San Pedro Elementary School Garden

We had a great beet harvest at San Pedro recently. After pulling some gorgeous beauties from our garden, we bi-sectected a beet to see how the nutrients travel from the root up to the leaves. We talked about how beets are high in vitamin C, and how beet juice is a traditional natural dye! Then we sliced those sweet raw beets up, drizzled them in fresh lime juice and olive oil, sprinkled them with fresh basil from our garden and munched them all up! Delicious!

San Pedro students turned into a bunch of hungry pollinators in the garden!

Many of the students knew that bees, hummingbirds and butterflies were important pollinators, but they didn’t know exactly why or how they pollinated the plants in the garden. To illustrate the pollinators’ important role, we studied some beautiful Irises!

We discovered that the pollen is formed on the anthers, the orange-powder covered stalks on the outer circle, and the eggs — which will become seeds when fertilized — are located at the bottom of the pistil, the long stalk in the center.

Of course, everyone knew that the bees collected pollen to make honey. But what in the world do the butterflies and hummingbirds want?

Well, in addition to containing the eggs, the pistil is full of delicious nectar that the hummingbirds drink with their long beaks, and the butterflies drink with their uncurled proboscis. This is where they get their energy! And while trying to get to the delicious nectar, the birds and butterflies get covered in pollen. Once that pollen gets on the pistil, the eggs become fertilized and seeds are formed! We owe pollinators lots of thanks; without them, we’d have no beautiful flowers or delicious food!

After learning why the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds visited the flowers, the students created their own pollinator masks!!

After transforming into pollinators, the little pollinators were pretty hungry for a snack! So we made Almond-Honey Energy Balls!

The bees went right for the honey in these Energy Balls!

...so did the hummingbirds!

A pack of pretty pollinators, looking for a delicious nectar snack!

The garden at San Pedro Elementary was bustling with activity!

Volunteer intern Jennifer, starts off the bug team with a buggy question!

Two volunteer interns, Jennifer and Darlynn, from New Village Charter School, came to help with the classes this week! It was great to have extra hands for our busy day, so we divided the classes into two teams:

BUG TEAM

The Bug Team’s mission was to track bugs in the garden. Bugs were identified as beneficial to the plants in the garden, like pollinating bees and earthworms that fertilize and oxygenate the soil, or pests, like aphids and slugs that eat our lovely plants!

The Bug Team also planted marigolds in the tomato beds.

Marigolds are excellent companion plants, since they repel several types of pests that enjoy tasty tomatoes!

Darlynn and marigolds! Happy, happy marigolds!

PLANT TEAM

The Plant Team’s mission was to identify the different parts of plants that we eat.

We listed all the plant parts we eat, such as:

ROOTS: radish, turnips, carrots, onions, jicama, potatoes

STEMS: celery, green onions, rhubarb, leeks

LEAVES: mint, basil, rosemary, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, cilantro

FLOWER: cauliflower, broccoli, marigolds, brussel sprouts, artichoke, rose, squash blossoms

FRUITS: tomatoes, apples, oranges, avocado, peaches, strawberries, pumpkins, cucumbers, watermelon, peppers

SEEDS: sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, peas, coconuts, beans, peanuts, chili seeds

We had so much fun naming the different parts of plants that we eat, that we almost didn’t stop in time!

But the best part of the day was making our snack — A Plant Parts Salad!

A healthy salad, full of fresh ingredients and COLOR!

We used one plant part (6 total) to make our salad. Then we drizzled it with a simple dressing and served it on romaine ‘wraps’.

The students loved the salad and were excited to try their own variations of the Plant Parts salad at home!

Yum!!!

Here’s the recipe so you can try too!

Plant Parts Salad

Salad:

Radishes (roots)

Celery (stems)

Oregano (leaves)

Marigold petals (flowers)

Apple (fruits)

Sunflower Seeds (seeds)

Dressing:

Fresh lemon juice (fruits)

Olive oil

Honey

Cinnamon (stems)

Chop all ingredients. Whisk together dressing and toss with salad. Place one scoop of salad on romaine leaf, wrap and enjoy!

It was a lovely warm and sunny day to begin gardening classes at San Pedro Elementary last Thursday.

This beautiful new garden is situated under a large oak tree on the playground, and is wonderfully accessible to all the students as they come out to play or eat lunch. The students seem equally excited about this garden, and even kids who didn’t attend the garden classes stopped by to ask questions about all the new trees, shrubs, flowers and veggies (and some mushrooms that they discovered in the corner, as well)!

Goji Berries!!!

Two classes came out to the garden on Thursday, and we spent the first half of our time exploring all of the plants in the garden. We discovered tomatoes, peppers, chard, strawberries and radishes seedlings. We also smelled and tasted many of the herbs in the garden as well, such as basil, oregano, sage, thyme and rosemary.

In addition to discovering what was growing in the garden, we kept a chart of all the bugs we encountered. We discovered lots of bees, ants and a few spiders (and albeit not an insect, we saw a hummingbird as well). We’ll continue to track the bug population in the garden in the next few weeks to see what that tells us about the relationship between plants and insects!

After our tour and bug tracking, we made a snack. The basil in the garden was ready to be pruned back a little, so it was the perfect addition to our recipe. We discussed the differences between the food found in grocery stores versus the food grown in a garden, such as pesticides, nutrition, food processing, cost effectiveness and being a part of – and in touch with – our planet.

Our snack consisted of fresh organic strawberries and chopped basil, drizzled with honey and served on fresh apple ‘chips’ –

–a simple, healthy and beautiful snack that all the kids wanted to take home to share with their families! Delicious!

Basil-Strawberries
On Apple Slices

Pink Lady or other crisp apple
Strawberries
Honey
Fresh Sweet Basil leaves

Remove the stems from the strawberries and discard.  Chop the strawberries into small chunks and toss with honey. Let sit for a few moments.

Using a mandoline, or a knife, thinly slice the apples and arrange on a serving plate.

Finely chop the basil leaves. Add to the strawberries and stir to combine.

Carefully spoon the strawberry-basil mixture onto the apple slices.

Serve and enjoy!