to-day, is the result not of today’s actions, but of what you did some time back. You didn’t spray the potatoes last June. Now, in October, the potatoes are rotten. You carefully dug in the manure last April, and tested and feed the soil. Now in July you are feasting on green peas. You neglected to cut off your expensive new tea-rose as directed and mulch it dwn. Your rose is dead. It is not for nothing that great statesman have been farmers….that a sound and thrifty farming population is the backbone of a sound state.”

“The Art of Leisure”, latest edition 1935, by Marjorie B. Greenbie

Worms Like it Hot

Introduction video describing vermicomposting Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, Canada

Building a compost bin for your yard or school click here: School Garden Compost Video

Visit Tom Seymor’s Living Green article “Compost Happens” for some great tips on kitchen composting to help lesson your garbage mass and enlivening your potting soil. For those of you who are trying to live more sustainably while controlling composting odors (indicating lack of air), you may consider substituting peat moss for shredded paper, cutting up your food scraps and/or adding red wiggler worms to your compost bin.

Like any natural resource, sphagnum moss or peat moss is not a sustainable product and costs more than the time it takes to shred your old Bangor Daily (plus you get to exercise your hand muscles while taking one last glance at the funny papers). Full disclosure: I do admit to using many cubic feet of peat moss in our outhouses at camp for odor control.

We are really excited about our new under ground worm farm in the new hoop house. It has allowed us to manage all of our cafeteria waste with worms and a little TLC

THMS School Garden Project Displays at Belfast Coop

The Troy Howard Middle School Green Thumb Club has just put the finishing touches on a new School Garden wall display at the local cafe in the Belfast, Coop. They worked to transform the space into a bright and exciting space that gives some glimpses into their learning program in the THMS School Garden Project. Pictures, Seed Flags, Homemade garden paper, a Rag Bowl, fresh flowers and live wheat center pieces are all part of the display.

The School Garden Project encompasses an outdoor learning experience by providing a school-wide garden and greenhouse project offering fantastic experiential learning opportunities along with great eating opportunities.

John gives two thumbs up on the Common Ground Ribbon’s board he hung on the wall while one of our Super Mom volunteers, Darcie secures the worm farm story board designed and built by students in the Garden Project. Another job well done!!

Blogging in the Garden

As you dig deeper into the listserves, blogs, podcasts, etc. that are available in ever increasing numbers on the internet, you realize that there is no limit to the information or generosity given to anyone who takes the time to search deep enough. Do you want to make homemade root-beer? color gourds with leather dye? make a Navajo Spindle?

Google your interest and amaze yourself at the information available without ever leaving home. Then return the favor and post your own passion for someone else to discover…something as simple as your walk to work or your drive home is exotic to someone who lives in another corner of the world.

To start you on your journey, click these links and remember to visit links suggested on each of these wonderful sites:

http://www.smallholdinginsomerset.blogspot.com/

http://muddyclogs.blogspot.com/

http://unusuallyunusualfarmchick.blogspot.com/

http://www.greydragon.org/library/brewing_root_beer.html

(If kids and teachers are going to keep drinking soda why not turn them on to a healthier pop?)

Please send in your new discovery to share with us at the THMS School Garden Project.

Middle School Pest Control

This is our first attempt at linking our blog to Teacher Tube. This particular piece shows how we attempt to manage garden insect pests in the greenhouse with the release of parasitic wasps and lady bugs from the west coast.

Our new Soup Kitchen Hoop House is Finished !!

Despite wind, snow and cold the students pulled together to finish the construction of our new four season experimental greenhouse. On a rare warm, calm day we stretched the plastic over the entire structure. Beautiful days followed and the greenhouse warmed enough for the ground to thaw. Yesterday the kids turned over the soil to ready it for planting. It is a great feeling to turn soil in our garden in the middle of the winter!

We also uncovered our experimental underground worm bin in the middle of the new greenhouse which had been insulated with layers of leaves. The worms were still happy so we added more worms and bedding from the heated greenhouse.

We are fortunate to have the PAWS students in our school managing the lunch waste as they never fail to collect the day’s lunch waste for our worms. Go PAWS !!

Our goal is to plant spinach and other greens by the beginning of February for an early spring harvest. Some of our Green Thumb students are working with us on a thermal solar design for heating the soil in our hoop house to speed plant growth. The plan is to measure the temperature difference (if any) in our hoop house beds with and without our root zone heating system.

Eating Lunch by the Truck

Well the Green Team decided to have their own tailgate get together to celebrate our N.E. Patriots incredible season so we took our lunch time to the parking lot, sitting on the back of our teacher’s truck while boiling up hot dogs and munching chips was quite a change for all of us. We actually really like eating fresh vegetables from the garden and do so whenever the desire strikes so this was a special -a little different and a lot of fun.

It is about 14 degrees F. so were playing touch football and shoveling snow, which we don’t mind doing during school hours.

Well, enough playing around as we have Swiss Chard to deliver to the Belfast Coop right after we clean up this mess. Sorry you didn’t get to join us but hope you’ll get to stop in soon. The School Garden Project is open to the public every day from 8 A.M. to 2 P.M.

And it keeps growing!

Now that the outdoor garden has been put to bed the students are focusing on the heated greenhouse and the four season unheated greenhouse. There are still wonderful living plants in the garden! The garlic is safe under its mulch and the parsnips are awaiting spring to give back the sweet taste of last summer.

The list of plants now growing in the greenhouse are numerous. The greens include spinach, tatsoi, arugula, mustards, mizuna, lettuce, swiss chard and beet greens. Tomato plants are waiting to be planted so fresh cherry tomatoes will be available in the spring. Flowers are carefully being placed in and around the veggies.

Students have planted morning glories, various varieties of marigolds and cosmos. Hanging petunias are being put up from saved seeds from one of our favorite petunia plant. It was a hybrid so we plan on having some interesting plants!

Much of the produce is being sold at the Belfast Coop. Ali, our produce manager, tracks sales and does quality control for everything that leaves the greenhouse for consumption. Students check with the TAHMS cafeteria on a daily basis, supplying much of the greens for the salad bar and onions for the kitchen. Swiss chard and other goods are brought to the soup kitchen on our nearly weekly runs.

Bean Hole Beans in the Snow

This past week we brought our history lesson to the garden by digging a hole in the ground, burning lots of dry hardwood and loading in our bean pot to cook overnight. The activity was decided on after the students read about one of Maine’s oldest traditions of cooking in the ground, a process that was developed by the Penobscot Tribe.

News article – Click here

The Penobscots taught the early loggers of the North Woods how to cook in this manner. The Cook and Cookee working the logging camps could stay a day ahead and downriver from the loggers by leaving the beans cooking in a cast iron pot under ground for the loggers to enjoy for breakfast the next morning. This gave the workers a good high protein start to the day.

Our bean dinner worked out just right. It was the first snowfall of the season as we warmed up with hot bowls of bean hole beans. Many students brought in cornbread and our talented lunch ladies made molasses cookies to finish off the meal. Micheala and Kaitlyn recommended the Logger beans, while Tyler B. preferred the Penobscot recipe. Mr. Tanguay told stories about Maine logging camps, where beans were served at every meal and provided good nutrition and energy.

Other upcoming projects this month include the production of reusable grocery totes and aprons. Fabric, thread, sewing machines, and parent volunteers are requested. Trail repair and bridge building, hoophouse construction, wreath making and bird feeder design are also planned for December.

Bean Hole Recipes

4lbs. of Yellow Eye (Great Northern or Jacob’s Cattle are also good) beans soaked overnight. (We don’t par boil as it seems to make the beans mushy and toughens the skins). Dig a hole at least three feet deep and wide. Layer the bottom with flat rocks and burn lots of dry hard wood until you have a ten inch bed of coals. Carefully lay the pot in the coals with a wet towel placed tightly between pot and lid (wet burlap placed over the pot makes for cleaner beans). Cover with dirt, tarp and load with raked leaves for extra insulation.

*Consistant heat is the key to great beans.

The Penobscot Recipe (our interpretation):

• 2-3 cups of wild onions
• 1 cup wild carrots (Queen Anne’s Lace)
• 2 cups maple sryup
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 2-4 teaspoons dry hot mustard
• 4 sliced apples
• 1 lb. moose meat or deer venison

The Logger’s Recipe ( my uncle’s version):

• 2 THMS garden onions
• 1 1/2 cups molasses
• 1 cup maple sryup
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 2-4 teaspoons dry hot mustard
• 4 sliced apples
• 1 lb. smoked ham hock (sliced). Place at bottom of pot. Layer onion, molasses and beans. Cover remaining ingredients and pour in hot water to just cover beans.

Carefully pull out the beans making sure to brush away all of the dirt before opening the lid. Serve with lots of corn or brown bread, apple cider and molasses cookies.

Preparing for Winter

As we make the late transition from outside to in, the students have been finding that there is great fun to be had in using all the garden has to offer. The beans and popcorn are drying into so many wonderful colors and shapes. Mr. Thurston asks us to be patient so they have time to dry properly….then we’ll be prepared to eat.

Bean hole beans will be in the ground next week which is a tasty way to learn about our Maine heritage. This style of cooking was both a favorite of the Penobscots and the loggers of the North Woods.

After school last week, the Green Thumb club kids finished the work period by cooking up some garden potatoes in our bean lodge pot.

Each student took a turn dicing up the potatoes with our very cool slicer. Check out all of the different colored potatoes. We especially like the purple ones that Mr. Thurston found in our purple garden.

This week Ms. Coleman, our favorite math teacher, set up four types of popcorn so that we could test the yield each variety gave us when cooked with a hot air popper.

We popped 1/4 cup of each variety to compare amounts to Orville Redenbacher’s hybrid popping corn. The consensus was that it would be an accomplishment to come within twenty percent of their corn. There was some preparation needed for this experiment.

Last winter the seeds were chosen and then planted just before school let out for summer. The plants were allowed to get really tall and dry before harvest. After a few months of drying on the ears, we dug right in and rubbed the kernals off of the cob. The kernals should be allowed to dry a few more months but we just couldn’t wait.

Later today…….. the results for the popcorn were excellent:

Orville Redenbacher popcorn 1/4=7 cups

Yellow corn 1/4=6 cups

Black Flint corn 1/4=5 cups

THMS dark corn 1/4=4 cups.

Note- survey results indicated that THMS Dark Corn was the only popcorn that did not require butter.
The popcorn was really tasty. I can’t wait until the bean hole beans!!!   Avary L.

And the Winner Is ……

Mrs. Davis and her new friend, Big Mac at 132 Lbs.. Being the closest to picking the correct weight made her the lucky winner of our Big Mac pumpkin.

Here’s Big Mac in her back yard with his face all lit up sitting up bright in his wheelbarrow.

Apparently his pulp was donated to a nice home-brewed pot of soup and a few warm pies.

Now that’s a happy pumpkin.

Abbracci Bakery Grills in the Garden

Chris & Assunta Corpora owners of Abbracci Bakery and Cafe we’re kind enough to spend an afternoon in the school garden teaching us how to make quality pizza dough, pesto, sauce and grilled pizza. The students prepared tomatoes for sauce, picked lots of herbs, garlic, edible flowers and onions while the grills and prep tables were set up in the garden.

Assunta explained how to use the proper pizza equipment like the board and peel she shows here. It was interesting to hear the history and reasons behind many of the ingredients used in different styles of pizza. So now we know why we use so much basil…to cut the acid of the tomato in our sauce.

Chris tosses a pie for made with a quick acting yeast. He cooked pies on the grill for 95 students in about 12 minutes whle Assunta and I cut the pies as fast as possible. The trick is to get the grill really hot and stay right with it.

A=1/2BH

Amending the Soil (for Hardneck Garlic)

Objectives:

Measure distances accurately.
Calculate area of a triangle and rectangle.
Use ratios and proportions.

Day One
Students began practicing area calculations in the classroom. We started with basic rectangular shapes, using the formula A=LW, We used measurements taken of the garden beds from a previous lesson. We researched the recipe on the back of the SoPo bag, and reduced it down to 1 lb of supplement for every 160 square feet. Students made a plan to divide the area by 160 to solve for the correct amount of SoPo. Next, students practiced calculating area of a triangle using the formula A=(1/2)BH. Again, they used the ratio of 1 lb of SoPo for every 160 square feet.

Day Two
When familiar with the process of calculating area of triangles and squares, the class went out to a plot in the garden reserved for a crop of garlic. The plot was irregular in shape, yet could be visualized as a rectangle and triangle. Measurements were taken of the triangle’s base and height and of the rectangle’s width and length.

We noticed that the triangle’s height was the same as the rectangle’s width. Students calculated square footage, then related the area of the garden plot to the SoPo recipe, weighed the correct amount, and worked as a team to mix SoPo into the soil.

Day Three
Students planted garlic bulbs in the fertile soil. Additional Bone Meal was added to each hole before the bulb was placed in the ground and covered. Projected harvest is August of 2008.

Papyrus from the Nile delta and Paper-making

Every week we seem to find something new in the garden that makes a connection to history. This week we were studying the first civilizations in the world and read about one of Egypts leading exports, papyrus, which grew in the Nile delta. Egyptian rulers created a monopoly for this writing material which lasted nearly 4000 years until the invention of paper. Papyrus lost its commercial appeal soon after and the process for making this material into a parchment able to be used for writing was lost for a few thousand years until a scientist/ professor discovered the lost art of Papyrus making.

Just so happens we’ve been growing the Cyprus Papyrus plant in the water garden located in the back of our greenhouse for many years, using it as an ornamental. Students brought a few of these plants into the classroom where we tried some of the old methods of working with the papyrus stalks. First we peeled off the green outer layer/ skin before cutting the inner pith into long strips.

Next students tried different strategies for preparation such as weaving, hammering and soaking or soaking hammering and weaving until they got the desired product. Since it fiber are so strong the papyrus was also used by the Egyptians for making sandals, baskets and bowls. Since our plants were much smaller than the average of 15 feet grown along the Nile, we thought our stalks were better suited for weaving small baskets or placemats.

Here the girls show an example of their own Papyrus craftsmanship.

Flickr Guest Tiviet says…..

The raw material of papyrus paper comes from the plant Cyperus papyrus. This plant was quite versatile and was not only used in the production of paper but it was also used in the manufacture of boats, rope and baskets.

The stalks of the papyrus plant are harvested. Next the green skin of the stalk is removed and the inner pith is taken out and cut into long strips. The strips are then pounded and soaked in water for 3 days until pliable. The strips are then cut to the length desired and laid horizontally on a cotton sheet overlapping about 1 millimeter. Other strips are laid vertically over the horizontal strips resulting in the criss-cross pattern in papyrus paper. Another cotton sheet is placed on top. The sheet is put in a press and squeezed together, with the cotton sheets being replaced until all the moisture is removed. Finally, all the strips are pressed together forming a single sheet of papyrus paper.

THMS Harvest Reaps Ribbons (from the Soup)

BELFAST (Oct 1): Produce from the Troy Howard Middle School Garden Project sprouted 24 blue ribbons and 36 red ones Sept 21-23 in the Exhibition Hall at the Common Ground Country Fair in Unity.

THMS students, from left, Austin Tripp, Bridgett Littlefield and Katrina Lapham check out all the ribbons from the CGCF.

Planning for school’s entries at Common Ground began in January, with youth mapping and designing the spring school gardens, taste-testing varieties and ordering or saving seeds.

Each ribbon will be turned in for seed money with the following businesses: FEDCO, Johnny’s and Pine Tree Garden.

The THMS Garden Project was recently honored as the 2007 National School Garden Program. It also has been featured on WLBZ-TV (Channel 2) and New England Cable News for its successful approach to healthy living through an experiential- and place-based learning environment where all students can thrive.

Getting Ready for the Fair: What a Week!

Jon and Tyler left the school today at 12:30 P.M. to bring 90 vegetable entries to the Common Ground Fair to get ready for tomorrow’s judging in the Exhibition Hall. I really enjoy taking students to the Fair to learn about others crop successes throughout the year, what new growing ideas/ techniques are being tried, how others are making a living through farming and which foods have the best flavors.

The highlight is always the walk through the Hall at noon to see our vegetables on display with those of so many great Maine growers, hoping that we may be awarded a few ribbons to take back to our school.

Some other highlights this week:

Students sort through hundreds of our garden vegetables to pick the very best for the fair

Shirley and the kitchen crew come out to visit the garden and bring back 42 tomatoes, 36 cucumbers, heads of garlic and brocolli.

Anna K. gives so much of her time and expertise to train the flower team

Our after school Farm Stand is having a great week and more people are finding us for the very freshest in produce.

Darcie comes in to cook green=fried tomatoes with the students

Tanya visits from Village Soup to get pictures of our National Gardening Award and the harvesting of the big pumpkin

Mrs. Winslow and Mrs. Fancy led the kids in salsa and sauce making for the upcoming cold months

Mr. Thurston’s pickles are resting safely in gallon jars

Mrs. Feeley gets her students back into cooking by making a fantastic garden soup

Linda H. has gotten us all on board to hold a Harvest Lunch at all of the schools to celebrate our local food producers

Students fill out vegetable judging forms as the taste test our best producee

Downeast Books makes a two year commitment to photograph the THMS Garden Project

Green Team is Crunching the Numbers

Green Team math students have been using shovels, rakes, and MATH in the garden. The first week of bootcamp was helpful in preparing our students for the challenges and opportunities in the upcoming school year.

Those skills have been put to the test at the our farm-stand as students weigh vegetables, figure costs, keep the books, calculate prices, and make change (all without calculators).

Just yesterday, with only a tape measure, Green Team members estimated our largest pumpkin’s weight at 107 pounds. How did they do it? They measured the circumference, distance over the top, and distance across the widest portion of the pumpkin. After, they found the sum of the measures, they accessed the approximate weight on a chart published on the web.

Green team students were also responsible for adding the correct dispersion rate of limestone to add to the soil in the raised beds in the greenhouse, making a more balanced, rich soil for our greens throughout the winter. The students are responsible for all of the ratio and convertion rates as the plant needs require. Stay tuned for more garden math news.

Heirloom Tomatoes for Sale

We have over 54 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and many varieties of standard hybrids (early girl, big boy, new girl, jetstar, etc.) for sale. If you need them for the weekend please see us after school. We have attached a list of heirlooms available and some descriptions. I have grown them all and most are really good. I have a flat of new ace peppers as well. We are saving many for the early release so parents can purchase some on wed. Plants are $2 and in 4 inch pots.

The Garden Co., old tomato division

The Onions and Chicks are In !

Brrrrr. It was 33 F at my home in Searsmont this morning. We figured this was not a good year to experiment with early crops at THMS.  Any beans or corn planted this week would have rotted in the cold, wet weather.

On a lighter note, we planted six varieites of onions and eight varieties of potatoes this week. The rain soaked them in nicely and we look forward to a late summer harvest! Some early greens, broccoli, peas and cabbage have been planted for the summer cooking program. We are still tryuing to imagine continuous warm weather!

The baby chicks are in which are part of our economics lesson on egg production.  Of course,  they sure do make us happy as well!

JT

Ames School Students get Worms :-)

The Ames School Fifth Graders had a great trip to the THMS garden last week. They went on student led tours, planted milkweed, made worm farms, spread compost/woodchips and cleared some sod. After all, if you can’t put in the effort there is usually little reward. Our students really enjoyed working with the Ames students in the garden and hope to have them back real soon.

Some of their worm questions:

Do I and how often to I put any water in for moisture?

How often do we stir around the contents?

Once a week feeding enough?

Should I add anymore material ( leaves, etc) as the month goes on?

To bean or not to bean?

Maybe a silly question, but what a great way to learn about seeds. Beans are full of energy and life, so what a great way to learn about seed structure and germination. The 7th North “Bean Team” uses the simple bean to create a lesson for the 6th graders at our school.

The Bean Team covers basic bean history by covering Maine Bean Logging History “Bean Whole Beans” to the structure and the germination of a bean and it’s anatomy.

The 6th graders couldn’t wait to get started on the dissection. After soaking the beans the 7th graders led the students through the dissection of the beans: taking off the seed coat, splitting the bean in half, examining the bean insides.

Next on the agenda is to look to look at the germination progress of beans and to create a bean necklace. This was the most exciting part for the students. The 7th grade Bean Team led the 6th graders through the process of creating a bean necklace that the students wear around their necks to watch the bean seed germinate. The students document the process of the bean germination, drawing pictures and writing comments.

The class is excited about the bean germination and being able to watch their seed grow as they care for it so the 7th graders have done their job.

The 7th grade garden students put together many presentations for other students because they are most likely to listen to someone closer to their own age. It seems to be a great way to get the 6th graders excited about the 7th grade as well as the garden project.

Good job to all of the students on the Bean Team, you were great role models for the younger students.

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch

The warm weather allowed us to get out of the greenhouse and into the garden!  Our first order of business was soil improvement.  The kids have been spreading compost and leaf mulch throughout areas which are in need of organic matter.  A new heirloom tomato garden was made in the courtyard outside of the library.  We cut sod in two half circles around the library garden so visitors can walk through and view these old timers in action.  This allowed the kids to see very raw THMS soil which is not a pretty sight.  They will be involved step by step in the soil improvement process which I hope will make an impression.

Mr. Thurston

Searsport Headstart Seasoned Gardeners

Searsport Headstart are good friends of the Garden and always have lots of energy to share. Today the children met with Franklin the Turtle, completed a scavenger hunt then planted beans and milkweed, weaved in the Earth Loom and climbed the mulch tower. The best part was eating spinach and wearing flowers behind our ears.

Winterport Headstart starts Worm Farm

The Headstarters from Winterport spent more than two hours participating in student run activities in the Garden Project today. A scavenger hunt was set up by garden team members to intrduce the visitors to the greenhouse and a planting activity. The children planted beans and milkweed (for the monarch butterfles), named our turtle “Franklin”, worked a bit in the garden, fed the rabbits and sorted red wiggler worms for their own Classroom Worm Farm. Lunch was eaten out on the picnic table before taking this picture and picking flowers for their hair. Thanks to all of the garden team students who gave their lunch period to help!

The CASS is Digging Their Way to Knowledge

Mrs. Krueger’s fifth grade science students learn some of the intricacies of Greenhouse life with Hannah. Here they are asking about the potato tower and the three foot lettuce plant that looks like a big thistle stalk.

7th grade members of the garden project give a talk about soil science and vermicomposting. The garden students are really generous with their knowledge and time.

P.E. in the garden? Students line up with rakes, shovels and pitch forks for a hand tilling race the width of the garden.

The first one to finish tilling their row wins a treat from the garden. Not only a great way to get some quality exercise but it’s also a bit safer for the worms. Mr. T.

Our Friends From Drinkwater

Well they came ready to seed and do some snow shoeing and it’s only April 11th. Our friends from Drinkwater School were back today planting seeds with the 7th grade students getting ready for their own school garden. We hope to have them back soon to get them started with a worm bin and lesson on making good compost.

Mr. T.

Twenty Two Feet and Growing

Garden students measure one of our greenhouse sungold tomato plants at 22 feet and still growing. Next they will weight the plant. Any guesses?

The Week of Snow

Even though we got over a foot of snow this last week, there are still plenty of things to do in the world of the THMS garden.  More seedlings can be started and harvesting greens can be done.

The question is most often asked is…. where can we put all of our seedlings?  With the help of teachers with large, sunny classroom windows we are able to start our seedlings inside the school and are not limited to the greenhouses.

Harvesting greens is tough when the weather is cooler and cloudy but our production is still strong and the greens are still delicious.

The once thawing soil is now back to being frozen and Earth Day is only 2 weeks away. The question on all of our minds is if we will be able to get the vegetables in the ground by that day. We’ll keep you updated during the upcoming weeks.

Hannah Brzycki- Unity College

87 Tomatoes Looking for a Good Home

It is April 9 and snow and cold still prevail over the garden. The April sun has transformed the four season greenhouses despite the cold. Spinach, lettuce, arugula, mustard and mizuna are starting to be cut and sold. We are really hoping to start using the great outdoors for hardening off seedlings for early spring plantings. Approximately 87 varieties of tomatoes await in Ms. Davis’ science room windows ready for transplanting !

Jon Thurston

Garden Pets

Troy Howard Middle School students are displaying the Garden Pets they created in Mrs. Sproch’s seventh grade art class. These are hand built and painted ceramic sculptures preserved with Acrylic and polyuretnane. Seventh grade students donated their precious pieces to help continue funding of their award winning Garden Project. The students have put lots of extra time and energy into the Garden Project to make it financially self-sufficient to help with SAD 34 budget challenges.

These garden pets are being sold at the THMS indoor farm stand. Come directly to the school for purchase or call 338-3320 #124

 

 

 

 

Brooklyn C., Brandon H., Kristen M. modeling a few of the garden pets

Student Intern from Unity College: Hannah Brzycki

A travel through time…I am a Junior at Unity College majoring in Landscape Horticulture and interning at the Troy Howard Middle School (THMS). The first day I walked into the classroom I stepped back 10 years to when I was in my middle school in Virginia. How I wish I could have had the experiences that these students are having here in Belfast Maine. The willingness that they have to work with the vegetables and greens all year long is a thrill to experience. When I leave THMS to head back for my classes at Unity, I am filled with energy that was transferred to me from my day at the middle school. Their enthusiasm is contagious.

During this semester I have been helping Jon Thurston in the Green house and Steve Tanguay in the classroom. I have been mentoring students and helping them design final projects. I have observed that by mixing the “normal” classes such as English, social studies, math, and science with a real world experience like designing and managing a hoop house with no artificial heat through a Maine winter.

In my opinion, this approach to learning helps the students to remember the subjects they are taught. The 7th Grade north class uses hands-on-learning to make each lesson concrete and enduring. I am delighted to take part in such an extraordinary and effective approach to learning.

Heirloom Seeds & Class Visits

The students have started over 70 varieties of tomatoes, both heirloom and hybrid, for seed saving and cooking during the next fall season. The Garden Project works to supports Seed Savers Exchange and Medomak Valley High School in their efforts to locate and save open pollinated seed to help preserve our history and protect biodiversity. We are particularly interested in plants that have been grown locally over many generations and welcome any leads that may help us in preserving seeds grown locally.

Class visits to the greenhouse have started up again which is a good sign of spring.  This week, the fifth graders from Mrs. Cox’s science class at the Drinkwater School came to work with some of the Seventh grade soil experts yesterday.

The lesson was learning all about soils and what’s most important in keeping your soils healthy. Students studied soils and worm castings under the dissecting microscopes in the greenhouse.

The students took a worm castings experiment back to their classroom where they will compare the growth of the sunflower seeds they planted both with and without the addition of worm castings (20 percent).

The seventh grade students really enjoyed working with their younger peers and are already planning for their next visit.

-Mr. T & T

New Garden Projects and Traveling to Unity

Jon, Linda and I (Steve, the classroom teacher) presented at the 2nd Annual Local & Sustainable Foods Conference at the Unity Performing Arts Center this past weekend, our second outing in five days. The conference had dozens of sessions on everything from homesteading healthier food in schools and buying locally to keep your dollars in your community and the importance of preserving biodiversity with the Rodale Institute.

We had a great crowd for our talk in the Arts Center and were pleased to hear about how many schools and programs our own project has touched. Of course, the most fun is talking about our students and all the wonderful things they have accomplished. The reactions we get to the knowledge base our middle schoolers are building is quite remarkable. You tend to forget how special the kids work is when you are all so engaged in what you are doing.

“Mainer’s import 80% of their daily calories, much of it coming from industrial farms in China, California, and Mexico. Keeping food local gives us greater say in what we eat and how our food is produced, and it improves our food security”, says Bob St. Peter, Forest Farm.

We’d add that it gives us more economic freedom and better control of our health. It sure doesn’t hurt to cut down on those medical bills

Great beginner advice here for growing from seed .

Mr. T.

Transplanting, Potato Towers and Sixth Grade Planning

Transplanting was in full swing today. The kids worked on two varieties of basil, petunias and some geraniums which had been started from seed. We also built a large potato tower out of a tomato cage and hope to have new potatoes by the end of the school year!
Today the 7th grade students introduced Mr. Weider’s sixth grade class to the garden. Tours were given of the greenhbouse, the four season greenhouses and the dormant garden. The kids were excited to learn they will plant their own garden in a plot east of the large garden.

-Jon thurston | jthurston@sad34.net

Our Students are Tops

People often question the sanity of any teacher wanting to work in a middle school environment when there are so many other options available in the field of education. The kids are going through so many changes all at once that your not always sure what to expect from one day to the next. And boy can they be forgetful. But when you get the classroom setup right and provide enough creative challenge for any type of student you can have the time of your life. If you are able to keep on top of all the different emotions through the school day you are often rewarded with a smoother running class environment.

It’s true that beginning adolescents benefit more from direct experiences than from abstract ideas and principles. The students demonstrate that to us each and every day. I can’t tell you how proud I am of our students as they carry out the daily tasks required to run a year round garden project. Someone is always ready to step up to the plate when things need to get done. Taking out the lunch waste, cutting swiss chard during lunch, giving a visiting class a soil lesson, preparing fresh produce for the soup kitchen, mixing the compost pile, tending the worms, collecting daily hoop weather data, cleaning the garden and greenhouse, presenting to the community and on and on.

Yesterday, Mr. Thurston and I went to the Tremont School to kick off a new garden project for their students. It was an honor for us to share our project with their school community and to announce a $25,000 grant their school received from a local family. The process started last year when some of the Tremont School faculty came to our school to learn about the gardening project we had for our students. After spending some time with our students they were hooked and are now beginning an outdoor learning lab at their own school.

A few days prior to our presentation, though, we had to let the school know that we couldn’t afford to bus the students to present the garden project and they would be stuck with just the two teachers to present. I did mention that I would ask the students to put together a short video highlighting their learning and responsibilities throughout the year. They took me up on the challenge and within two days had worked out a wonderful 14 minute video piece explaining their role in the Garden Project while touring the grounds. It was greatly received by the Trenton students, giving them something to strive for in their own garden program. Congratulations THMS Garden Students for another job well done.

-Mr. T.

March 26 greenhouse news

Peppers seeded at the beginning of March were transplanted today. The kids are using Ms. Davis’ room to grow the peppers since they are very sensitive to aphids. Many herbs have been seeded this month and will be put up in pots for sale this spring.  The students have planted eighty types of tomatoes for seed saving in the fall.  Our worm castings are helping to give us some spectacular petunias this year.

Our Goals

The goals for our classmates this year is to take on the challenge of keeping a working garden in order. We are assigned specific jobs in different divisions/departments of the Garden Company.

The divisions are; Compost, Seed, and Garden Stand. The Compost divisions job is to deliver compost to the gardeners, manage our lunch food scraps and worm farms. The Seed division manages all the seeds for sale and growing. They are responsible for ordering and saving all of the seeds used by the Garden Division. The job of the Garden Stand is to sell all the goods produced by the Garden Company.

-Editors Note

Technology in the garden and how we use it.

This year in the garden, the kids are getting up close to nature. Our garden uses a variety of different technologies for the education of our class members. Ranging from laptops to electronic microscopes for looking at insects. This is your guide to all the unknown wonders and technologies used in our garden. Lets get started off with the microscope.

The USB microscope is an attachable device that you can plug right into your laptop. Of course there are certain programs one must obtain to use this microscope…we’ll feed you the intel on those later. The microscope uses focusing technologies that enable it to automatically capture clear images of small objects such as partially mummified aphids, money, small flowers, fungus, you name it and the microscope magnifies it. Your classmates can the pictures without leaving the classroom or having to hassle with those big bulky metal microscopes that can be a real pain. Some of our pictures taken with the microscope will be shown on a different page.

Laptops are also a very helpful tool to use in the garden. Laptops help us monitor the temperature & PH in our garden along with other statistics such as planting dates they also help us make the weekly worm technology section!

Next post we are going to talk about the garden loom.

-Sam and John

Petunias and Out in the Community

Jon Thurston Says: March 19th, 2007 at 6:07 am Things are really growing in the greenhouse! Coming from a cooler greenhouse situation we planted hanging petunias in early January from seed. Many are starting to flower already. Soon they can be purchased and hung outside during the day and brought in on nights below 35 F. Petunias are fairly tough plants and can thrive at cool temperatures if acclimated properly.

Steven Tanguay Says: March 19th, 2007 at 9:07 am The Garden Project Team gave two community presentations last week. One to the Master Gardener’s Association at their annual banquet. Our presentation lasted a bit over an hour and included a movie, slide show, some good talk on pest control and a great meal (the best part)! The second presentation was to the Belfast Rotary and also included a nice meal with fresh greens and homemade lasagna. We are continually so impressed with how well composed and prepared the students are when they are talking about their own learning experiences at our school. Next we’re off to the Tremont School to kick off a new gardening program at their school. We expect great things from them.

Healthy Foods Initiative

In the Fall, Forrest M. and I (Rochelle S.) were told by teachers Mr. Tanguay and Mrs. Hartkopf that they wondered if putting the Greenhouse’s mixed greens into the High School cafeteria would be . They needed students to do market surveys with all of the high school students. Forrest and I immediately got to work.

We made a survey with three questions- what did you think of the appearance of the mixed greens, did you enjoy the texture and taste and would you like to see more mixed greens on the salad bar?

After creating the survey, we made posters telling the students in the cafeteria that we we doing and where to give their responses. We had great participation as even the principal came by. It went very successfully as we collected lots of surveys and were able to gain a real idea of what the students thought about our greens. We really appreciated the high participation by the students.

Back at school we tabulated the results and began preparing with other students that are doing many different neat things to bring healthy greens into our school. put together a presentation on our findings for the public. Our group gave a talk about our work to some of the school board, the Superintendent, the Food Service Directors and a few of the staff. Here are the results of the survey:

Visual Appeal of Greens

78% of students visually preferred mixed greens. ater holding characteristics

Some of the nutritional values of the mixed greens comes from the fact that we put a lot of spinach in the mix.

Hope for More Greens

74% of students preferred the taste of mixed greens.

Enjoyment of Texture & Taste of Greens

86% of students would like to have mixed greens added to salad bar.

Spinach has 21 more times the vitamin A then Iceberg and Romaine lettuce hold, the greens typically served at cafeterias. Also, the spinach has 5 times as much calcium to offer. Won’t you join us for lunch?

-Rochelle S. and Forrest M.

Did You Know You Might Be

Did you know that you might be eating Troy Howard Middle School’s (THMS) garden’s greens? We have harvested a lot of greens this winter inside the greenhouse.  We have planted many different greens like spinach and swiss chard. The THMS garden project has been harvesting greens and packaging them to send to the Belfast Co-op and the school kitchen twice a week. If you have been to the Co-op lately you might have bought some of our own organic greens. The students have advertised our garden produce at the Co-op to help increase sales.

If you stop by the school for a visit, you can see some of the achievements we have made since the beginning of the year. For example, we went to the Common Ground Fair this year, and won all first places except for one contest. Everyone worked really hard, growing the vegetables and watering them so they would be nice and healthy to help people get better nutrition in their food.

We have had many compliments on the vegetables that we have grown. So why not stop by the Co-op or the school greenhouse to see our vegetables and try them for your next meal!

-Brooklyn C.

Compost Concoction

Compost tea is used to replace the fungicides and pesticides that are often used in gardens. We don’t want to use pesticides and fungicides to get rid of bugs and weeds for a few reasons, one, they often kill good plants and bugs as well as bad ones and also the chemicals used to in them are very harmful for the environment.

This is helpful to the garden and it will grow better as well. Compost tea increases plant growth by providing nutrients for the plants and the soil. It also has beneficial organisms. All of this means it decreases the number of diseases in the garden, and it replaces the toxic garden chemicals.

Using mature compost, an aquarium pump, a gang valve, a hose, molasses that is un-sulfured, and some water you can turn your brown “things” into a gorgeous garden that everyone is dying to see. You could have a prize winning garden! Wouldn’t that be nice to have beautiful plants? So try compost tea, you have nothing to lose; instead you gain your dream garden.

-Emily B.

Growing Greens in the Snow

Can a person grow greens, in Maine, during the winter, without artificial heat?
The obvious answer to this question would most certainly be no. Outside, the weather is literally freezing and, of course, plants cannot grow in these conditions. Water may freeze inside the root and will not be able to get to the plant. Some of us in the THMS Garden Co. decided to look at this question, wondering if, by building a Hoop House, we could change the answer to this question.

We built a 12’ by 20’ hoop house for the plants to grow in. Our hoop houses are like the big green house, but mini, without any artificial heat. With a team of people, these hoop houses can be moved around the garden. Inside the hoop houses we assembled small hoops to hold row cover close to the ground.

Next, we conducted a series of experiments using probes that can measure and record temperatures at certain intervals. We placed one of these outside the house, two in the
hoop house with one under a row cover inside the hoop house. The temperatures were generally much colder outside, and warmest under the row cover (see page #6 for graph). The temperature without the cover was about 15 to 20 degrees colder then with cover.

Why was it warmest under the row cover?

There is something called the greenhouse effect. When sunlight comes through the walls of a greenhouse, it bounces around but is not able to leave the greenhouse. With a row cover, some of the heat in the greenhouse bounces under the cover. Under the row cover the heat is contained the best, but outside, with no cover, the heat is contained very little.

In both the hoop house and under the cover, we were able to keep the temperatures high enough to grow greens, even during those below 0 degrees nights. Right now we are growing some spinach, planted this winter, both inside of and out of the row cover.

The row cover spinach is growing much better. Even though the temperatures stayed very cold this Feb we did notice that growth picked up as the days became longer, despite the cold. So thanks to our greenhouse effect, our probes, and our healthy greens we have proven that it is, in fact, possible to grow greens in Maine during the winter, without any artificial heat.
-Healthy Greens Team