El Sereno Middle School. The Habitat begins.

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Amending @ Alta Loma

The garden at Alta Loma produced beautiful beets, chard, kale, cabbage and much much more! But…It’s that time of year to make sure the soil is healthy for our new crops. After the helpers amended the plots, we planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil, thyme and cucumbers.

Yummy food is just around the corner!

Fixing sprinklers, planting tomatoes, and enjoying loquats from the garden.

We’ve been busy fixing up problematic sprinklers.

We planted tomatoes.

We treated ourselves to fresh loquats from the loquat tree in the garden!

Potatoes, Garlic, Onions and More!

The Luther Burbank Middle School garden is in full bloom. Early this morning, birds, butterflies, bees and a slew of insects filled the space. Months ago, when we were nervous about morning frost we ventured out and planted potatoes, garlic, onions, kale and chard. This week we enjoyed the fruits of our labor. After harvesting the edibles, we rinsed them off and threw them onto a pan.

Students were amazed that they grew every ingredient, except for the mushrooms!

The garlic bulbs needed to be dried ahead of time but we harvested a new one for the following week. Yummm!

Wait, there’s more! The corn we planted in March is thigh-high…That means it easily surpassed the saying, “knee-high by the 4th of July!”

 

Spring @ Markham

The plants at Markham Farm seem to be enjoying the warmer weather. There are signs of new and tasty edibles in the future! Check out this young butternut squash. In some countries, young squash like the one below are considered a delicacy.

The native area is full of many vibrant colors that are sure to attract our friends the pollinators.

Alta Loma Elementary School

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Following the Ladybugs

The artichoke plant at Atwater attracts a lot of ladybugs in all stages of development. Great for learning!

El Sereno Middle School Habitat progress

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Tomas O’Grady and
Roberto Martinez
Superintendent and Dr.Francis Gipson , PRincipal

Buckets of fun at Delevan Drive!

This student from Mrs. Hong’s class hand picked all this kale with a small group of friends. Buckets of fun in the school garden!

Its Harvest Time

Strawberries, Red Russian kale, spinach, and red lettuce all picked by the students at Delevan Drive. Happy Harvest!!!!!!

El Sereno. Massive Volunteer built habitat undertaking. Progress report.

Mulch and tree stumps from LAUSD tree trimming ready for the install

Mulch and tree stumps from LAUSD tree trimming ready for the install

Terracing with volunteers from Boston Consulting

Boston Consulting employees

Uber-Volunteer Dee Dee Wei (left) with Taylor Rodriguez

Happy Mother’s Day

The students at Atwater Elementary made heart-shaped seed bombs for Mother’s Day, made from old newspaper and other scrap paper. Each student got to make a heart filled with carrot seeds for their moms. It was a fun activity and as one of the teacher’s pointed out, the hearts are symbolic of our love for our mothers and when the seeds start growing it will be a continuation of that love. :)

Hearts and smiles for mom.

Canvas was stretched all over the garden for drying.

Colorful Snacks from the Markham Farm

“Yummmm!”

That was the first word that came out of a new student’s mouth. We worked in the garden for a bit and then prepared this quick snack. Everyone agreed that the fresh cilantro and lime juice made the salsa even tastier.

 

 

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The new learning Habitat and Farm at El Sereno Middle School

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

5/8/2013

Contact Tomas O’Grady. Tomasogrady@enrichla.org. 323 387 3866

The new learning Habitat and Farm at El Sereno Middle School is to be completed on May 18th, 2013 in celebration of Harvey Milk Day. 200 volunteers will build a mini farm, dry creek and native garden.

This schoolyard habitat will offer an opportunity for all El Sereno students to become stewards of their landscape and to engage directly with nature. Schoolyard habitats create an opportunity for on-campus curriculum-based science learning. The students will not only be part of the work day when we build this habitat, but can be part of its upkeep. Over time, we expect the habitat to become a natural extension of their classroom.

Community Partners

Boston Consulting | Gay For Good | Fox Gives | The Office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa | You Think | Whole Foods | Los Angeles Unified School District | City Of Los Angeles | Sodder Studio | LYFT | Monica Garcia, School Board President

“Our goal is to create a schoolyard habitat built on sound ecological principles for habitat restoration and on innovative educational programming.” Tomas O’Grady

The Woodlawn Elementary School garden has well over 30 species of edible plants. Some of these wonderful fruits, vegetables, and herbs are hard to recognize in their immature stage so we decided to make signs to help our garden community.

The signs were showered throughout the garden when we finished up the day. They’ll helps us all learn the plants in our beautiful space.

 

Seedlings are in @ Wilton Place!

Hundreds of students at Wilton Place Elementary School came to their school garden today to transplant seedlings. While they were planting, they noticed some of the gardens living things. One student shouted, “Beeeeees!” Another exclaimed, “Worms!”

Needless to say, it was a fun day in the sun!

A Garden Rich in Edibles!

Colorful chard

The parsley turned out to be a very popular nibble.

Young red onions.

Snap peas.

A big head of lettuce.

 

Lavender blooms

Young carrots.

Purple cauliflower

 

El Sereno habitat and farm native shrubs list

sage

 

 

SHRUBS LIST

3 spice bush
5 bush anemone
81 carmel creeper
6 red flowered buckwheat
35 lillians pink coral bells
56 douglas iris
27 ca grey rush
28 canyon prince wild rye
46 deer grass
20 margarita bop foothill penestemon
4 coffeebery
3 lemonade berry
15 white sage
15 cleveland sage
36 hummingbird sage
24 blue eyed grass
4 giant chain ferm
250 ca meadow sedge
   
   
  Trees
11 misc fruit trees

 

The new school farm at Gardner Elementary

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Its Hummus Time at Delevan Drive

Hummus snack

Students and teachers loved this garden snack!!!! Some students broke up into teams and picked the fresh rosemary and kale for our healthy garden snack. Big fun in the school garden.
Recipe:
-kale
-Red bell pepper
-Carrots
-Tomatoes
-Lemon
-Rosemary
-Hummus
-crackers

Strawberries, Strawberries, Strawberries!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Students at Delevan Drive were full of excitement when they realized how many strawberries had grown in their school garden! They were more excited when they had an opportunity to pick them by hand and taste them.

Pico de Gallo @ Wilshire Park

Students at Wilshire Park tasted pico de gallo with a sweet little twist. This recipe is great for cold and warm weather, alike. It will be even better when the peppers and tomatoes come from the school garden!

If you are interested in making it at home. Use these fresh, healthy and simple ingredients:

-1 Tomato

-1 cup Pineapple

-1 Mango

-1 Bell Pepper

-1 Persian cucumber

-1 Green Onion

-1 Lime

-Touch of salt

Chop tomato, pineapple, mango, bell pepper, cucumber and green onion into small cubes. Squeeze lime juice over ingredients and add salt. Mix and enjoy!

*Makes 4 cups- enough to feed many little mouths!

Wilshire Park gardens progress

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Never too young to pitch in

Dee, Tomas and Christine

Building the outdoor cabana

Signs @ Luther Burbank

Even on this rainy day, students at Luther Burbank Middle School got their hands dirty. This time it wasn’t because of the soil, it was from pastels, ink pads, markers and crayons. Check out the great signs they made.

Using a projector, students looked at images of the fruits, vegetables and herbs growing in the garden and tried to name them. Once they identified the produce, they created signs which we’ll laminate and use in the garden.

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New! Monlux Elementary School garden and mini-park

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Volunteering in the Roosevelt High Garden

After

One of ourvery dedicated volunteers, Hanna helped out in the Roosevelt High School garden today. It was a productive day- we tilled, amended, watered, weeded and transplanted, all in just an hour!

After the soil was prepared, Hanna transplanted eggplant seedlings. What a delicious summer it will be! Thanks Hanna!

 

6 Legged Visitors in the Cheremoya Garden

The Cheremoya garden suffered from some uninvited visitors- aphids! Fortunately, as you can see they garden prevailed.

The plants have received a lot of love from students and parents alike. I bet the tomato plants we put in today will be fruitful in just a few short months.

Volunteers in the Luther Burbank Garden

Since students at LBMS were busy taking the CST this week, some volunteers spent time weeding and harvesting in the garden. One stellar volunteer, Sonja joins the Burbank Bears in the garden every week. We definitely needed to harvest some artichokes, so here she is finding her way to the edible part of the plant.

After two hours in the garden, we had loads of produce. Check it out!