Snapshots from Farragut Elementary

Welcome to Farragut Elementary School Garden!

My students hard at work w/ container planting project.

Urban Gardening

Miss Tiffanie Ma

Fall 2011

Culver City, CA

Here I am as excited for our radishes as my students are!
Photo By: James Yankopolus

Art can be a fun subject to incorporate into gardening projects. 

From a bed of dirt, to one of LIFE!!

Carrots take longer to develop but worth the wait!

The first of our Easter Egg Blend Radishes!

These baby lettuce grew quickly and abundantly.

"Found-Object-Container" Project teaches sustainability.  

Tender and tasty baby lettuce. 

It takes team work to build a scarecrow!

Gardening ain't no walk in the park!

The finale of our class was a salad party!

Fall Seeds:

1. Viola Johnny Jump /up
2. Mesclun Lettuce- Lactua sativa
3. Danvers 126 Carrot- Daucus sarota sativus
4. Easter Egg Blend Radish- Raphanus sativus
5. Jewel Blend Nasturtium- Tropaeolum majus 
6. Romaine Lettuce 'Little Gem'- Latuca sativa
7. Calendula Pot Marigold 'Pacific Beauty Blend'- Calendula officinalis
8. Baby Little Finger Carrot- Daucus carota sativus

"It's amazing how each packet ranges from $1-$3 and you can grow so much from them to eat. The potential is abundant! What you pay for one packet of many seeds and many salads as opposed to one lettuce head at the market, not including the other benefits of gardening to the body, mind, spirit and environment."

-Excerpt from my garden journal


*Photos By Tiffanie Ma, unless otherwise noted. 

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."

KAHLIL GIBRAN

Sometimes, in a world with so many gadgets, iPods, iPads, iPhones; with so many ways to connect, Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, email; we forget to go outside and smell the roses. Especially in a stimulating city like Los Angeles, with new must see movies, galleries, concerts and parties popping up every weekend, it becomes more challenging to take in the outdoors, a little blue sky, some sun, the color green. 

Access to places of outdoor glory may be difficult for some Angelenos to even access. With notorious traffic jams of an over-populated city, stillness and simplicity have become anomalies. Children are exposed more to the stimulation of technology, than to the reality of their surroundings. At a time when their senses are developing rapidly, stimulation from a garden space or simply being outdoors, exposes a child to new tactile, olfactory, and visionary stimulation crucial to development.

Farragut Elementary Gardeners Fall '11
Photo By: Tiffanie Ma

A garden space allows for questions, curiosity, collaboration, and creativity to flourish. There is this palpable grounding experience of serenity. Although perhaps not always consciously, students, as well as grown-ups, can sense this.

I have directly experienced this during my time at Farragut Elementary school and my internship at the Garden School Foundation. As I reflect on my past gardening for this year, I will use my gardening journal  to remember those moments both of awe..and ewww...and share them in this blog. While it would be impossible to include every detail of discovery, in every garden space, I will do my best to capture the essence of these experiences with specific excerpts and photos. First, let me continue with teaching at Farragut Elementary School.