Planting our seeds! by Eli

In this post Eli will be taking us through the process of planting our seeds.

In the first picture, you can see that the teacher laid out on a table all the vegetables that we can grow outside in our garden plots. Some of the vegetables available included carrots, beets, garlic, and all sorts of beans. All the vegetables did have certain things in common, like how far apart the seeds needed to be placed between one another, and how many days it would take to maturity. Some of the vegetables needed special treatment, like the peppers have to start indoors until germination is done.

In picture two you can see numerous things going on with everyone's gardens. Alex and Dustin are already getting started planting the seeds they want in their plot. They are approximating the exact space each seed needs in order to grow properly. I can be seen in the picture overlooking my finished rows on my plot, with trenches in between in order to prevent flooding. Mhaya can be seen using a hoe to finish of her rows. Jacob can be seen using a watering pot to water his plot and to give the seeds he just planted the nutrients they need to grow.

 Mhay can be seen using a hoe to finish of her rows. Jacob can be seen using a watering pot to water his plot and to give the seeds he just planted the nutrients they need to grow.

 

Now that we have our rows laid out and our seeds planted it is time to water, step back, and watch our garden grow!

Turning over the soil and clearing the weeds- by Mhaya and Elle

In this post, we will look at the students preparing the plots for planting.

 My classmates are getting rid of the weeds via manual labor. Using pesticides would be easier, but not as good for the environment (right).

After a long day of ridding our assigned plots from the weeds that infested them, some kids began raking the dirt to get it its humus dark color that it needs for it to be healthy (left).

 Emma is seen working hard flipping the soil to mix existing nutrients thoroughly. Others can be seen working to get weeds out with hoes and placing healthy dirt on to their plots ( right).

By the end of two days the students had cleared their plots and our farm was on its way to productivity! -Mhaya and Elle (Student Post)

A fresh start to the 2013 season!Finding our plots!

Welcome back to the Village School Farm. We are off to a late start this year due to the chilly March and April we have had. However, in our first post of the year I will introduce you to the garden before we let the students describe their farming methodology. We hope you enjoy!

Below,  the students take a look at the plots. This year the students were able to choose their own 4’X4’ plot.

The students are standing in their selected plots.

 At the end of our first day outside the students had selected their plots and they are ready to dig in!

-Toby Hatten

Collecting Spinach Seeds. The Plant Cycle

Today we are going to show you some pictures of the Spinach seeds that we collected. Our spinach plant bolted (started growing very fast to reproduce before the summer arrives). After it bolted it produced seeds. The seeds were collected and we will plant them in August for our fall spinach crop. Take a look at the process below!

Keila and Ruben (right) collect spinach seeds.

A close up shot of the spinach seeds on the bolted spinach plant (below).

 

 Ruben is collecting the seeds and placing them in a pot to dry. The seeds have to be kept dry so that they do not rot, develop mold, or germinate (right).

 A fun time collecting seeds!

Planting our Strawberry Garden by Chris and Isabelle

At the Garden of Eve we picked up 12 Strawberry plants to start our new Strawberry Garden. Take a look below at our planting techniques!

The first picture (above) is of Eugene and Myself (Chris) getting ready to plant the plants that are on the wooden greenhouse. They are going to grow nice and tall in this little frame-house so that by next month they will be fully grown. 

The next picture is of Eugene and Myself actually starting to plant but in the last photo we were only starting to look at the right place to plant these amazing strawberry plants. The reason that we started to plant these strawberries is because we would like them to grow so that we might be able to have them for Graduation on June 20th! (right)

3. The next picture is of the June stawberry"s that we will have at graduation. This is a picture of the strawberries planted in the ground of this wooden greenhouse .

Even more exciting is the first flower of the summer! This flower means that soon there will be a delicious strawberry to eat right where that flower is! We all can’t wait until there are tons and tons of yummy strawberries to snack on! Come back later to get an update on the garden! 

A day in the life of an Organic Farmer! A Village School Field Trip by Isabelle and Toby

"In August of 2011 I (Toby) applied for a field trip grant for the Village School to spend a day on an Organic Farm on the East end of Long Island. To my surprise, we were awarded the grant by Target and we just completed our trip titled "A day as an organic farmer" at the Garden of Eve in Riverhead, New York.  I set out to do this because  Most of my students think of Long Island as suburban sprawl, strips of shops and developments as far as the eye can see. As they head East they will arrive at an agricultural paradise, and they will be see how food is made. 

 By the end of the day I hope that the students are tired and appreciative of the food that they have access to. I hope they grasp the efforts involved in the production and harvest of their foods. I also hope that they learn and understand the environmental benefits of organic farming."

Below are some photos and comments from one of the farming students Isabelle! 

Are you ready for another exciting update on our school this week?! Last week our whole school took a trip to a farm out on Long Island. This farm grows fresh produce, has healthy farm raised animals! Here you can see some Village School children petting one of the farm dogs! (right)

This is something you don’t really see, real free-range chickens. At the farm they raise free-range chickens, this was exciting for all of the students to see first hand how free range chickens really are raised on a farm. (below)

All of the students were amazed at all of the information they were getting from this one trip! Here you can see Eve one of the farm owners, educating the students on natural pest control. She doesn’t use any pesticides at all, that’s probably why her produce tastes so good! (left)

Towards the end of the day the whole school got to pick fresh strawberries to take home with them! Here you can see Chris and Jeremy scavenging for some yummy treats in the strawberry patches. 

After a long day of strawberry picking and learning all there is to know about owning and maintaining a farm, the students took a little lunch break where they enjoyed there food they brought from home and some of the yummy strawberries they picked earlier in the day! This was a very interesting and exciting trip for everyone to go on and we all had an amazing day!

A busy week in the garden! Planting rows of corn and such!! by Isabelle and Eugene

Hello again fellow farmers! This week we have gotten a lot accomplished, this is all very exciting and the garden is rapidly evolving into a magnificent landscape. Here you see Ruben, Eugene and Adam making rows to plant corn. Even thought we already had corn planted, unfortunately we jumped the gun and planted them too early so the weather was too cold for them to live. ): We hope that these corn plants grow to be beautiful and yummy for us to nibble on! :D 

We also made many improvements to our garden. Here you see Isabelle and Eugene making trellises so that we could train our pea plants to climb up the string. Our pea plants are getting so tall, but no peas have blossomed for us to snack on yet.

1    And we don’t allow anything to go to waste. Any plants that may have passed their harvesting period or have not survived the weather are collected together and put into our school made village compost pile. Adam is working hard to keep stacking up our compost higher and higher so that we can reuse it for fertile soil and better soil for our plants. (right)

We also started planting new seeds so we can expand our garden even more! We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, onions and lots of other seeds that are going to ensure that whenever you want a healthy snack whatever vegetable it is, our garden will have it for you!  (below)

This week has been one of our most productive in Microfarming, working on creating the last vegetable rows in the garden, planting even more vegetables in our flower pots, and creating pizza with the materials we grew and making it healthy and delicious for the whole class to enjoy.