A week of digging, growing, and eating at the Village Farm! A reflection on week 1 by Eugene

1.    

(left to right) Chris, Suzie, Me, Kimberly, and Isabelle all triumphantly standing by our Garden.

There’s our team, look at how excited we all are! The enthusiasm we have for this farming is irradiating from our faces and rightfully so, as we delve down deeper into our operation to continue to provide healthy and nutritious vegetables for our entire school.

2.    

This is me (right), training some peas up a string so that they can grow tall and strong as they seek out the sun. Just look at all the amazing work we do here to keep a freshly sustainable garden!

3.    

But of course, there’s a lot of hard work that must be done first in order to make that creation! Chris and I spent almost the ENTIRE week just creating the rows for the flower beds, and we’re still not done!

Our efforts have finally paid off, that salad looks amazing! All our hard work and dedication into creating the components of this salad (right) is what brings full flavor to this delicious meal, which I’m sure we’ll be having many more times as the class goes on. As we have seen from week 1 the class spirit and motivation payoff as we farm here at Village School.

-Eugene

The Spring Farming Season Begins Early!

Welcome, back to the Village School Farm! We have broken ground on Monday March 19th! This early start was due in large part to the mild winter and early spring!
The Farming Course this spring is called "Microfarming"

The Microfarming Course is a ½ year Science/Practical Arts Elective Course at the Village School. The course will examine microfarming through authentic microfarming experiences (challenges) including, window farms, greenhouses, hoophouses, raised beds, container farming, and through traditional back-yard farming. To do this we will examine the basics of botany, organic agriculture, composting, the locavore movement, and the food habits of the United States consumer.

During the semester students will be working to build and maintain a sustainable Village School microfarm, both inside, outside and in-between! During these microfarming experiences we will record useful data and perform a variety of experiments. At the end of the semester students will present the results from their most scientifically significant experiment.  By the end of the course students will have learned how to maintain an efficient microfarm for aesthetics or as a supplementary fresh food source.

The large-scale goal is to produce enough produce for the graduation party in June, to donate to local foodbanks, and to sell at a Village School Farmers Market!

Stay tuned for student Blog entries about their gardening adventures!

-Toby

New plants and new creations!!

Hello fellow farmers! Were working on our garden and making sure we have lots of yummy treats for the fall! Joey has come up with an ingenious invention too, called the "seed shaker" so that we can spread the seeds out more evenly when planting. Now we are clearing out the third section of the garden to plant more yummy treats! Hopefully by the end of the fall we'll have an exciting and plentiful harvest for you!

Joey making the seed shaker!!

Gen planting with the seed shaker!

Ruben, Jamie and Chris clearing out the third bed to plant more seeds!

Ruben helping Gen and Na Rae plant more seeds in the second bed!

Tending to our NEW Garden!

We are now skilled farmers! :) We are currently clearing the weeds from the overgrown garden and planting new seeds! So far we have planted kentucky wonder beans, cabbage, romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, and baby leaf spinach already! The class is working hard to bring the garden back to life, so while we are weeding we are also composting! The compost will help us make the soil rich with nutrients so that we can plant even more yummy vegetables and fruit! So as we take steps to creating our "new" garden while we weed and plant new seeds, were looking forward having many tasting treats in the fall for us to eat! 

Chris and Ruben working hard to get all those weeds out of the garden!

Toby helping Chris and Ruben get rid of the weeds!

Na Rae and Gentiana separating the new soil to plant new seeds! 

Welcome back VS farmers!

Welcome back! We have revisited our garden and discovered some delicious tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, watermelon, and french cut beans. The squash, pumpkin and watermelon continue to grow for the fall season. The garden has overgrown with many weeds so its time for some maintenance. Come stop by for yummy veggie treats!

Yummy tomatoes and a french cut bean! 

 Crunchy cucumber picked fresh from our garden!

 Sweet watermelon!

Crunchy corn!

Signing off

Detail on Peas

Well, it's time for me to go. The school year is drawing to a close but- the garden still grows on.

Recently, we've harvested some sugar snap peas. You can pick them right off the vine and chew away! Tastes beautiful and fresh, and would taste even better in a salad or stirfry. The carrots have grown large and huge, hopefully in a week or two they'll be large and pretty. We've planted pumpkin, squash, and watermelon for fall/summer harvest, and Toby plans to show off our work at graduation with a salad.

It's been a blast writing the blog and working at the garden. I would suggest for anyone interested in tasting good food and saving a lot of money to do some gardening. With our little plot we have easily made a pound of veggies or more, and that is only in a month or so time. During the summer we'll be planting corn, and the tomatoes will come to fruition, adding to our insanely productive semester.


It was a surprise that the peas grew so well and tasty. They grip the trellises like two lovers under the sun, embracing to seek the day. The strawberries have done coming to fruition, but the plant still thrives- possibly next year we'll have more flowers, and more plants, and more  strawberries! The same happens to peas and carrots and all the other plants, it's amazing how sustainable a package of seeds could be. The future looks bright for our little garden.

Regards,
Lisa

The Farmers



UPDATE ON THE GARDEN

Radish Detail

Amazing that despite everything, we're still not through yet with the gardening. Above is a detail of some maturing radishes, ready to be harvested as soon as possible. They're popping out of the ground, begging to be picked! Amazing that they can get so big. Our carrots are doing brilliantly, drowing large with leafs. Hopefully we'll have carrots popping up soon as well. Finally, our topsy-turvey have granted us a miracle- strawberries!

Those peas are so happy

Even more amazing is how well the strawberries are doing! On tasting it the whole class agreed- the strawberries tasted beautiful, sweet and tangy and nothign ever tasted in the store! Perhaps something about organic grow-your-own food really is some kind og magic. I'm hungry just thinking about it! Along with our lettuce and brocoli, this garden looks beautiful in every way. I can't wait for our next major harvest, maybe we'll get tomatoes? They're flowering right now as I type!  The pas are doing splendis, those trellises really came in handy. I can't imagine how those things would grow without them!

Keep up the work, Village School!


 

Regards,

Lisa