Thanks for another great season!

Another season of Children's Learning Garden programs at Waltham Fields Community Farm has come to an end... but don't despair! We will continue to post recipes, farm news and more throughout the coming months, and we hope that you will continue to visit our blog to stay connected over the winter season!

Here is the recipe for "Compost Granola" from last week's CLG program:

Compost Granola*
*Many ingredients can either be excluded or replaced depending on allergies or preferences

"Carbon" Ingredients:
2 cups rolled oats

"Nitrogen" Ingredients:
1 cup dried fruits

"Soil Organism" Ingredients:
3/4 cup sunflower and/or pumpkin seeds
3/4 cup chopped nuts

"Moisture":
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup honey

"Heat":
Oven/toaster oven at 350 degrees F

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the oats on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Mix the oil and honey in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until thoroughly mixed and "liquidy" (thinned-out). Mix the toasted oats, honey/oil mixture, and all other ingredients in a large bowl. Spread this oat mixture on a greased baking or roasting pan and bake for 30-60 minutes or until browned and crunchy. Break it into pieces and enjoy!

Singin' our Compost Song

Don't forget to join us for the Harvest Potluck this Saturday if you can (see post below for details)!

Caring for Transplanted Herbs at Home

Last week in the Learning Garden, our 3rd-5th graders learned how to transplant herbs into pots so that they can have an indoor herb garden at home!

What's Growing Here?

Here are some tips for caring for your transplanted herbs at home:

Light

For the first week after transplanting, put them in indirect light. Then move them to a place where they will get at least 6 hours of sunlight a day. In general, the more sunlight the better. If you really get into indoor gardening, you can look into buying some grow lights.

Water

Be careful not to overwater. Keep the soil moist but not wet. Usually watering once or twice a week is enough.

Feeding

No need to feed your herbs for a couple of months after transplanting. Then feed them with a good quality plant fertilizer such as fish emulsion. Follow the directions on the package.

Weeding

Since we’re transplanting these herbs directly from the garden, you may have to do a little weeding!

Harvesting

Don’t be discouraged if your herbs grow slowly at first. All plants grow more slowly in the winter. Let the plants grow a little before you clip some of the herbs. Be sure to leave some healthy growth on the plant!

Let's Talk about Food

What's your favorite
food season?

In trying to encourage the kids to become excited and interested in the food they eat, we challenged them to name the season(s) in which certain crops can be grown and distributed locally within the northeast.

Talking about seasonal produce with the kids often leads to discussion of their local climate, what their state or community is capable of growing or raising throughout the year, and issues of distribution such as cost, transport, and access.

We also like to have the kids discuss the origins of their favorite foods and meals so that they can better understand where and how their preferred foods are first grown and prepared as separate components to be processed into singular goods.

Can you break down your favorite food?

Media (text and image) created and published by Rebekah Carter 2010.

Exploring G.R.O.W.

Green Rows of Waltham (acronym: GROW) is a city-owned community garden located at the UMass Field Station alongside eight acres of Waltham Fields' farmland and the Boston Area Climate Experiment (acronym: BACE). GROW provides Learning Garden participants the opportunity to see what other people are growing locally and is a great place to test out plant identification skills! We also examine the individual garden plots for ideas to bring to our Learning Garden.




Who's teaching who?



Media (text and image) created and published by Rebekah Carter 2010.

From a Farm, Not From a Farm

Where's it from?

From a Farm, Not From a Farm is a simple game we like to play in the Learning Garden. The kids are divided into two teams. At the starting line, one member from each team is given a product (often represented by an empty food package); the child must race to the "From a Farm" and "Not From a Farm" buckets, deciding along the way in which of the two buckets to place the item.

Help from team members is welcomed.


After all items have been given and the final participants have returned to the starting line, we sit down and discuss the results.


The exercise is a great reminder of the necessity of farms to humans for food and other products we use in our daily lives. It helps teach the children how to identify plant and animal-based products and packaging apart from synthetically-made materials.

Decision made!

Media (text and image) created and published by Rebekah Carter 2010.

Parts of a Plant

One of our favorite activities in our Learning Garden programming this summer was our discussion-based "Parts of a Plant" exercise. Much like it sounds, the exercise asks the children to identify the six basic parts of a plant, discuss their individualized purpose, and to classify various food items as root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit, or seed.

Regardless of age or botanical experience, the activity encourages the kids to work together in identifying common foods as essential components of an entire organism and even-larger ecosystem. Best of all, this exercise can be used just about anytime or place! Continue the activity at farmers markets, restaurants, grocery stores, community gardens, and other local farms.

Media (text and image) created and published by Rebekah Carter 2010.