Posts by Tahereh Sheerazie

Jan gives us a chance to ponder over soil. How does animal and human activity above ground effect soil health. Who lives and does what under ground, and what builds healthy robust soil that yields abundant harvests. All questions that we will continue finding answers to for the rest of the school year. Meanwhile our…

The fall garden with remnants of summer tomatoes, mission fig, pomegranate and plenty of kale, chard, parsley, basil, chives, beans and arugula lend themselves to harvest, create recipes, divide chores and share a tasty salad together.    

Our two giant pumpkins, the subject of weight and seed guessing games, also became the curious vegetable that had to be lifted, rolled around, and ultimately cracked for being too large too heavy and too unwieldy to move around even in a wheel barrow. This curiosity resulting in both over 250 lb pumpkins being smashed…

  From collecting all seeds our garden has yielded this summer, to packing and labeling them, to seeing what giant specimens the smallest of seeds can become, to recognizing their shapes, sizes and function, we moved on to more metaphoric seeds, of thought and action. This we did by listening to the Seed song by…

Where is it from? How did it get here?   How did ours grow so large ? Is it the Soil? Is it the Seed? Is it the Weather? What now? What do we do with such a large pumpkin? Pressing questions weve been tackling all month long.

Our year at El Sereno middle school has begun spending September familiarizing ourselves with place (the garden) and people (all of us who use it) and the connections between all things living, plants, animals and ourselves. Each class has walked through making sensory and written observations of the entire space, sharing their insights in class.…

March brings with it the first day of spring. The vernal equinox. A time for rebirth, and a fresh start, not just in our gardens but in our lives. We got to learn the physical and symbolic importance of the moment when night and day are equal and the sun shines directly on the equator.…

In preparation for our Fungi lesson with Professor Naveen Hyder of Cal Poly Pomona the students finish up their Fungi Kingdom Poster. Theyve covered alot of ground on knowing the parts of this essential componant of a healthy ecosystem. Professor Naveen shows them different types of fungus/mushrooms (fruiting part of the mycelium) and is surprised…

With so much winter rain we expect copious amounts of weeds to come to life, so all February, between rain breaks we’ve worked feverishly to sheet mulch our pathways, and build healthy weed free pathways. While I’ve been slowly pruning each fruit tree since late January, for a robust harvest and aesthetic functional shape, the…

  Its been our signature winter vegetable. Cauliflower! Planted in the fall with starts from Sylmar High school’s farm, in beds that were mulched and well fed during the winter, each head grew to be bigger, juicer and more beautiful and tasty than the next. We’ve shared it with staff, and Enrichla admin and volunteers…

Our Rural Center at El Sereno will be growing this year as three structures will be demolished, making room for farm land. As the main users of the space, and in order to understand their perspectives,  I engaged one class in re imagining the garden and coming up with their own ideas for the new…

January brought us much needed rain and the emergence of a wet habitat that we havent seen in a long while. Between being sporadically thrust indoors and some days of bright sunshine, each class has been discovering the workings of a wet habitat. The emergence of mushrooms being the most obvious. They have been looking…

The fun that comes from pruning back in the winter is making wreathes with garden clippings. We used apricot and olive twigs and branches to make the frames, and then everyone went to town with mostly lavender and pine cones to decorate. Many students took their creations home to share with family. Some left them…

While the younger farmers continued to plant for winter, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce, each in their square foot garden, another group prepped a salad made to feed everyone, of garden harvested pumpkin, acorn squash, broccoli, chives, mint, lavender flowers, arugula and a dressing of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. To this mixture…

Our first natives this season, have gone in the ground! We’ve planted white and black sage and a native rose. Last years yucca and toyon berry are both growing well, as is a small native cherry that slowly but surely hangs on!  

Fall has shown its face at last in our orchard of plum, apple, apricot, pomegranate, fig, pear and olive trees. and with that follows lessons in pruning for next years fruit and growth. But with our erratic weather that will have to wait till Jan when all the leaves have shed and no chances of…

Our dry collection of fennel and corn varieties serve as the back drop to seed packets made by all the students from this years crop of heirloom varieties of carrots, corn, wheat and barley. All strung up in the garden, for a few weeks display before the kids each take a packet home to add…

Measuring, and dividing space, assessing companion and seasonal vegetables, and reading seed packets accurately made up our unit on square foot gardening. Were not there yet but very close. Most children have managed to plant x # of rows in each square foot assigned per child but connecting the dots between plant spacing is taking…

Weve had a few cloudy days, some over 90F and a smattering of rain. Nothing is as Nov should or has been! We’ve planted seedlings and then had them toast before they could go too far. Yet many have survived the erratic weather. All along were learning about ‘resilience’ and ‘rolling with the punches’! Here’s…

The only pomegranate that survived impatient hands, birds, squirrels and who knows who else, made it to the tasting table today! We ate the juicy brilliant red seeds, and drew this wondrous fall fruit. The brilliant sun on a post rain garden, elicited a walk around it all, observing fall. What moves, whats grown, where…

After three weeks of place and soil study, today was all about collaborative planting work. Mr Muro’s sixth graders started out by understanding cardinal directions viz a viz their garden, measuring the gardens area and perimeter, deciding which group was planting where, then testing that garden space for soil composition, and converting silt, sand and…

Our eager composters dig dig dig for soil friends and foes as they add cafeteria waste. Every moving compost creature is trapped in a jar to look at closely and draw a close enough look alike in their journals. Salvaged lunch carrots and a weeks worth of food waste also goes in the compost pile.…

Getting soil classified from areas where each group will be planting. and sharing soil readings with everyone. deciding what winter vegetables will go in one square foot for each child in the class!   while some do the square foot calculations on paper another group preps a chalk board to divide into 27 squares another…

As Fall approaches, albeit ever so slowly, we harvest and taste whats left on the fruit trees. Meanwhile our two diligent Cal State LA interns continue to prepare planting beds with a fresh layer of soil and mulch, making sure not to bury the perennial herbs, the growing artichokes and odd squash or two where…

Weve been spending our days refining our mapping skills and collecting seeds. The children are learning how much there is to record on one simple map of their garden and how many sizes and shapes there are in seeds. Not to mention the variety of ways in which to harvest them. Its a big mess…

Back to school with new batches of middle school children, began with getting a sense of place – what is where, and why. Walking and mapping the garden have been our first exercises in becoming familiar with the gardens function and systems. We have also begun to talk about seeds and gather them as we…

Summers bounty or at least what the critters left for us, awaits the children and their curious minds. We have black corn to taste, a tree full of olives to cure, both are a first in our garden, plus a ton of seeds to save!