October 15

I felt somewhere between a witch, chef, and gardener today while working in my mom's garden. A sprinkle of coffee grounds with a dash of smoked paprika powder along the border of a newly amended and seeded bed of lettuce greens, should do the trick. From what I've read cats do not like strong smells such as these. It's another game gardening in the city versus in the country. The rules are different and so are the challenges, such as stray cats pooping and peeing in your garden (yuck!)!

Luckily for us, the problem is not so severe, in fact, no poop found yesterday morning on the burlap sack I used to cover the newly sewn lettuce seeds to keep them moist for germination, reported Mom. Though, it may have been just a lucky morning, so since I don't want to take chances, I played with the magic of coffee grounds and smoked paprika today. We'll see what unfolds.

Getting my Garden on with these clogs! Jorris would appreciate.

Playing with magic of chili and coffee to deter cats from garden. 

Strong scents like coffee grounds and smoked paprika are said to deter cats. 

I’ve been home from France for a month and a half now, since September. It’s been a lot of yoga, reading, resting, creating new projects (a blog post to come!), reconnecting with friends and family. It’s also been about reconnecting to old spaces, like mom’s garden, my first solo garden project I began many moons ago. Much has changed in her garden over the years. I’ve been traveling and my mom isn’t a gardener. My Grandma Lee, her mom, is the gardner. She grew all sorts of things with strange methods I would just crinkle my nose at when I saw her as I played outside, but she could grow anything. Perhaps that’s where my passion for gardening comes from. 

The Succulent Egg project I made for mom in Spring of 2015. 

Some of them now, Fall of 2016! Mom has done a great job watering!

But, Mom actually surprised me this time with her gardening commitment. Before I left for France last Spring, I had instructed her to water this basket of succulents, without much hope since she’s failed in the past to keep plants alive, in fact these succulents were part of that failure. They were cuttings from the succulents that lined my sidewalk when I lived in Silverlake and which I had propagated in egg shells, sharing them with my school, students, encouraging people to plant them and watch them grow. Before I had left for France the first time in the Summer of 2015, I had asked her to water them. Upon my return that Winter, they were sad, all alone, out in the back yard, as dry as the Sahara Desert but still alive and waiting for love. So, I tried to save some and transplanted them in this empty planter basket which I had planted herbs in for a lesson during my Master Gardener class the year prior. This time, returning to Mom’s garden, I see the basket brimming with beautiful and happy succulents, sitting like a trophy on the fountain!! She’s been modest about her success, since she never spoke about how well they were doing while I was in France. I suppose taking care of the succulent basket was like taking care of me, even though I was far away. It's fantastic to have a relic of my time living in Silverlake and to know that some of my gardening skills are rubbing off on my mom.

Gardening piece by piece, first repotting, Mom's favorite Gardenia. 

Repotting is so simple and really changes the atmosphere, here Lavender. 

Amending pieces of the garden, here had to scoop out poop first. 

Then, mix in organic compost but no tilling, just add on top of existent soil.

Water, cover, leave a few days and then sew lettuce seeds!

Cover again with burlap or other cover material to keep seeds protected. 

With the temperatures cooling off, since it has been torrid upon my return to LA, I’ve been more motivated to get back into the garden, and frankly, couldn't wait any longer. I’ve been itching to get back into the soil, and I was about to get back in, weather permitting or not. I’m starting piece by piece. Amending soil here and there. Repotting old pots with Gardenia and Lavender, two of Mom’s favorites. Sewing lettuce seeds. Scooping up poop. I have to admit that I can't put all the blame on the wild cats of Azusa for the poopy mess, our precious Malti-Poo (cross between a Maltese and Poodle), Jet, is also to blame. I've seen him in the past jump up into the beds and do his business in the green sorrel, though it's really not his fault either because Mom and I never laid the rules on him and since he was a puppy, he was trained to do his business on green and since the backyard is cemented floor, the garden is the closest thing to what Jet is familiar with. But, I've told him now not to poop there and have been keeping an eye on him. So far, he's been a pretty good listener.

The flower & herb garden of the farm house in Villetale Haute, France. 

You're all probably wondering why and how I could ever leave the beautiful French Alps and this picture above, but sometimes, a girl's just got to seek comfort in the familiar again, to find new perspective in an old place. It was a very successful season in Villetale Haute, and I promise I won't forget to share some photos in a later post. It was just time to say a bientôt to the place, though not adieu. There was mostly just harvesting in the vegetable garden and on the bee-side of business some markets and transhumances left. But I figured Jorris and Philippe could hold down the fort without me, and they are doing just fine. I suppose I'm slowly giving in to the fact that California will always be home and I will always miss it, wherever I go, no matter how old I get, so maybe I should just make it my physical home, too, deepen the roots I already have here. I've had the privilege of traveling afar and living abroad since my college days, and even before as a kid during family vacations. Each time I come home, I realize how much I miss it. And it's not just my family, though, they are the main reason; but it's also just the way the landscape feels, the vastness, the independent freedom, the Pacific Ocean, the Sierra Madre and San Gabriel Mountains, the forests of central and northern California.

Of course, I also have another home, and that's where Jorris is. His mind is as vast and open as the California landscape, and he is willing to seek a new life here with me, for us. While we can plan our future, we can never anticipate everything that will come. Of course we should plan, hope, dream, though I’ve learned that not everything in life will go as planned. We can’t always rely on our hopes and dreams to come true. In fact, in doing so, we limit ourselves, closing the door to the possible magnificence our human minds could never have dreamed or imagined and only something greater, like the Universe, can create. Why not trust that this Universe could have something even greater than what we could ever have imagined, hoped for, or dreamed of? One thing, however, I’ve learned I can always trust is my gut. Our guts know the truth, but it’s whether or not we choose to listen. The mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of our bodies are inter-dependent, inter-twined, and together work in ways to communicate messages to us. Learning how to hear, decipher, and understand these messages can be a life long journey. It's complicated. It can get a little woo woo, as my beloved yoga teacher Alma says. But we can start by following our guts, our heart. 

The herb bed has seen better days.

I will plant wild flowers here! But first, poop scooping, amending & weeding.

Quick! Duck before the neighbor sees! Lining the wall with coffee & pepper.

For instance, I trusted my gut to save the coffee grounds left over from my, may I say, amazing pour-over coffees I make every morning. My Dad will attest to their amazingness, and I’d bet both my gardening thumbs on that! Even without a composting system, yet, it felt wrong to throw out all this great nitrogen. So I saved them, just in case. And then during the week, I made a uniquely delicious mac ’n cheese for my dad and I, which called for smoked paprika. I hesitated to buy the whole glass bottle of organic smoked paprika for just the teaspoon that I needed, but my gut said go for it. It’s good to experiment with new spices. A few days later, Mom informs me of the cat visitor, so I find myself researching ways to keep cats out of the garden and what do you know? You can sprinkle coffee grounds and chili powder along your garden’s edges to keep them out. And I had both those ingredients! Did I know they would go together like that? Never would I have imagined. 

I suppose you may be calling me a fancy/crazy gardener, and I am, so go ahead call me fancy, call me crazy. I am that gardener who sprinkles organic coffee grounds and organic smoked paprika powder along her garden borders and above the walls, ducking a little so the neighbors won’t see. And while I’m at it, I’ll sprinkle some coffee grounds into the soil itself to add some nitrogen; and since I’m also a chef, I can’t help but shake a few dashes of organic paprika powder into the soil too. A little chili powder in the soil doesn't hurt, right? At least that’s what my gut told me. 



*photos by Tiffanie Ma

the Garden Stand that Could...

A calm garden morning stirs BIG Garden ideas...

It all started with Ms. Jessica's 2nd Graders one morning during garden class. I forget exactly what project we were working on, but I remember it being a calm morning of work and chat. While I love all my students, I am deeply fond of and irresistibly inspired by these particular students. I'm not sure if it was my connection with Ms. Jessica, their homeroom teacher, when I first began LCS last year; we were both on the same page about Edible Education and had similar dreams to fiercely begin something breathtaking and real. Or, maybe I was so touched by the unbounded support and encouragement I received from their parents.

Maybe it was all of that. Maybe it was because they felt the same way about the garden as I did. Or, maybe it was the Garden who chose this class to leap with.

However we got there, it was during this fateful Garden class last May that it had crossed my mind to discuss with my students very casually somehow showcasing all our hard work to our school community. Ok, that's a lie. I actually had been thinking for a while before that day in Garden about how to present the work we do in Garden to our community in an interactive and meaningful way. I remember having a few meetings with our Dean at the time where we discussed possibly throwing a big celebration in honor of the Garden. Perhaps a Spring Festival, with crafts and food and planting? But then, our Dean suggested tying this idea into so many other ideas: Grandparents Day, Science Fair with 4th Grade...that the essence of what I had envisioned disintegrated into the ethers of space, along with any further meetings with our Dean who probably was overwhelmed at the time, as most Deans are. I began to feel unimportant, but I did not lose hope.

So, I had been pondering in my mind for a few months on how we could present our work, but more than just present, how to really share it with our school. During Garden that day when we had time to chat, and I brought up the idea of sharing our Garden, maybe having a little Stand with some veggies to show what we are growing? They took it further.

This picture was just once upon a dream...

No, Ms. Tiffanie, let's have a Garden Stand, like a Farm Stand, where we sell what we grow and educate people with what we are currently learning in the Garden. Let's have it on Fridays during Morning Sing when our whole community gets together to sing songs and parents stay to watch their kids sing. We can teach what we know, offer fresh, local, organic veggies and herbs while at the same time raising money for our Edible Schoolyard Program. 

Sharing what we have from our garden and raising $$ for it.

In a nutshell. That was what we came up with as a class, a real brainstorm of ideas, a real collaboration, a real discussion, definitely constructivist learning in the flesh.

With our hearts full of excitement, we were pumped, ready to make this happen. Now, I had to carve a path to make it a reality. I had the buy in from students, the motivation, the momentum, and luckily my garden partner-in-crime, Ms. Jessica. So I caught up with her and discussed what we sketched during Garden; her eyes lit up, she was in. Now, time to strategize.

Without Ms. Jessica, Garden Stand would still be just a dream.

Having been at school for a solid 9 months, I began to quickly learn the culture of getting things done. The Me, being a stickler for rules and not wanting to get in "trouble," had to go. So I dropped that part of me like a bad habit. Cold Turkey.

Jessica and I adopted the model "Ask for Forgiveness, not Permission".  Having worked at LCS for a year before I had, I believe she had adopted this model a while ago. And now, so had I. I never got a chance to put together a Spring Festival with admin support, but we started something way better.

Students made tags labeling bundles of kale we sold for $1.

So, one Friday morning, we executed "Operation: Pop-Up Garden Stand". Before any students or many staff arrived, we moved a table we found in the hallway which was used for lunch to the front entrance of school, put a table cloth on it and harvested some kale and made some herb bundles in the garden with students who started to trickle into school. They made cute tags.

And of course we can't forget our sign we made during the week with our students. Students decorated a hinged-sign board which was painted with black chalk paint for our students to decorate with chalk. This was a donation from awesome parents in our class, now a handmade relic we still use every Garden Stand. Jessica and I moved it near our Stand table, which staked like a flag.

Our "Flag," parent donated board sign. 

Students from all grade levels unite to harvest and bundle. 

It was a HIT. It felt like an outdoor market in some foreign land. There was no line, a little chaos in the air, just dollar bills and hands pointing to various veggies on the table. Our Dean came over to see what the excitement was about and looked a bit stunned, maybe nervous. We raised about $60 or so. I turned it into school the proper way and it never got into our budget....another lesson learned. So we had to take care of the funds ourselves and with each Garden Stand we provided for our classes: potting soil, bird feeder project kits, compost, wind chime project kits, seeds, supplement veggies for cooking lessons, food for our citrus trees, paint, and for our ULTIMATE wish, a new toolshed.

Busy, busy morning rush...

Figs, homemade fig preserves and Pomegranates from our trees Fall 2014.

We've had to add on another table.

Our old toolshed is being eaten away by termites. It had been deteriorating since last year, probably even before my time began at LCS; the left door hangs on by one hinge, and I hit my head everyday on the low frame. So, before last Summer began, our students set a goal to raise $1,000 through Garden Stand for the new toolshed.

10 Garden Stands and dozens of projects later, we have reached our goal and our new toolshed is on its way as I write these words. This is a real experience. These are our school ESLRs (Expected School-wide Learning Results): Demonstrating Respect, Taking Responsibility, Persevering, Seeking to Understand and Communicating Effectively, all coming to life. This is the epitome of constructivist learning.

How is it the epitome of constructivist learning? Well, the picture above says it all. Students took ownership of a project, something they wanted to be a part of and dedicate themselves to. Not only do we harvest what we have from our garden and sometimes glean from neighborhood trees to sell, we also have an Educational Table where we teach. That's right, students teaching grown-ups. They collaborated with one another to educate our community of parents and students about: Monarch butterflies, germination, not wasting utensils for school hot lunch, to name a few. They even collaborated with the Kindergarteners in October who presented their studies of pumpkins, one example of cross-grade-level collaboration. Not only were they educating our community with the Kindergarteners about the stages of life, shape and properties of pumpkins; on a deeper level, our 2nd/3rd graders were being role models and leading them. It was an exciting Halloween Garden Stand, as you can imagine.

Fall 2014 @ the Ed. Table we were all about pumpkins. 

Ms. Sarah's kinders made predictions about pumpkins.

Handmade paper flowers by parent. 

Persimmons and Kale @ the Garden Stand.

The Garden Stand has become everything I hoped it would be and so much more I could never have imagined. It has brought so many students from different classes together and also so many people of our rich community together. Parents are reconnecting after a busy week over some garden tea at the Garden Stand, or buying Rosemary herb bundles and using it for their roasted parsnips for dinner (true story). It has inspired so many students and families; I could probably write many more postings about how, but I'll just save that for a future book, perhaps?

It's an endless circle of inspiration. The garden inspires what we showcase at the Garden Stand and the Garden Stand inspires what we learn in garden. The momentum is high and our customers love our displays and products. This year we have made: fig preserves, lemon preserves (from our trees in the garden and made by amazing parent-volunteer-extraordinare Cassey J.), homemade laundry soap with 3rd graders, compost from our composting lunch and snack waste, persimmon cookies (made by yours truly from my Grandma's Hachiya Persimmons), paper which we turned into bookmarks and seed paper with 2nd graders, flower presses, succulents in a shell (when we studied propagating succulents), granola bars and fidgets (made by amazing Cassey J. and which sell out every time), snack sacks (made by amazing Victoria A.), utensil sets wrapped with cloth napkins made by our 3rd graders for their B.Y.O.U (Bring Your Own Utensil campaign for hot lunch).

Paper we made and turned into bookmarks.

Fig preserves made from our figs.

Laundry Soap by our 3rd Graders. 

Flower Presses, made last May; one of our first novelty items.

Succulents in a Shell by our 3rd Graders.

This project and what it has sparked within other people continues to inspire and rekindle my joy and pure passion for gardening and teaching. Every day I get to work with our Earth and some truly wonderful kids. It has reaffirmed so many of my life choices, especially when times were turbulent and confusing trying to find my way here. With every Garden Stand, my soul ignites and anything is possible.





*Photos by Tiffanie Ma

Happy 2nd Year Anniversary!

A Monarch Butterfly on my hand!

Two years ago, on November 21st, 2012, Garden Gallivanter was born. I started this blog as a space to dream and create, while documenting my Gardening Adventures; what a miraculous metamorphosis it has been. The word metamorphosis, means: "changing" its "form". While my physical form remains the same, my spiritual heart has changed so much over these past two years.

I liken my blog adventures over the years to metamorphosis because with the Monarch Caterpillars chomping away at Milkweed in our school garden, and teachers adopting fallen chrysalises to release as Monarch Butterflies, the process of transformation has been on my mind. And, the more I learn about these magnificent creatures, the more I am astonished and grateful to be doing what I love to do.

I feel grateful to just be doing work which still astonishes me and which I am still a student every day. Just this evening, in fact, just before I began writing this entry while sipping my petite shiraz, on this quiet Friday night, I experienced a moment of ah-HA!

Here's the story which built up to this moment of "ah-Ha". So this past Thursday, before afternoon Garden Class with Ms. Bethany's kindergarteners, some students informed me sadly that someone had broken a Monarch chrysalis. I was sad and upset in the moment myself when I heard. We had been re-iterating the concept of respecting nature in light of all the chrysalises forming around the grapevine in the play structure and garden, so naturally, I was irked to learn that one student did not receive the message.

A broken chrysalis in my hand. 

A teacher brought me the broken chrysalis with solemnity. I had to continue teaching, so decided to just take it in and process it later. As I held the half-cracked pupa in my hand, I was perplexed to find nothing inside. Only a clear slime oozed from the green gem. But there was no time to dwell, so I buried it in our Fairy Forest to rest in peace.

In the same class, just after I buried the chrysalis and just after I had confronted the kinder who was accused of breaking the chrysalis, another student in class shared a miraculous fact I did not know about. This student who shared his fact is usually quiet in class, but on this particular day, he raised his hand to share his fact. He explained to our class, after I paused from reading about the Monarchs and their transformation, that while in the chrysalis, the Caterpillar actually disappears and there is only liquid in the pupa for a while, until the Butterfly forms. I was surprised, and in the flurry of squirrely kinder kids ready to get up and move, just said thank you to him for sharing and put the fact in my back pocket to research later.

The pupas are everywhere and bring our lesson of Monarchs to life!

Well, tonight was that later, and all the dots connected themselves! After researching, I discovered that my student was indeed correct! After the pupa forms, enzymes in the pupa actually break down the tissue of the caterpillar, so the caterpillar essentially disappears and becomes this rich liquid medium of embryonic cells for 3-4 days. These cells form "imaginal disks" of cells,  which will transform into the wings, legs, antennae and other parts of the new Butterfly.

Found right on the tee-pee in our garden!

About a week later...you can see wings!!

On the same day, she emerged during class!

This caterpillar goes through complete transformation. It's muscles, nervous system and even heart completely change in over 10 to 14 days or so. This is truly magical to me, demonstrating nature's remarkable power. And I, because of my wonderful place in the world, calling myself a "Garden Teacher," got to touch this perplexing, miraculous liquid of transformation, this elixir of life.

Despite me feeling upset at one of my kinder student's curiosity of this green jewel and breaking it, if it weren't for the broken chrysalis brought to me which I could see for myself nothing was inside, learning this fact to be true would have not been the same. If it also were not for my other kinder student during the same class who shared his fact about what happens in the chrysalis, I would not have done the research and made the connection to what I saw in the palm of my hand, and what I had read.

Curious sister gardeners hold a Monarch!

My heart has changed because of what my students have taught and inspired me to do, see, feel, smell, discover, and touch, in the garden, about the garden, and for the garden.

Because of them, despite some seemingly sad situations such as a chrysalis breaking, I got to see the inside of a chrysalis, which I may have never been able to see. Everything in life happens for a reason. I am sure of it now. The garden and my role as a garden teacher has allowed me to touch so many hearts, reached so many dreams, that I hope the metamorphosis never stops.

As I celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of Garden Gallivanter and my own Golden Birthday on November 26th when I turn 26, I am grateful for all my garden adventures and toast the beginning of many more.




*Photos by Tiffanie Ma

New Beginnings

Popping Corn from our Fall harvest

One month into the new school year and what a fantastic beginning of my second year here at Larchmont Charter Elementary as the Garden Teacher. It's finally feeling like Fall. The corn is ready for harvest, Figs and Pomegranates have been the stars of our Garden Stand and dishes, and the Meyer lemons are slowly blushing into their yellow, sweet ripeness. The skies are a little darker and grayer in the morning, the air a little more crisp. I need to put on a sweater when I step out of the door now, with warm coffee in hand and usually at least two bags to lug to the car. As the new season begins, I get to be in the presence of 300 K-5th grade students, some new, some old, but all to inspire, to teach how to grow food, community, and hopefully, into more mindful, critical thinkers, not just in the garden or kitchen classroom, but in life.

What an honorable, privileged and powerful role I have the opportunity of holding. Never had I really thought in my life I would be playing such an impactful role in the lives of so many, and not just of my students. I have discovered my lessons extending into their families, a ripple effect traveling unimaginable distances. I have received emails from parents requesting recipes of the latest dishes which their daughter loves and wants to teach mom how to make, a Pomegranate, Kale and Fig salad, with Meyer lemon, olive oil and honey dressing comes to mind. My student even had the confidence to suggest she make the dressing next time because mom did not add enough honey. This is the stuff I live for; that is the empowerment of Edible Education.

2nd Graders transplanting baby lettuce w/volunteer extraordinaire Cassey.

While life poses its many day-to-day challenges, I find it helpful to just embrace the moment with compassion and patience. All the chaos of a transplanting day with twelve first and second graders, all the little voices calling out my name and seeking my attention, all the excitement surrounding the garden, the rolly pollies, the worms, all the peaceful mornings before school starts, all the manic Mondays, the down copy machine, the joyous discoveries, all of it makes up the tapestry of our lives. While I aim to live through this yogic mindset, I have to admit I don't always reach it. I am human after all. Some days, approaching everything with compassion and patience seems impossible, and when you have to jaywalk across Vine St. to move your car by 12pm for street sweeping every Tuesday because you do not have a parking spot at school and make it back to teach your class all within a 10-minute window, it seems impossible to find compassion in that.

But being human, we also have the capacity to be creative, to problem solve, to persevere. While I lost compassion towards having to run and move my car before my next class, I did not lose my patience. When we are challenged with a situation, we can either complain about it, or be creative about it. When, after taking the first easy step of emailing my dean to see if there were any spots left on campus and having the answer be no, what was a girl to do? Well, nothing for a few weeks except jaywalk and move her car bitterly, but then this girl began doing yoga again, her most beloved practice, next to teaching and gardening, and suddenly there was shift.

Our Fall Veggie Bed in progress; gardening is an evolution, as is Yoga.

Gardening and yoga are two different practices, but I would argue, one and the same. Explaining this would be another blog posting, so for now, let me just make my connection to sparking creativing. Since moving to Silverlake, I hadn't been close enough to my home studio, the Yoga Cove, in Monrovia. I was very hesitant about stepping into a new space, feeling like I was some how betraying my home studio. But then, it occurred to me for the past 5 months how achy my body was feeling and how my energy was not at it's most efficient form. I also thought in my mind that my teachers would encourage me to keep practicing and open my heart to a new space, not letting go of or forgetting my home studio, just being open-minded and open-hearted. I needed that grounding practice again and found a studio in walking distance from my home. So I did it. I stepped into Urth yoga last week and my body and spirit feel re-awakened.

My body began feeling more open and receptive; I began sleeping better and more readily able to handle my work more energetically and creatively. After beginning yoga, the idea of how to solve the parking situation, fell into my lap. I thought one day, hey, I have a roommate who works at the same school. We could carpool together on Mondays and Tuesdays when the street parking is bad. And Jessie, being the great roomie she is, said yes. This has been our second week, and it has been fabulous. We get to spend mornings together getting ready and spend the afternoon drive home re-telling our days to each other. When she has meetings after school I just catch up on computer work and prep work. We get to catch up with each other and help each other out two days a week with driving; it's awesome. It's amazing how even the smallest shift in our day or week can make such a difference.

Sprouting seeds in handmade newspaper pots!

Perseverance. Perseverance can take one far in life. I believed this as a studious bookworm throughout my elementary, middle school and high school days, through those all-nighters in college, and I believe it more than ever now. Perseverance has found many forms this year at school. Seed starting has been a challenge, finding the right method and the right amount of time and care. I realized I couldn't do it all. I didn't have the space at home to take care of 15 egg cartons of seeds, and my fellow teachers, with jammed-packed days, couldn't either. Starting seeds kept failing, but I just saw those failing moments as opportunities to try new methods. And I have. But actually, the real credit goes to Ms. Marjorie and her 2nd graders. Instead of spraying their newspaper pots of seeds, they poured water into the plastic tray that contained the pots. In this way, the seeds stayed evenly and consistently moist and the sprouts were not being sprayed down when they sprouted, which meant less damping off, the disease common to sprouting plants.

Sprouting seeds in egg cartons is a creative way to re-use them. 

As with yoga, gardening can spark new ways we look at everyday things. Before throwing anything away or recycling, I think of whether or not it can be used in the garden. Paper egg cartons for example can be used to start seeds, in a similar way that newspaper can be re-used to make paper pots. The opportunity of giving something a second life feels gratifying, at least to me.




*photos by Tiffanie Ma

And the Koan of the Day is:

Vacant lot around corner of school.

Who says street art can't be intriguing?

*Photo By: Tiffanie Ma

Making Connections

While my job title is Edible Schoolyard teacher, I feel like the job comes with so much more than just what the title implies. The garden, while not centrally located on campus, is a central element of our school and community. These first few weeks of school, I've had the chance to make constant connections beyond the garden.                                                                                                                                      

Happy Composters!

I've connected with Robertino, our chef who cooks simple, yet wholesome and delicious lunches everyday, based on seasonal and local ingredients. In cooking class, we reiterate these seasonal "Harvests of the Month," so far being apples, pomegranates and this month, squash and pumpkin. My connection with Robertino stems from adding his nitrogen-rich kitchen scraps into our compost bins. As the season progresses, I will work with him to discuss what herbs and veggies he'd like to cook with, so that I may plan to cultivate them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               I've connected with Chuy, our schoolyard maintenance provider, who keeps our school looking dapper and trimmed. He's saving carbon-rich browns such as leaves for our compost bin. Without Chuy and Robertino's support, we wouldn't have the necessary balance we need for healthy compost, and in turn, healthy humus.

A part from teaching and maintaining our garden space, I also check students in for hot lunch and sometimes, when we are short on our fantastic parent volunteers, I help serve. Which brings me to another connection. I have had the chance to meet many parents while serving milk side-by-side with them. It's so important to have supportive parents for the flowering of our garden, and students, in and beyond the garden. 

My role as a garden teacher is unique in the sense that I get to see a broad spectrum of students from grades K-5th! It's wonderful. So many different ages, talents, and curiosities, all meeting together in one place, for a unifying experience of growing and cooking food. It challenges me as a teacher, and I love that. With one concept, I am challenged to learn many different ways of teaching it, tailoring my lesson to my students based on what they are learning in the Core Curriculum of their home rooms, and on their levels of comprehension. With a mix of students, I also get the chance to work with a wonderful group of talented and dedicated teachers from all grade levels. 

At the core of our garden lessons, is making connections to everyday skills. In 4th and 5th grade, we dug our hands in some dirt and minds in some number crunching while exploring Square Foot Gardening. While a simple task of twine and nails, students had the opportunity to stretch their basic math skills with this tangible task. Square Foot Gardening, in essence, is maximizing space by planting in 1-foot by 1-foot squares. Depending on how far a part plants need to be, students can determine how many plants to plant in each square. I think we did a swell job. 

 Throughout all grades this week, we focused on the foundation of healthy soil, looking at compost and amending our beds with it. Students had fun cultivating compost into our beds, and even more so, enjoyed transplanting seedlings of: Dinosaur Kale, Red Russian Kale, Broccoli, Dill, Red Cabbage, Cheddar Cabbage, and Tri-Color Sage, to name a few.

*Photos by Tiffanie Ma