West Vernon Elementary School is located literally right next to the 110 freeway. This is a very special school with a very decided group of teachers and a wonderful principal. This is one of the first edible gardens that Enrich LA completed. Despite it’s proximity to the noisy and dusty freeway, this half acre garden is an oasis. Enrich LA visits this garden weekly.
- Smoothies in the Garden
Smoothies in the Garden
Smoothies are a great way to pack a ton of nutrition into one delicious drink! We took advantage of the abundance of fresh greens and gorgeous beets in our garden…
- Winter Garden
Winter Garden
The recent cold snap in Southern California may make us shiver, but the cool season plants at West Vernon Elementary are thriving in the frigid temps!
- The Bees Knees!
The Bees Knees!
West Vernon Elementary Garden Students had a very special visitor in the garden last week! Ceebs Bailey from HoneyLove Urban Beekeepers came to tell us all about our amazing and…
- What's eating our kale?
A Mystery in The Garden
We discovered something strange in our garden at West Vernon: giant holes in the leaves of our kale, broccoli and cabbage leaves!!
A little investigating proved that the culprits were none…
- Ode to Pumpkins
Ode to Pumpkins
"Stead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies,
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon,
If it were…
Smoothies in the Garden
Smoothies are a great way to pack a ton of nutrition into one delicious drink! We took advantage of the abundance of fresh greens and gorgeous beets in our garden at West Vernon to make some delicious smoothie recipes:
Beet/Strawberry Smoothie
3 medium sized raw beets, peeled and chopped
one 12oz bag of frozen strawberries
water
honey, to taste
Blend beets in a little water until combined. Add strawberries and honey. Blend until smooth, adding more water if necessary.
Green Smoothie
2 oranges, peeled segmented
2 small cucumbers
honey, to taste
vanilla, to taste
Several handfuls of mild-tasting greens, such as Chinese or Napa cabbage, spinach, or romaine
ice
Blend oranges, cucumbers, honey and vanilla with a little water. Slowly add in the greens and ice and blend until smooth.
They didn’t last long!
Winter Garden
The recent cold snap in Southern California may make us shiver, but the cool season plants at West Vernon Elementary are thriving in the frigid temps!
Cold-loving Collards and Chinese Cabbage Crops!
Brussels beginning to sprout!
Broccoli we let flower for the bees!
The Bees Knees!
West Vernon Elementary Garden Students had a very special visitor in the garden last week! Ceebs Bailey from HoneyLove Urban Beekeepers came to tell us all about our amazing and very important garden friends, bees!
Sometimes bees are considered a threat because of those scary stingers, but Ceebs explained that bees only sting when they feel threatened, and that stinging a human will actually kill a bee!
We got to peer into a hive, and learned all about how and why bees are so important to our gardens! Our lives literally depend on them to pollinate our plants to produce fruit and vegetables!
We also learned that city bees are healthier than country bees, because all the pesticides used in agricultural areas are very harmful for the bees. Within a one mile radius of the school, there can be as many as 10 wild bee hives!
HoneyLove’s mission is to protect the honeybees and inspire and educate new urban beekeepers, and I think they inspired quite a few kids (and perhaps a few teachers and one garden steward) to become city beekeepers at West Vernon!
A Mystery in The Garden
We discovered something strange in our garden at West Vernon: giant holes in the leaves of our kale, broccoli and cabbage leaves!!
A little investigating proved that the culprits were none other than the notorious Cabbage Worm!
These adorable caterpillars are voracious eaters of all things cruciferous! They can decimate a garden in a short span of time and are terribly difficult to get rid of! However, many hands make short work! Within 45 minutes, the students had collected more than 40 little green critters into a bug habitat, where we will watch them form into chrysalises, then into adult diamondback moths, and we will continue to monitor (and remove) them in our garden!
Ode to Pumpkins
“Stead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies,
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon,
If it were not for pumpkins we should be undoon.”
–Anonymous poem about the New World, 1639
Pumpkin celebrations were in full swing this week at West Vernon Elementary! Our garden produced more than a dozen pumpkins this fall, so we spent the entire morning learning about these truly American fruits!
Pumpkins originated in Central America, and were a staple in the diets of Native Americans who included them in their ‘three sisters’ (corn, beans and squash) gardens. Native Americans used every part of the pumpkin; they ate the seeds, flesh, leaves and even used dried out shells as bowls.
When the Pilgrims first arrived in the New World, they discovered the strange pumpkins growing everywhere. They soon discovered the pumpkin was not only abundant, but a necessary means of survival during the harsh winters because they were nutritious, versatile and long lasting. We all sampled bits of plain cooked pumpkin from our garden, as well as colonial pumpkin bread! Delicious!
Pumpkins were not used as Halloween decorations until the potato famine drove many Irish immigrants to the United States centuries later. They brought with them the legend of Jack, a no-good troublemaker who tricked the devil and was forced to wander the earth with nothing but a lantern made out of a carved turnip. While in Ireland, people would carve potatoes, beets, turnips and other hard vegetables to scare jack’s ghost away; however, when they came to America, they discovered the much larger and more carve-able pumpkin and hence, a new tradition was born!
In honor of our magnificent pumpkin, we wrote poems of our own!
“Pumpkins have bumps.
Pumpkins have lumps.
Pumpkins form in yellow, orange and green.
Pumpkins are yummy, don’t you think?
Indians used them for just about everything–
even for cupcakes and pumpkin pie!
But mostly, without pumpkins, I would cry and die!!”
–Abel and Julia
•
“Pumpkins are good.
Pumpkins are bad.
We should eat them with our dad.
We should eat them all the time.
We should also eat them in line!“
–Patrick Zavala and Natalie Saldana
•
“Pumpkins are orange like the Halloween dead.
We eat them all day and all night away.
They might be gross or maybe so good.
Pumpkins are yellow like delicious Jello.
We eat them in fall and maybe at balls!
And that’s my pumpkin poem”
–Tiffanie
•
“Pumpkins are green, pumpkins are yellow.
They are delicious to eat with Jello.
We like the pumpkins.
We like them all!
We like to eat them in the Fall!!”
–Patrick, Jeamy, Jonathan and Joseph
•
“Pumpkins are orange, yellow and green.
The devil is up all night and all day.
Pumpkins have lumps and bumps.
We trick or treat the night of the dead.
The devil is like a happy, evil monster!
On the night of the dead you better watch out!
The Devil will be after you, so open your eyes and lock your doors
Or the Devil will poison your pumpkins! Do not eat them!!”
–Melody Escalante
•
“Pumpkins are orange like the Halloween bled dead.
The devil is up all night and all day.
We trick or treat the night of the dead.
Pumpkins are good or pumpkins are bad,
but all the pumpkins are good to our dad!
Pumpkins are all kinds of colors, red, green and blue.
Pumpkins are good for you!
Yum! Yum! Yum! Pumpkins are like blueberries!”
–Alexandra
Pumpkin Perfect!
It looks like we timed our pumpkin planting perfectly at West Vernon Elementary!
Eggplants Galore!
Our eggplant crop at West Vernon has been producing quite a harvest in the last couple of weeks! Aided by the shade of the nearby pumpkin leaves, the eggplants are loaded with shiny purple fruits, and the chilis are covered in spicy peppers!
Since most of the students have never tried eggplant before, I took some home, roasted them and made Baba Ganoush. Reviews were mixed about the spicy Middle Eastern dish, but everyone was excited to try something new from the garden, especially after a hard morning full of weed pulling.
The weeds are mighty:
It grew all the way through!!!!
But the junior gardeners at West Vernon are mightier, fueled by fresh, healthy plants from the garden!
Spooky Season…
The pumpkin seeds we planted over the summer are turning into quite a crop of pumpkins at West Vernon!
If our timing and conditions are right, these little green guys should be ready for some spooky jack-o-lantern carving soon!
Weeds Weeds Weeds
A busted water pipe and a nasty case of crab grass have combined forces with the incredible heat wave to make quite a weed issue in the gardens at West Vernon! But paltry weeds are no match for these determined weed fighters!
The nimble fingered weed busters at West Vernon quickly cleared the beds of the nutrient hogging offenders and turned the clean soil in preparation for replanting!
Garden peace is restored! Bring on the fall veggies!!!
Cabbage Overload!
The hope for any garden is an abundant harvest! However, sometimes gardens become more productive than anyone can consume before everything spoils! There is nothing more tragic than wasted food!! So what does one do with an oversupply of crops?
What people have been doing for centuries…preserve them!
West Vernon Elementary had a gigantic crop of stunningly beautiful red cabbages! But there were so many cabbages, all ready to be picked right now, and we had no idea what to do with all of them. So we decided to make Sauerkraut!
Sauerkraut is one of the oldest, and one of the easiest, forms of food preservation. Most often, it is a recipe attributed to the Germans (the word literally means ‘sour cabbage’), but there is actually evidence that the Chinese workers who build the Great Wall of China ate Sauerkraut.
Sauerkraut is full of Vitamin C — as much as four times the amount found in raw cabbage – as well as pro-biotic and digestive enzymes that help aid in a healthy intestinal system. Once fermented, preserved foods can last an incredible amount of time, while retaining their nutritional value. This is one of the many reasons sailors brought vats of sauerkraut aboard their ships — to prevent scurvy!
It’s pretty much a Superfood.
Plus, it’s super fun to play with your food!!!!
It's a tough job to mush cabbage! Eating healthy food from our garden makes these kids strong enough to handle it!!!!
Out With The Old, In With The New!!!
One of the most exciting things about a garden, is that it is in a continuous state of change! The students at West Vernon are always excited to see what is new and different in the garden each visit!
One of the things we noticed this week, was that several of the plants were past their prime! We discussed the various stages of a plant, and even though we sometimes only eat plants in one stage of their growth, the ultimate goal of any plant was to produce seeds. There was an excellent example of this in one of our broccoli plants that was full of long thin pods. We opened up some pods and examined the tiny, pretty, green broccoli seeds.
Since broccoli is a cool weather vegetable, and all the plants were showing us evidence of being past their flowering stage, we decided to clear them out and make room for new crops!
The kids at West Vernon are hard workers and strong, so they made short work of it!
And it certainly didn’t take much work for the students to decide what warm season crop to plant in the newly cleared space…
…pumpkins, of course!
A Celery Harvest for Ants on a Log
West Vernon students were lucky to have huge celery plants growing in the lovely garden to make a healthy, delicious snack with – ants on a log!
We harvested all the celery plants that had matured, washed and cut the stalks, and spread peanut butter and sprinkled raisins on them! Another hit combining familiar ingredients in a new, creative way!
Students also spent some time drawing a map of the garden and practicing mindfulness of nature, science, and gardening in the peaceful setting.
It was a lovely way to wrap up the sessions at West Vernon. What a beautiful, healthy, garden experience it has been!
The Perfect Test Relief!
Students all over Los Angeles are in the midst of heavy California Standard Testing. So it was no surprise that weeding the garden, on a beautiful day at West Vernon, was greeted with such enthusiasm and diligence!
While the students were simply enjoying the change of pace from their rigorous testing, their minds and bodies were enjoying the fresh air, exercise and vitamin D!
Vitamin D deficiency has been linked with obesity, according to research from the Medical College of Georgia. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 9% of children across the US, was vitamin D deficient, and 61% - or 50.8 million - was vitamin D insufficient! Get out there and weed!!!!
West Vernon Elementary School takes great pride in this beautiful garden, and it was recently dedicated to a beloved teacher. Her spirit is certainly alive in this garden!
Mulch, weeding competition rematch
Last week at West Vernon Elementary, the boys and girls of Dr. Hugo’s class participated in a competition to see who could weed more in a given time period. This week the two teams demanded a rematch, and both teams came to the garden determined to be the winners – and off they went!
Boys win this week!
Mulch was also delivered to the school garden, and the students went straight to work putting it in the garden. We reviewed how mulch (wood chips) would hinder the growth of weeds and enable the garden to flourish!
All mulch'd up!
Our snack consisted of a crunchy cucumber paired with red bell pepper – both were sprinkled with lemon, salt, and pepper, making it a light, refreshing snack after all the weeding and putting down the mulch!
Budding grapes, tomatoes, oh my!
Our first fruit of the season are coming in at West Vernon, and boy are the students excited!
Let’s take a look at these beauties:
Tomatoes!
Grapes!
Classtime was well spent weeding and transferring bucketfuls of compost onto the field. Dr. Hugo’s class even participated in a contest to see who could weed more in the span of 10 minutes – girls vs. boys!
Weeding contest!
Girls win!
The garden is coming together nicely thanks to all the hard work the students (not to mention the teachers and administrators) are putting in!
Gardenwork coming along nicely...compost heap shrinks as the soil goes into the garden!
A heaping 7 yards of compost soil delivered to West Vernon
It was quite a lot of compost, but then again, there’s quite a lot of garden to cover!
The task of moving the soil into the garden area required an impressive amount of teamwork; teachers, students, and administrators alike pitched in to expedite the process.
Many students were happy to dig, bucket, and transport the soil into the garden, while others focused on weeding the plots of land that were to be receiving the compost. Everyone was excited at the prospect of setting up the new plants with nutrient-rich soil.
Dedicated weeders
Dedicated raker
To reward ourselves, we harvested some chard from the garden and topped it off with a healthy quinoa, bean, and vegetable salad dressed in a lemon vinaigrette.
West Vernon’s compost bins have arrived, hurrah!
Time to get compostin’! We spent the class time sorting through the compost area that had been piling up to find a good mix of “green” and “brown” organic matter to start composting.
Discovered a hidden carrot!
And very telling of the work ethic of the students in the garden class, when asked which they would like to do first, the students picked to work first before having their treat!
Fresh fruit smoothies with mangoes, pineapple, strawberries, bananas, yogurt, and coconut milk!
All blended!
Nutrition session: new idea for a healthy snack with familiar ingredients!
West Vernon students had the privilege of re-imagining a very familiar fruit as a new and exciting prospect for a bit of a fancier snack with the addition of a few key ingredients.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you: the Banana! Why yes, the banana is high in potassium, manganese, fiber, vitamin B6, and vitamin C.
We spread a dollop of peanut butter, drizzled honey, and sprinkled some wheat germ and cinnamon on top to finish it off. It was quite the crowd-pleaser!
The various stages of the snack being prepared:
With a dollop of peanut butter and some honey...
...and then topped off with wheat germ and cinnamon
Finished product!
The students also cleared out some more plants that had gone to seed to make room for the new plants!
It’s Tasty Tomato Time! (and alliteration time)
Now that the new planting season is upon us, we’ll be planting all sorts of fun summer fruits and veggies! The previous week’s classes had voted on what to plant, and tomatoes were a definite favorite. So to start off the season, we got to work planting tomato seedlings!
We harvested some of the lettuce plants that were about to go to seed and made room for the tomato seedlings.
And in preparation of the tomatoes to come, we made a snack celebrating the tomato: BRUSCHETTA! Just some chopped tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil, salt and pepper atop toasted baguette crisps – yum!
Eagerly anticipating the brightly colored treat
Tomato seedlings in the background, waiting to be planted and turned into the delicious Bruschetta in the foreground
Harvesting lettuce to make room for the tomatoes
Tomatoes planted!
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