Author: birch-admin

Categories
Newsletter

CHS 2019/2020 Update

Writing this update towards the end of March 2020 certainly feels a million times different than it would have just two weeks ago! Two weeks ago as we headed into what is now considered to be the last week of the in-person school year, we had a hunch that school might be out for a period of time. Thankfully, we were blessed with gorgeous weather and the students buckled down and got to work turning over beds, prepping for spring crops and seeding tray after tray of thousands of seeds.

When we said goodbye on that last Friday, our small farm was in the best shape it had been in by this time of year. The hoop house was full of spinach, carrots, kale, lettuce, onions and a long row of seedling trays waiting for their turn to be planted in the field. In addition to the hoop house, 70% of our outdoor beds had been planted with more greens, beets, peas, and flowers. Two long beds of trenches had been dug to prepare for potatoes and the irrigation was all set up and ready to go. I literally could not have been more proud of the hard work our students put in!

Before starting all of this Spring preparation, we looked back over our data and realized that during the last growing season, we had harvested over 750 pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables and over 100 dozen fresh eggs from our farm that went to students and families around the Charlottesville area. The students all agreed that we could do more this year and made a goal to push harder and grow 2000 pounds of food and develop a stronger plan for distributing our produce!

As we head into this new normal of Zoom meetings, we will have to see how we can still work to meet our goal of growing a ton of food, but the Urban Farming students have certainly gotten us on the right track! Moving forward, we have planted potatoes, onions, greens and other crops that are relatively low maintenance this time of year. This is allowing the garden to be cared for mostly by myself and a very small group of volunteers to help us stay within the recommended guidelines of social distancing. As the growing season progresses, we will make adjustments to the plan as it seems appropriate.

This is a heart-breaking way to finish the school year for all of us, especially since we didn’t really have a chance for proper goodbyes and closure for the year. Big projects we had in the works (collaborating with the engineering classes on building a wind turbine, building a refrigerated trailer for produce storage, and raising a new batch of baby chicks) are being put on hold for the time being as we try to figure out what the rest of the school year holds.

One thing I am excited about for the next weeks, though, is that I will be featuring student takeovers on our instagram account (@chsfarming). During the winter, students took pictures and wrote about their favorite parts of the garden. We featured some, but didn’t have time to publish them all. I’m excited to share these stories so that we can stay reminded of why we do the work we do by seeing our students in the garden! I hope you’ll follow along and be encouraged by these posts.

Stay well and be encouraged that Spring is here in all of its beauty!

Categories
Newsletter

Cooking by Ananda

Hello, my name is Ananda, and I am a seventh grade Garden Aide. In this blog post I will be telling you about the treats we made from food that we harvested.

One of the first things we made were pickles. We created a brine and harvested seasonings from the garden. We also made cornbread from ground corn. We gutted pumpkins and pureed the flesh and toasted the seeds.Using the pumpkin puree, we made pumpkin pancakes.

We also made popcorn over the fire with the popcorn we grew. We then cut up apples and put them in a crock pot to make apple butter. It was delicious, but Jeremy didn’t like it because he hates cinnamon.

I had fun making these amazing, delicious foods as well as others and I hope I can continue to have this privilege.

Psst… This is Caroline. When we made the apple butter, the bees were really attracted to the sugar in the apples and they were EVERYWHERE! Nobody else seemed to mind, but it freaked me out. I do not recommend making apple butter if you are like me and have a deep set internal fear of bees.

Categories
Newsletter

Trials of Truth

We were new
Unknowing
Innocent
We knew nothing
Of who we
Were
Nothing of
Who
Each other were
Nothing of who
We’d become
Our arguments our pain
We didn’t want
To let go of them
But we had to let go
To leave past grudges
To leave wrong judgements
To let the garden
Thrive
We let people in
In to our hearts
Our world
Our garden
We bade them farewell
With a simple
Wish
May your life
Be fruitful, full,
Wonderful, and wild.
May your life be a garden
Just as ours has
Become.

-Caroline Darring

Categories
Newsletter

Buford Garden Aides Share Their Stories

One of the most meaningful and unique parts of the Buford garden Aide classes is that students meet every day with the same small team to work towards two common goals: cultivating healthy food and peaceful, beautiful spaces for every student at Buford Middle. It’s been a jam-packed semester, and it’s hard to believe that winter break is already here. Beyond that, spring planning lies just around the corner. Before looking forward to the next season, Demetrius, Jeremy, Ananda and Caroline, the 4th period Garden Aide class, took a moment to reflect on their favorite highlights from the fall semester. We hope you enjoy!

Introduction by Ms. Shannon

One of the most meaningful and unique parts of the Buford garden Aide classes is that students meet every day with the same small team to work towards two common goals: cultivating healthy food and peaceful, beautiful spaces for every student at Buford Middle. It’s been a jam-packed semester, and it’s hard to believe that winter break is already here. Beyond that, spring planning lies just around the corner. Before looking forward to the next season,  Demetrius, Jeremy, Ananda and Caroline, the 4th period Garden Aide class, took a moment to reflect on their favorite highlights from the fall semester. We hope you enjoy!

Hi, we’re Demetrius and Jeremy, and this is our first year as garden aides.

We went to UACC to move berry bushes because they are destroying the garden there in order to build more housing. It is sad to see the garden go, but people need homes.

To get ready for the bushes, we had to dig deep pits and test the soil. Blueberries need acidic soil, so if the soil isn’t acidic they won’t grow well. Our test showed our soil to not be acidic enough for blueberries, so we added peat moss and organic Sulphur to improve the soil.

We then got ready to go on our field trip and save some berry bushes! We first arrived at Friendship Court happy. We grabbed what we needed then we walked to our destination. We met Farmer Rich and talked about the garden, then got to work. The first one was hard to dig so Caroline and Jeremy went to the next one. It was way easier when we got our third one. They finally pulled out the first one and Jeremy got a new hand (a big tree stump and root). Then we started to pull the other berries out and when we were done we tried to dig out a cherry bush but ended up rolling down the hill. I lost Ricardo (our class monkey pet) for 25 seconds then our food came and we ate in like 2 minutes. Then we walked back to the car and back to the school.

Demetrius by himself took all the plants up the hill to load them into Farmer Rich’s trailer and It was a steep hill so he couldn’t push the wheelbarrow up, so he had to pull it. We dug up 7 blueberry bushes and started on a Cherry Bush, but the other class had to finish those because we didn’t have time.

Back at school we carried the plants to the holes we dug, then we put more compost in the soil. We put them in carefully and then filled it back up with dirt and compost. We hope that the plants grow and become big and strong so we have berries to eat at the end of the school year.

Challenges by Caroline

One of the challenges of being in the Garden Aide class is sharing it with the gym classes. It was hard to share with them because it felt like our garden, but in truth it was theirs too. I wrote this poem to explain the emotional and mental obstacles that we had to overcome during our time in the garden.