Eileen's Food Chain Talk

Heatherwood garden
October 28, 2010

Eileen Dolbeare
In an effort to integrate the Heatherwood Garden into the school curriculum, Ms. Jenkins and her second grade class hosted me for a garden lecture. The class just visited NCAR for a science unit about weather. Ms. Jenkins wanted to connect the weather series to a garden presentation. So, we talked about food chains and food webs. I read the class the book Who Eats What by Patricia Lauber. We talked about how weather is directly linked to how crops like wheat and corn grow and how these foods support a complex food chain that includes them and the foods we eat.

To illustrate the links and dependencies on a food chain, I had the kids draw pictures of their favorite foods on paper plates and then we made paper chains to represent the food chain of their favorite meals. A few class favorites were definitely hamburgers and steak. So, we created paper chains that showed how the sun helps wheat grow, which cows eat. We, in turn, use the cows for steak and hamburgers, and we eat the meat. Many of their chains showed: Sun - Wheat - Cow - Me! A few of the children were surprised to learn that the pepperoni on their pizzas was actually from pigs! We ended the craft with some homemade, seasonal pumpkin bread!

Sunflower seed packets

October 25th - Today we decorated little 'key bags' I purchased for pennies apiece from McGuckins to store our Sunflower Seeds for next year. We took several Mammoth Russian Sunflower heads that were drying in Michele's aerated garage for several weeks and had kids remove the seeds into a big bin. After decorating the bags and writing planting information on the back, the kids scooped up a handful of seeds and filled their bags.

To harvest seeds, the flowers or fruit often need to stay on the plant for a longer time than if you were to harvest them for eating. The seeds should be stored in a cool, dry place until they are ready to plant in the spring. Here is a good site with a video that gives a lot of great information about saving seeds. http://cookingupastory.com/harvesting-and-saving-seeds-from-the-garden-part-2

Mesmerized by the giant sunflowers and their spiral seed patterns, I decided to turn it into a Garden-Math class for Emika's 4th grade class.

Briefly, the number of spirals in a sunflower is almost always a Fibonacci

series number (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 56,90.....), ie. the sum of the previous two numbers equals the next number in the series. These spirals are also seen in pinecones, coneflowers and other natural forms.

Curiously, the angle at which seeds start forming in the sunflower head, 137.5 degrees, is related to the Fibonacci series and is called 'the golden angle'. If

this angle diverges by even a few degrees, less efficient packing of seeds is seen (in the figure below from left to right, the angle of seed appearance is 137.3, 137.5 and 137.6).

For the remaining 30 minutes of the class, Mr. Newby was able to stream a fascinating TED lecture I had recommended for the students about a sustainable fish farm in Spain. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.html

Mr. Newby eloquently tied in the idea of a sustainable fish farm with gardening organically and sustainably, which is one of the ideas we are trying to promote with the Heatherwood Garden.

Watermelons, cold frames and scarecrows.

Oct. 18 - The Garden Group harvested the mini watermelons growing in the garden.

Everyone was amazed with their sweetness!

After that they put up a cold frame for some lettuce and chard plants that were started under lights in September.

The kids had fun assembling a rain barrel as well as two scarecrows.

Photocraft and Weeding

October 4th - An unusually cloudy sky made today a perfect day to make cards out of the photographs we took in the garden last week. Shira (left

photo) lent her

talents as an excellent scrap booker/paper craft

person and helped the kids make cards using different colored papers, scissors and paper punchers.

Eileen and Heather punched out shapes and helped everyone complete their cards.

Meanwhile, Michele and Belinda oversaw the watering of the school's trees and weeding of the front beds. A large brown female praying mantis was discovered nearby (lower left photo.)

The Day Lily masses were tamed and many prickly weeds were pulled out by gloved hands.

"Is this lavender?"

"A clematis vine?" were some of the happy exclamations uttered by volunteers as they pulled weeds and unveiled the hidden plants. Thanks to Michele, Belinda, Heather and Cyndi for helping out with this badly needed weeding.

Garden Group Fall 2010

Our June planting of the sunflower room wasn't such a bad thing. The eight to nine foot giant sunflowers planted in a U-shape greeted the kids in the first meeting of the Garden Group (Sept. 13th).

This year we are overjoyed to be able to meet in the old music room. We plan to start seedlings under grow lights and to have plant specific crafts in this space. We would also like to have guest speakers in the future as well.

Some of the activities we have planned are; seed saving, putting up a hoop house, planting bulbs, photo card crafts, cooking with pumpkin and garden/plant maintenance.

The sunflower U is looking a little drier these days, with the seeds more obviously showing their pattern of Fibonacci spirals. Before the complete decline, we organized a garden class for Amy Siemel's 1st grade and Cathy Zimmerman's 3rd grade classes. The Buddy pairs sat on Michele's grandmother's polyester pants suit quilt which was laid out in the middle of the sunflower room while she read a children's gardening book. After the story, the Buddies and their partners went on a scavenger hunt which I adapted from 'How To Grow A School Garden' by Arden Bucklin-Sporer and Rachel Kathleen Pringle of the San Francisco Green Schoolyard alliance. Kids had to name and draw different plants and insects in the garden. The tallest sunflower(s) were measured (93 to 105 inches) and the streets to the south and west of the garden were identified.

The sunflowers will be harvested tomorrow (Sept. 27th) and the 'room' will house lettuce seedlings for a late fall harvest of greens. How much easier to 'remodel' in a garden!

Hoot 'n' Howl Farm

(Photos taken by Shira Graff)

In August, the Garden Group took a Field Trip to Bob Poley's Hoot 'n' Howl organic farm off of Jay Rd. Bob grows everything from lettuce and gr

eens in the spring to tomatillos, melons and squash in the fall.

The kids enjoyed eating raspberries off of the many canes from bushes lining one side of the farm and enjoyed

feeding

the chickens. Fresh produce is always available for purchase

right outside their gate. They are located at 6033 Jay Rd in Boulder.

July!

(Photos by Emika Brown)
After neglecting to visit the garden for more than a month, we went up to view the Heatherwood Garden. After passing by our fenced in school, we were delighted to see six mounds of the three sisters growing within a ring of hay, making them looks as if they were on stage and saying 'yes, we are surviving and doing well!' The sunflower house planted weeks ago now has a wonderful U shaped outline and will keep reaching to the sky.

Thank you Michele!

Although we had a lovely spigot installed RIGHT IN the garden at the beginning of June, due to the transformation that the rest of our school is undergoing, underground water arteries (sprinkler system, water line) keep getting accidentally severed. Thus, water is more efficiently delivered to the garden via large buckets in the back of Michele's trusty Audi station wagon. So, if you see a black Audi creeping gingerly up Concord Ave headed towards the garden, please give it your blessing!

We hope to have a garden committee formed by the end of July and our summer organic

farm field trip at Hoot 'n' Howl Farm on Jay Road between 63rd and Spine Road.