Fall Fun at CSG www.cityschoolyardgarden.org

October, 2018 Newsletter Give to Keep Youth Growing!

Celebrating the Harvest Festival 2018!

written by Shannon Gaffey, Garden Educator for Teens

Fall is one of my favorite seasons: it’s a season of bounty in the gardens, high energy in our schools, and a collective sigh of relief when the heat of summer finally breaks. It’s a season that lends itself towards celebration, and the CSG Fall Harvest Festival at Buford exemplifies all these things in one evening of community fun, food and relaxation. While the Festival takes place all in one evening, it is actually a month-long program that includes the Family and Consumer Science (FACS) Veggie Cook-Off Competition, PE, ESOL and Garden Aide garden preparation, planting and repairs, AVID Pre-Festival Community Service, and the Festival itself.

The day of the Harvest Festival is full of excitement. To harness this energy, AVID and After School PE students all pitched in to help set up for the event, hauling straw bales and tables, setting up signs and assisting vendors. We are especially grateful to the many many volunteers, CSG staff, board members, CCS teachers who supervised and helped throughout the event to make Harvest Festival a wonderful evening for family, friends and food!

This year the event expanded to include more community support services who ran kid’s activities and shared important knowledge on their organizations’ impact on our community. Thank you to SARA, Cville PRIDE, Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville, IRC New Roots Farm for joining in on the fun!

Eventually the music starts (HUGE shout out to 101.3JAMZ for DJing the event), and the rest you can see for yourself in the photos in our blog. It really is a magical night and we are grateful for our partnership with Charlottesville City Schools & Buford Middle School.

2018 Farm to School and Healthy Schools Week!

In case you missed it, October 1-October 5 was Healthy Schools Week in Charlottesville as well as Virginia Farm to School Week. All week long, CSG and our partners hosted and sponsored events in Charlottesville City Schools to promote local, sustainable growing and healthful food access. Farm to School Week showcased several of the ways that students experience what local Virginia agriculture has to offer and how it connects to their lives.

Charlottesville City School students and parents alike participated in the delicious lunches created from locally procured produce and meats provided through Local Food Hub. Attendees enjoyed a vegetable soup made from scratch in each kitchen, fresh fruits, summer squash, fresh potatoes, broccoli and more all week long. They were also excited to try the local Cherry Tomatoes as the highlighted vegetable of October's Harvest of the Month. It took the hands of many volunteers to successfully wash, cut, prepare and deliver.

In CSG’s gardens, we had visits from local farmers and a steady flow of farm animal visits all week long, with chickens, goats and bees. There were also exciting garden activities like scarecrow-making, cooking, taste-tests, Apple Cider Pressing, and a lesson on the history of cotton and fiber carding! We also had an exciting visit from Central Virginia Beekeepers Association who brought an observation hive to Greenbrier.

On Thursday of Farm to School Week we had an exciting visit from the VA Secretary of Education, Atif Qarni. Mr Qarni shared in the joy of our farmer visit at Venable Elementary where we started with the local vegetable soup and followed up with a garden visit where Caromont Farm brought goats and goat cheese to try.

Check out the Blog to get the Weekly Schedule with many more pictures!

GARDEN CORNER

What an amazing time we had during the 2018 Veggie Cook-Off. This year the competing recipes both highlighted the delicious, purple Eggplant. The "WannaB Plums" and the "Purple Nightshades," two teams in the Buford Family and Consumer Science classes worked to create select two recipes to provide to the whole school. The Eggplant "Meatballs" went head-to-head with Eggplant Pasta and took the title as the 2018 winner of the Veggie Cook-Off and wow were they delicious! Here is the recipe for the amazing treat:

INGREDIENTS:
-1/2 tbsp olive oil
-1 1/4 lbs unpeeled eggplant, cut into 1-inch pieces
-kosher salt
-1/4 tsp black pepper
-2 garlic cloves, crushed
-2 tbsp chopped basil
-1 1/2 cups Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
-1 large egg, beaten
-2 ounces Pecorino Romano cheese,
-1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley
-1 (25.25 ounce jar) Pomodoro sauce

DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat the oven to 375°F. Spray a large rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray.

2. Place 1/2 tablespoon olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat. When hot add the eggplant and 1/4 cup water. Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook, stirring occasionally until tender, 10 to 12 minutes.

3.Transfer to the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times.

4.Transfer to a bowl and add bread crumbs, beaten egg, Romano cheese, parsley, garlic and chopped basil into the eggplant. Season with 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt and 1/8 teaspoon of pepper.
Form the eggplant mixture into 24 balls about 1 1/8 oz each, rolling tightly and transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Bake until firm and browned, about 20 to 25 minutes.

5. Heat the sauce in a large deep skillet to warm the sauce. Add the meatballs to the sauce and simmer for 5 minutes.

Our friends at Grelen

One of the reasons this year’s Harvest Festival was a homegrown success was the support of our Sponsors. In September Jeanette and Aleen had the pleasure of taking the gorgeous drive out to Orange to visit with second year sponsor the Market at Grelen. Owner Dan Gregg met the ladies ready to take a tour of the property, talk about growing up in his grandmother’s garden, and treated them to a delicious lunch of sandwiches, salads, and homemade ice cream. On what was a delightfully sunny Friday afternoon, Dan shared stories about traveling south to spend his summers with his hands in the dirt and full of the seeds his grandmother had passed on to him. Those memories not only spurred Dan to open Grelen Nursery more than 2 decades ago, but also drew him to working with City Schoolyard Garden.

Students who have the opportunity to learn about and grow their own produce have a sense of pride that Dan experienced first-hand. After Jeanette and Aleen left with bags of peaches, we were excited to have Dan join us at Venable Elementary School during the Farm-to-School week celebrations. The students had soup with ingredients from local farms, met and learned about goats from Caromont Farm and met with the Virginia Secretary of Education, Mr. Atif Qarni. A big thank you to Dan and everyone at Grelen for their generous support (and of course for the peaches)!

Meet Shannon Gaffey

(if you haven't already)

What an amazing journey with Shannon Gaffey as the “new” Garden Educator for Teens. With a summer and fall season under her belt it is about time that we provide a formal introduction to our Buford educator.

Shannon joined City Schoolyard Garden in June 2018 just in time for our Youth Interns to arrive for the 6-week summer session which quickly blended into fall and now she is a steady face at Buford Middle School. Shannon brings over 6 years of experience working in environmental and experiential education roles. A life-long gardener, she has worked and volunteered in small market gardens in Virginia, West Virginia, New Mexico and Vermont. She holds a degree in Environmental Science from the University of Vermont, where she also earned a certificate in Permaculture Design.

After graduating, Shannon ran environmental programming for the DREAM Program’s Vermont chapter, then moved to West Virginia to run wilderness and community-based programming for students across the eastern sea board, serving as a Resident Instructor and Course Director with The Mountain Institute.

A Charlottesville native, Shannon moved back home in 2015 to work as a horticulturalist in the gardens of Monticello.

When asked if she was a vegetable, what would she be and why, Shannon said "Sweet Potato. They're just so fun to grow and dig up, super versatile and delicious. AND you can eat the leaves, too!"

CSG sends out a hearty thank you to each and every one of the individuals, businesses and foundations that support making youth garden connections. We thrive with your partnerships. Thank you!

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Join our Cultivar Partners. Donate to City Schoolyard Garden today!

UACC VOLUNTEER DAYS ARE STILL ON!

Although the fall season is getting colder, we are still hosting regular community workdays on Wednesday's from 4:00-7:00pm to help grow food on the three UACC urban farm plots. People of all ages and backgrounds are encouraged to come out. No previous gardening experience is required, and all levels of abilities are welcome.

October 24th, October 31st

Meet at the corner of Monticello Ave & 6th Street SE

Call Richard for more information at 434-260-3294

At City Schoolyard Garden, we have a vision: that young people thrive with the opportunity to engage with nature, to enhance their academic learning through hands-on experience, and to cultivate skills for healthy living.