October, and now November

It has been a very busy last 45 day or so. We finished harvesting the garden - tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, fennel, basil... all very prolific and tasty. We transplanted the entire pollinator garden, and moved all of the food production raised beds. The crews from Civic Works on Ricky Meyer's day of service were a huge help moving soil (and worms and spiders) to the new gardens and our GSB families were instrumental in the design and transplanting of the new pollinator garden.

In our new gardens we have planted white and yellow onions, garlic and pansies to overwinter. We have also planted cover crops in some of the other beds - annual rye, hairy vetch, and crimson clover. We included some 30 day radishes in the beds and canoe garden. We have also planted about 300 tulip and daffodil bulbs between our gardens and the church garden next door. Come on bees and butterflies.

We transplanted strawberries during one of our last E3 Fridays and still have some strawberries and lemon balm to move...

Happy gardening!

The move is on!

We have started to move the garden. One bed has been moved completely, and two other bed's pallets have been removed. Unfortunately the pallets that were underground started to crumble after they dried in the air. We won't be able to salvage as much of those as we had hoped. We hope to find a new home (chipped up) for them or maybe use them for fire wood - we will see.

Saturday October 2nd will be the biggest day of moving with help from Civic Works during the Ricky Meyers' Day of Service. Come out and join us.

We are also going to start to plant our winter crops. We will be doing onion sets and garlic again, as well as some swiss chard, and some 30 day radishes. We will also try to sneak some carrots under the wire - just because we can.

Harvesting and prepping for the move

Yesterday the 5th grade harvested 1/2 a bushel of winter squash (mini pumpkins), a peck of tomatoes, a peck of hot peppers, as well as sunflower, and dill seed. We cleaned out three of the 5 raised beds and discarded all of the harlequin bug infested cabbage family plants, we also weeded all the beds. There is a lot of basil to be harvested and more hot peppers that need to turn red.

We saw many other insects, mainly beneficials and saw many worms - a good sign. We will start to dismantle some of the beds for the move this week. We will also do more hand picking of the pests.

The canoe garden has bokchoy and a regular head cabbage that is getting munched on by cabbage worms. I have picked no less than 15 of these pests off of these cabbages. we have also seen cucumber beetles and harlequin bugs on the cabbage - there are only 11 plants! Ugh! i wonder how much a floating row cover would help?

Mulch is coming, mulch is coming

While not for the new food production garden proper, we have 45 yards of mulch being delivered this coming Friday for our new physical education space and for the courtyard play space.

Our land space for gardening and outdoor play has expanded greatly with the purchase of the convent. In addition to the court yard we now also have about 2,600 square feet of new physical education and recess play area just outside of the courtyard.

This new play area will be fenced with a beautiful 4' 3-rail split rail fence along Kentucky Ave. enclosed by 14 gauge wire to help keep balls in and 45 feet of 6ft privacy fence along the brick wall that not only adds safety (the brick wall drops down to a sidewalk up to 6ft from grade), but adds a large canvas for art.

Our new garden will be fenced with the same beautiful split-rail fence described above. The garden gate will also have a gorgeous trellis/arbor.

Our poor strawberries are so weeded in right now (as is much of the garden, the morning glories have gone nuts!) and are looking forward to being moved this fall, but are still producing tasty fruit. There are many daughter plants being produced that will add food for us and our pollinator friends in their new home!

Hey, while you are at it how about a nifty little rain dance - we sure could use it!

Harlequin Bugs

Yes Harlequin bugs, new at school but not for me. They are beautiful: red and black striped, or black and red striped -whatever! They are VORACIOUS sap-suckers and they love the cabbage family: cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, etc. The first time I got them in my home garden was about four years ago during my first attempt at Brussels sprouts.

Like I said, they are sap-suckers. Your leaves will look like they are wilting. Shriveled up, and dry, and brown at the edges. However it is not a lack of watering effort, it is their great effort to suck every last drop of sap out of your plant.

What to do!? Since we are organic I use a manual pest remover. My fingers. I water and squish and squish and squish and...

It is too bad they are so bad because they are so beautiful.

Semi- fallow, and pumpkins

While this year's garden is more fallow than not in anticipation of its move, we do have some exciting things happening. Mini pumpkins are one of the prolific producers in the garden. This is one of the plants started by and planted by last year's 5th graders. The bed the pumpkin resides in had plenty of manure added in the spring, which seems to have this pumpkin very happy.

We have plenty of basil, peppers and tomatoes. The tomatoes are just starting to flower now, so we expect more fruit in August and September. The strawberries are producing a few small, but tasty strawberries. The pollinator garden has been host to a wide variety of pollinators, stop by and see how many you can see.

The most annoying invasive this year has been tear-a-thumb. With gloves it has been easy to remove, but remains persistent. There are other weeds, that are more annoying than troublesome and the pollinators seems to enjoy them so we are keeping those minimally in check. We have kale, cabbage and flowering broccoli (and those pesky white flies).

We are very excited about the new garden and look forward to planting our fall and over-wintering crops.

50 organic, happy chickens and a happy farm

We helped to process 50 chickens last Friday at Sunnyside Farm in Pa. It was an intense experience, but carried out compassionately and under Homer's excellent tutelage. Homer, Ally and I worked well together and got the job completed in about 2 hours. Ally and I were rewarded with a chicken each, which we shared with our families on Sunday for supper. They were extremely delicious and went well with the other local veggies and homemade fruit cobbler.

Sunnyside Farm is a unique organic farm about halfway between York and Harrisburg off of I83. In addition to being organic they use no oil driven machinery. All of there tractors are animal operated (not quite Animal Farm, but if the pigs start walking upright, look out). They have a pig tractor, a turkey tractor, laying hen tractor, and a meat-chicken tractor. They also have a herd of cows, but they are not in a tractor as it were. One of Homer's goals for the farm is to have a quiet, great smelling farm - and it is working.

These animal have quite the life - full days eating insects, grubs, grass, and weeds in the great outdoors while hanging out with their friends.

The farm is a true model for what is sustainably possible. Sunnyside participates in the Lauraville Farmer's Market (across from the Safeway and Harford Road) on Tuesdays from 4-8.
Dru and Homer would love your help and have a wide range of chores to choose from. Contact Sunnyside farm for more information. sunny-side-farm.com or Sunnysidedru.blogspot. 1865 York Road, Dover, Pa

Boxelder bugs, rain and chickens

Well, we don't have boxelder bugs at school, but my neighbor does. They are all around her potted pepper plant usually basking in the evening sun. That is one of the joys of gardening is that, by default, you become a hobbiest entomologist. It seems their numbers are the biggest inconvenience. A great insect site is Dr. Michael Raupp's Bug of the Week he is a Professor at UMCP and a great speaker if you ever get the chance.

My chicken training is coming closer to an end. The chicken's that is. I will see the entire life cycle by the end of Friday when I prepare chickens for their CSA recipients. Don't know if I will cry or not, but it is an important part for me to experience the entirety of a food chain. I will let you know how it goes.

Rain, ahh beautiful rain, I've enjoyed every soaking drop over the last 36 hours or so. Like the country song says: rain makes corn, and corn makes... anyway the song entertains me.

Drought-like-conditions?

Heard that one on the news today... I'm surely glad it isn't an official drought, and please pass that on to your fruits and veggies that news should make them feel better.

It was nice to get those rain storms last night and I am glad to hear we may get more tonight - we sure need it.

Things are looking good in the gardens. The earth boxes have great looking plants and the garden proper is looking quite healthy.

The convent is coming along nicely. It will be nice to have such a green, beautiful, custom built space. We are so fortunate to be developing such a beautiful building and outdoor space. We are still pursuing chickens for next school year, I will update as those details unfold.

Now, go do your best rain dance :)

Summer is here!

What an exciting end of year it has been. The entire 5th grade spent a day at Backbone Mountain organic farm in Garrett County. The class helped to build a fence around the farm's raspberry field, watched a field being cultivated by draft horses and an early 1900's cultivator, harvested shitake mushroom, ate a farm fresh and produced lunch.

The students had lots of time to share their knowledge with the farmers as well as pick their brains.

The class was very excited o get back and harvest more cool weather crops, strawberries, onions garlic, and sugar-snap peas. they then planted their hot weather crops in Earth Boxes.

Real Food farm had their last farm stand at school and is branching out into the neighborhood as well as other parts of the city to get more local, seasonal, organic food into the hands of Baltimore Residents. be sure to look them up and visit one of their stands this summer!

Strawberries, peas, and seeds

Our strawberries are starting to produce red, ripe, tasty berries. Our sugar-snap peas are starting to produce, but always have such a hard time with this early heat. Students have been collecting the seeds of cabbage, and broccoli that was over-wintered and will be collecting the seeds of the Brussels Sprouts (at the corner of Cardenas and Brendan Ave.)

Check out the size of the onions and garlic in the canoe garden and in the raised beds! Can you tell which is which just by the foliage? The blueberry has already set fruit, as has the raspberry bush - yum!

Have you seen all the pollinators in the pollinator garden and all over the rest of the flowering plants? Keep your eye out for the Baltimore Checkerspot (our state butterfly) we have seen some out at North Point State Park, but not around the school.

I hope everyone is also enjoying the bounty that Real Food Farm brings by every Thursday for sale - sooooo many goodies!! Thanks RFF!

It'll be a BUGS week-end

This week-end the Green School will be supporting the BUGS program at Living Classrooms - its is a great plant sale and highlights their Utban gardening initiatives and student engagement. Put it on you calendar and go!

Prepped beds and plantings

The 5th grade has been working hard on Science Fridays preparing their beds for this years garden. The 5 raised-beds were rotated (the signs that is), and the soil had last years leaves, horse and chicken manure worked in.

Students planted some cool weather greens, carrots, beans and peas. They also planted some warm weather crops they had started - cantaloupe, peppers, and sweet basil.

The soil was teeming with earthworms and the soil was much less compacted with the new organics added in

Exciting blooms found at school

It was fantastic to return to surprise blooms this morning. The cabbage, mustard, and broccoli that was over-wintered has all set blooms. They are beautiful yellow flower clusters on the mustard and cabbage, and white on the broccoli.

Whats more is that the pollinators are loving it. A great array of bees and wasp and plenty of cabbage whites are around.

How cool is that?

Happy Spring Break

We hope everyone has enjoyed their spring break! It is so exciting to see all the colorful bulbs, shrubs and perennials showing off around the school and all of the pollinators hard at work. The sugar-snap peas are even showing their heads.

We will be planting some cool weather crops over the next few weeks (even as temps reach into the 80's for a spell) and doing some preparation of the raised-beds. It really is amazing how compact the soil has become in the raised-beds, even though they are never walked upon. It will some work to improve the soil structure, but we keep adding compost, carbons, and manure.

The canoe garden is doing well and the cabbage in some of the other containers could stand some harvesting. Our mason bees are working hard at the house, so we will be putting out the bee boxes at school this week.

The fun of over-wintering

One of the very fun, and very tangible benefits of over-wintering vegetables are being enjoyed by all right now. The canoe garden is full of onions and garlic, cabbage, swiss chard and other greens and the over-wintered pansies are in bloom and going crazy. The colors and blossoms and pollinator activity are such a welcome scene in late winter/early spring.

We have other containers that are a mix of landscape perennials, grasses, herbs, shrubs, pansies and edible greens like cabbage and swiss chard. The other enjoyable color that pollinators are enjoying are the daffodils and crocus and iris that are blooming all around the school.

We try to keep something in bloom outdoors year round and that is why we overwinter pansies. Spring bulbs offer an easy, low-maintenance way to achieve early spring blooms.

As I trimmed, and cleaned and mulched I also planted some sugar-snap peas in some of the containers which we should be eating in 55-65 days.

What, no snow?

So, no snow. We can see the soil in the canoe garden again - and much of the soil around the school. Most of the soil at-grade will be too wet to work for a while, but our container gardens offer opportunities for sugar-snap peas - can you tell I love them? Our onions, garlic, cabbage, and swiss chard seem to have survived the blizzards. Oh, how will this constant sogginess affect them?

So you may have read about our mice saga within our seeds we are starting indoors. Mrs. Primm was watering this morning and found 2, two, 1+1, 5-3 mice LOUNGING, full and content, in one of the containers. Well, she pounced, and pounced again, catching the mice within the container and released them far away from the building...

Our herbs are rockin' and we can start to transplant next week. My, how will Manga Monday enjoy fresh herbs from our new plantings again! Our teaching kitchen is thriving (going on three years of education and inspiration) and we love to be supplying fresh, whole foods again from our own urban farm.

I saw a flock of Robins yesterday - spring must be coming soon - start to look for those crocus!!!!

No more snow, or know more snow?

Well, here we go again - maybe. I really thought we would be able to get sugar-snap peas in the canoe garden, but we can barely see the soil for the snow from the last storm(s). I'm still hopeful that we will be able to get some peas going in early March. With any luck we will stay in the reasonable range for accumulation from this storm. The herbs are up in the grow room and if the mice don't beat us to them we can start to do some transplanting next week.

The CSA offers are starting to come in as well as the seed catalogs. There are so many cool local farms to support. Most likely what Mrs. Primm and I will do this year is support farmers at the farmers markets and Real Food Farm. Great Kids Farm will be offering a CSA also, so we will wait and see.

We planted a lot of spring bulbs along Cardenas Ave. and within the Organic Teaching Garden. I am very excited to start to see daffodils and crocus.

Come on Spring!!

50 +/- inches of snow and hungery mice

How do you think they do it? I don' t know.

We plant seeds, they sprout, they grow, we crack the micro-greenhouse to let things breathe, come back two days later to water - micro-greens eaten, potting mix dissheveled, lid in place!

UGGGGHHH!

Historic Snow

Here around The Green School we had over 30 inches of snow. Interestingly, at the school itself the snow blew and drifted. So in some areas you could see grass and in others there were drifts toward 5 and 6 feet. We were joking with neighbors on Brendan Ave. that we will be seeing some piles still melting in May.

5th grade planted herbs this past Thursday. Many had already sprouted by today! I meant to write a list of what is up and what is not, but I'll try to do that on Tuesday.

For everyone that is concerned about Honey Bunny - she is fine and cranky. The school is warm and she has lots of food and water. She was in no mood to leave her cage - as she sometimes does, but a carrot seemed to be appreciated.

Be safe and enjoy this historic snow:)

Chickens are coming, Chickens are coming!?

In partnership with Great Kids Farm, The Green School of Baltimore is scheduled to receive the first chicken coop built by Carver High School students, designed for durability and the enjoyment of chickens within the urban environment.

While we are months from actually getting chickens, we are hoping to look into some unique egg producing breeds that will be good for the land and space we have available.

Stay tuned for more information!

Cluck, cluck!!

More indoor Mesclun Mix

After tasting our mesclun micro-greens planted on MLK's birthday, our 5th grade gardeners planted about 8 more mini greenhouses with mesclun mix last Thursday. By Sunday morning the seed had germinated. They planted these mini green houses with fewer seed so we can try to grow bigger plants, and or transplant to a salad box. Our last mini greenhouses were quite overcrowded.

These experiments are also great practice in using these very small seeds. The lettuces especially are very small and dark. Once put on the wet potting soil you can't see them and feel like you should plant more - just to be sure...

We are experimenting with seedlings now to perfect our indoor seed starting practices for our hot weather crops. The mix we have now can be directly sowed outdoors or into our salad boxes. This mix germinates so well, and grows quickly and with relative ease, that we thought it would be a good starting point.

We will also be trying some herbs, annual and perennial, for both indoor and outdoor use. Some of these will have longer germination periods and grow at slower rates. Plenty of fickle, slow growing plants that may allow further study of the problems that can occur when starting seed indoors.

Micro-greens a-growin'!

Our micro-greens have already sprouted. Planted on Monday, our mesclun mix seedlings had almost reached the top of their container by Friday. We could harvest them as early as the formation of their second set of leaves, but we are considering leaving them, thinning them and see how productive a 5"x7" container can be.

We have set-up a grow station for starting our salad boxes and hot weather seeds. It is hard to believe how close the growing season is getting.

MLK Day of Service - Another GSB move toward food security

This year as part of our MLK day of service we completed three projects that are new to our gardens and student's at school and home ability to grow more food during the winter.

For our first project, parents built and added a bamboo trellis to our canoe garden in anticipation of our spring peas, and summer cucumbers and nasturtium. One of our parents has more than enough bamboo growing in her backyard so we harvested bamboo on Friday and brought it to school for our trellises. We will also be adding bamboo trellises to our raised beds once the designs are complete this spring.

Our second project was creating four salad boxes using the University of Maryland Extension's plans. They measure 15x21 and we will be starting them indoors under artificial lights to get a crop or two before moving them outdoors in the spring.

Our third project was recycling plastic grape tomato and salad boxes from the grocery store and creating mini-green houses for micro-greens. Students made and seeded their mini-green houses and took the home to grow.

The plans for the trellises, salad boxes, and mini-green houses were made available for all families to take home and experiment with.

Micro-greens and Peas

We are very excited to get our growing season going this coming Monday as part of our Martin Luther King celebration and day of service. We will be demonstrating how to build and start salad boxes, build mini greenhouses out of reclaimed plastice tomato and salad boxes for microgreens, and building pea trellises for our pea gardens that will be planted in late February or early March.

5th grade students visited Real Food Farm's hoop houses yesterday. They toured the facilities, spoke with the farm manager and farm workers. Real Food Farm has been selling some of their produce at school. Last week they sold out in an hour and one half!

Happy New Year

Well, we've had about 2 ft of snow since I've last written and have been out of school since Friday December 18th. We had just harvested lettuce, spinach, fennel seed, carrots, beets, and radish before the snow came. We also put in the last of our cover crop seed, so we will be interested to see if that ever germinates. Amazingly all the snow has already melted away, but it is bitter cold today with the wind chill - about 11 degrees, brrrrrr.

As the seed catalogs start to arrive we are already thinking about the possibilities for the new growing season.

We hope everyone had a safe and relaxing holiday break!