Reedy Fork Elementary recieves their Earth Machine from Whole Foods Market!

Pamela Moody, Lisa Pursley,  Lorraine Marshall, Brandon Chavis, ,and  LaTrinda Williams at Reedy Fork Elementary just recieved their Earth Machine composter  donated by Greensboro's Whole Foods Market. The teachers won the composter in a drawing at the School Garden Workshop held at the Edible Schoolyard in November. The Reedy Fork Gardening team can't wait to start their school garden this spring! Four other schools also won composters in our workshop drawing. We will be featuring them in separate posts soon!

Sweet Potato Month

As a FoodCorps Service Member, my daily goal is to connect kids to healthy food in three ways: garden engagement, hands-on nutrition education, and access to fresh, local food at school. The sweet potato has proved to be the most versatile of vegetables to achieve this goal, which is no surprise because it is the most famous of North Carolina’s crops.

I serve in 20 classrooms across five schools- that’s over 300 kids per week! In order to make my time most meaningful to so many unique kids, I have implemented the three-pronged approach to a specific vegetable or fruit each month, which coincides with Guilford County School’s “Food Focus” (see lunch menu). With sweet potatoes featured in November, students were able to harvest the produce they had grown in their very own gardens. At Fairview Elementary, third graders dug 28 pounds of sweet potatoes from a 4’X4’ garden plot! We left our bounty to cure in the classrooms in paper bags for a couple weeks and then as Thanksgiving drew near, we got cooking!

With portable cooking equipment donated from All Clad cookware, I’m able to bring a mobile kitchen of sorts into the classroom. For November, I prepared a cooking demonstration for mashed sweet potatoes. Students took part in the mixing and mashing of ingredients, and took home a hand-made recipe card to share with family for the holiday. Most students enjoyed the natural sweetness of the mashed sweet potatoes, but most importantly, everyone gave it a try!

Students at Oak Hill Elementary experienced sweet potatoes in a new way at lunch—a tasting table was set up serving raw sweet potato sticks with tzatziki Greek yogurt dip. The 100 pounds of taters were donated from Farmer Larry of Troxler Farms in Browns Summit. Students were willing to try this different snack, and many came back begging for the recipe! Upon leaving the lunchroom, students were able to share their preferences with us via a sticker voting board.

Local sweet potatoes were featured on GCS lunch lines on November 30 and it was fantastic to see many kids choose them, perhaps due in part to their month-long sweet potato education.

O'Henry Article on our School Gardens! Nov.2012

We got covered in the November issue of O"Henry Magazine, go school gardeners!!!

SCHOOL GARDEN WORKSHOP AT EDIBLE SCHOOLYARD NOV.8TH

I wanted to share some photos and let you know what a great time we had at the School Garden Workshop at the Edible Schoolyard on November 8th.

Members of the Edible Schoolyard staff Hailey Moses, and Justin Leonard led our participants on a tour of their fantastic gardens followed by hands-on gardening tips from Karen Neill, GC Coop. Extension's Urban Horticulturalist and gardening expert. Next, FoodCorps service members Leah Klaproth and Eliza Hudson presented a hands-on lesson "sensual soils" lesson, very creative and experiential.

Jennifer Bedrosian, ESY's head chef led us in a local apple tasting activity and taught us how to make butter! The catchy song she shared while we churned was a lot of fun. Leah and Eliza wet our appetites for supper while teaching us about nutrition resources and activities for k-5 students.

We dined on a delicious supper donated by Whole Foods Greensboro Market, the salads seemed to be the favorite item for most of us.

Speaking of salad, Jenn Phillips from Greensboro Montessori modeled "Plant Parts Lesson" strategies which can be modified for various grade levels. Jenn also brought her worm bin to demonstrate Vermiculture for us, a very controlled, effective way to compost. (She'll provide the worms to anyone wanting to start up!)

Next up was Kelly misiak, Director of The Giving Seed Sustainability Project who taught us a great game about pollinators. Kelly also showed us her website and talked about the great workshops her organization offers.

Cynthia Nielsen, GC Coop Ext. School Garden Network Coordinator wrapped up sharing our website and blog all designed to support school gardeners. We reviewed the material contained in participants' folders, all of the lessons presented and many wonderful recipes form the Edible Schoolyard staff. Curriculum summaries and a list of grant opportunities were also included. Attendees came from as far away as Forsyth and Rockingham County.

The Composters donated by Whole Foods Market were drawn by Woodraille Gilchrist Madison Elementary, Lisa Thomas Summerfield Elementary, Pam Moody  Reedy Fork Elementary, Helena Rushby Kirkman Park Elementary, and Deb Calusdian  Cone Elementary.

I know that many of you had scheduling conflicts that kept you from being able to join us. Given that, and all the positive feedback we've received, we will be scheduling more workshops in the early spring. If you have any requests about times of day and days of the week that work for you we will do our best to accommodate you. Also let us know what you would like covered.

Best Regards and Happy Holidays! 

GREENSBORO DAY SCHOOL CELEBRATES THE END OF SUMMER!

Rose Marie Cook shares this update from Greensboro Day School's gardens: We celebrated our end of the season with a watermelon feast and sent the potatoes home to be cleaned once more and cooked.  We are having a school-wide PAWS for service day this coming Saturday and one of the sessions will be in our garden.  I am so thankful for the help.  We will clean out the remains of the summer and amend the soil so we can put some cold weather vegetables under the cold frame. Hopefully we aren't too late in the season to have a good harvest throughout the winter.  

HOLIDAY MARKET AT LINDLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!

Lindley Elementary's School garden based Markets are becoming a tradition. We hope to see you there!

Summerfield's New Garden is Up and Running

Lisa Thomas showed us Summerfield's new fall garden. They did it the right way, taking lots of time to find the right spot and gain teacher, administrator and parent support. Students loved harvesting sweet potatoes!

Food Day/Salad Day Celebration at Peeler

October 24th was Food Day and Peeler Elementary celebrated in style. Students ate their salad FIRST before the cafeteria lunches, their choice. Nutrition comes naturally to students at Peeler!

Thanks to a Tool Box grant from Lowes, parents and teachers at Peeler planned and executed this wonderful outdoor learning space with continuous permanent benches and a shaded stage. Perfect for a Performance Arts magnet school. I'm sure it will be well used!

WHOLE FOODS MARKET LOVES SCHOOL GARDENERS!

Whole Foods Market just donated five composters to our School Gardens. They have also provided hundreds of seed packets from Botanical Interests to our gardeners. Thanks for the support Whole Foods Greensboro!

Smith High School gets busy~Science in the garden!

Ben L. Smith High School IB Chemistry students and their partners from NC A&T Biological Engineering students preparing and planting the first phase of the winter season lettuce and collards greens at Smith research garden area (Natuculture ).

School Garden Network at Lindley Elementary!

Thursday at Lindley Elementary was a lovely day for our School Garden Network meeting!
Pictured here are Leah Klaproth, Eliza Hudson, Yvonne Foster, Mica Cohen Jones, Kelly Misiak, Palmer McIntyre, Linda Mooth, and Sherrill Meldau.

Thank you Whole Foods for the yummy refreshments!

Starting the Year with Compost and Scuppernongs!

At Greensboro Montessori, we're starting the year with a lot of harvesting!   Scuppernongs, the state fruit of North Carolina, are a constant favorite and are being enjoyed daily during recess and gardening classes.  

We're also preparing our beds for fall crops, which involves lots of compost.  The students love finding all the critters as they distribute the finished compost!   Worms and pillbugs are always exciting and it's fun to be surprised by the centipedes and millepedes.   Snakes and toads are more rare and get everyone's attention when they come to visit us while we're working in the gardens.

Garden Recovery Act

Before: What maternity leave will do to your garden.

After: What an afternoon of sheet mulching with 7th graders can do to your garden.

Want to know more about sheet mulching?  View this video: 

Morehead Elementary Garden Harvest

Green beans, pumpkins, Swiss chard and tomatoes - also ready to harvest sweet potatoes.

and here is the first sample:

More Farmer's Market at Lindley,
go Palmer!

The Farmers Market at Lindley this morning was lovely! They have created quite a community around the school markets this year. Can't wait to visit the next one in the spring...

Join us at Lindley Elementary Saturday Morning for their
FARMERS MARKET! see the calendar for details

SCHOOL GARDEN NETWORK MEETING

CELEBRATE NEW BEGINNINGS IN THE GARDEN!

LINDLEY ELEMENTARY  (map below)  

Thursday Sept. 20th 4PM

Join us to support one another in a new year of school garden growth and challenges! 

Free seed give away!

(RSVP please)

Light refreshments provided

Join us at Whole Foods!

Hey guys, join us at Whole Foods  Back to School activities Saturday, Aug 18th 1-4pm!

Master Gardeners to work with School Gardens

So excited about our meeting today with Master Gardeners! They are training to work in the schools with gardens. Let me know if you would like to benefit from the expertise a master gardener has to offer.

Check Out Our New Website

Over the summer, we've been working to create a new homepage for the Guilford County Coop Extension School Garden Network. We've got School Garden resources, lesson plans, events and much more! Check out our website at http://guilford.ces.ncsu.edu/sgn!

Welcome!

Welcome to Guilford County Cooperative Extension School Garden
Network team blog! We hope this can be a space for everyone involved in school gardening in Guilford County to share their experiences. Lets let each other know about what works, and troubleshoot what doesn't!

We'd love to have all of you be part of this community! If you're involved in a School Garden in Guilford County and would like to post about your gardening experiences, please email Cynthia Nielsen to be added (you will be prompted to create an account if you do not have one.)

Hope to hear from you!

Cynthia Nielsen
GC Coop. Ext. School Garden Network Coordinator