Tag Archives: homeschool

Testing the Light in the Garden

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tilled-3sisters-bed1One of the experiments we are conducting in the Dirt to Dinner garden is a test of our ability to bring more light into a shady section up against one of the fences. It’s after 10:00 am and the sunlight still hasn’t gotten to this patch. It’ll be a little better in June and July, but less than ideal light is a fact of life for that patch of ground.

We divided the shady section into two roughly equal-size garden patches with a section of tomatoes dividing them. The right-hand section is our control, the left-hand section has white plastic attached to the fence to reflect light onto the plants during times when the sunlight is available in other parts of the garden, but doesn’t reach the plants in this spot.

The Corn is Sprouting

The Corn is Sprouting

The kids made their Three Sisters corn mounds in both beds and planted the same corn variety in each bed. Yesterday, May 5th, the light bed had ten corn sprouts poking up out of the soil at the end of the day. The shadier control patch had none. Today, May 6th, the light test bed now has eleven sprouts, the shady side, just four.

I want to find a soil thermometer and see just how different the temperatures of the two sides are. It must be enough to influence germination. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the bean and squash planting goes.

Thoughts on Storing Seeds

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class-1_seedscatterThe piles of seeds for Dirt to Dinner have predictably gotten messy and disorganized. But last night I read a great idea for organizing seeds. When you plant some seeds from a packet, you take the remaining seeds and you store them filed away based on the month when you need to plant them next. If I am planting lettuce each month, I plant my May patch and slip the remaining seeds into the June section so that when June all-too-quickly rolls around, I know what I am trying to find room to plant next.

Lee Valley Seed Keeper Kit

Lee Valley Seed Keeper Kit

So now what I need is some way to sort and store the seeds in twelve sections, since we are either planting outside or starting seeds inside for Dirt to Dinner during every month of the year. Lee Valley has an elegant solution, as always.

But, since this is the year of “Make Due with What We Have” at our house (and many others, I’m sure!) I think I will try to find some similar binder pages and use my cool recycled Dirt to Dinner decoupage folder to hold them. I was also thinking it might be worth while to experiment with CD holder sleeves too. They wouldn’t have the cool zippers to hold the seeds in, but they are kicking around the house somewhere and they might be a good size for seed packets.

Seed Organization--for Now!

Seed Organization--for Now!

What I ended up with, for now, is a nine-section container with two months per section, a spot for things that are ready to be started outdoors, a spot for things that are ready to be started in-doors under the lights, and a section for things that can be planted here pretty much year round (and stuff that didn’t fit anywhere else.)

We’ll see if it keeps me organized. At least I can see what needs to get done next and when things should be planted. And if anyone reading this is looking for Mother’s Day ideas, the link to Lee Valley is http://www.leevalley.com ;-)

The Three Sisters

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Native American Three Sisters from Renees Garden

This week at Dirt to Dinner each group of kids got to learn about and planted their own Three Sisters garden. We are using seeds from Renee’s Garden that include Earth Tones Indian Dent Corn which we will later grind into cornmeal, Scarlet Runner Beans, which the kids–and the pollinators around the garen–will like, and Sugar Pie Pumpkins.

The pattern for our garden also comes from traditional sources. This week when we were all together, the kids dug compost into the bed and formed the first set of mounds we’ll use, the corn mounds. Next time we are together, in about two weeks, they will form a second series of ammended mounds, this time for the squash. (The beans get planted in the corn mounds.)

Here’s the wonderful diagram from Renee’s that demonstrates the process so much better than I could write it out.

We actually have two patches because we are testing a way to get more light into the garden with one of the planting beds and using the other as a control, so we also have a tomato patch worked into the mix to separate the two Three Sisters beds. There is a demonstration bed of six different tomato varieties that divides the light augmented plot from the control plot. This already looks so different from the endless acres of monoculture corn rows I grew up with in Ohio. I can’t wait to see how it grows!

corn-pouchTo celebrate the corn planting the kids also made corn pouches which will sprout a sample of the Indian Dent Corn and a sample of the monoculture corn plated across those fields in Ohio and allow us to talk about genetic variation and why it’s important to have plant diversity.

Then they prepared a beautiful lunch that included mini corn muffins and an artful display of finger foods with yogurt dip and hummus.

All in all, a very satisfying day!

Do April Tomatoes Bring May Potatoes?

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I read the other day that wind exposure can activate plant genes for sturdiness. If that happens in peas, tomatoes and potatoes we are about to have the stockiest plantings of vegetables between here and the Pacific. Yesterday’s wind storm was crazy, and today is calmer, but we’re still have gusts of over 30 mph!

First Fruits

First Fruits

I was just starting to wonder if the Principe Borghese tomatoes were setting fruit while the plants were still way too small and thinking that maybe I should pinch off the first few fruits to let the plant get bigger before energy was going into fruit production. Who ever heard of tomatoes in April? The plants aren’t even two feet tall!

But I’ve never tried this variety. It’s my first time trying tomatoes for drying and my mother-in-law and some long-time gardening neighbors thought it best to leave the fruits on the plants. Hopefully they will still be there when the wind settles down again.

Most of the neighbors are keeping an eye on the Dirt to Dinner garden and like to stop by to see what all we’ve got growing. I’ve learned a lot from them about what grows well in the neighborhood, when they plant things and how various varieties have wintered over in their yards. I’m enjoying chatting over the fence with folks as they ask what’s growing where and share what works in their gardens.

Nursery Cloth Growing Bag for Potatoes

Nursery Cloth Growing Bag for Potatoes

Everyone asks about the potato bags. I can’t wait until they are rolled all the way up and full of soil. They will be about 18″ tall and hold a total of 15 gallons of soil and potato plants. They’re not as tall as the new potato bed we’re going to start putting in tomorrow, but they are fun and should be a lot easier to harvest than the wooden planter will be. 

Right now we are trying three varieties of potato in the Dirt to Dinner garden. The kids all got La Ratte fingerling seed potatoes when we visited Full Circle Farm a few weeks ago. The ones we planted here haven’t sprouted yet, but the four I am saving to give our teacher, Mackenzie, have started to form eyes, so I’m still hopeful. The other two are an early yellow much like Yukon Gold and a mid-season variety with a redish purple exterior that we also picked up at Common Ground.

In addition to those three test varieites, we just got word that the 2 1/2 pounds of All Blue seed potatoes we ordered  have been shipped from the Seed Savers Exchange. Here’s a link to what they might look like at You Grow Girl.

The New Bed Takes Shape

The New Bed Takes Shape

 

These guys will get a large (for us anyway!) 4′ x 8′ foot bed that we plan to raise at least two feet tall as we hill the potatoes. We’re starting with a redwood frame, held together by nailing the framing boards to 4″x4″ post pieces cut into 2′ sections. It’s going to take a fair amount of sawing, since most of our wood is lumber yard castoffs or otherwise donated scraps, but there’s something very satisfying for the kids that seems to come out of building something out of “nothing.”

The Gardener’s Code

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The Gardener's Code 

 

The Gardener's Code

This week at Dirt to Dinner, the kids spent some time discussing the way they’d like things to go in the garden. The first thing that came up was about respecting things that other people have grown in the garden, which I thought showed that the kids really are developing the sense of ownership that we had hoped they would have for the garden and the plants that they tend here. With meetings happening only every other week, we didn’t know how that feeling would develop but are glad to see that it has. The second point was originally discussed more in terms of “You kill it, you eat it,” which took responsibility for the space here, and by extension the world around us, to an uncomfortably visceral point there for a moment, before it spoftened into, “Eat what you pick.”

I think it was really fun for the kids “signing” the code with thumb prints of mud. But I did notice that we’ll need to review the picking code the next time the kids are here. Several young broccoli plants mysteriously lost all their broccles before they were ready while the crew was working on the nearby planting bed. ;-) At least we can hope they got eaten!