Garden Jobs, Happy Harvesting, Weeding and Autonomy.

Azaziah pulling weeds like a boss

Jacob found some zucchini hiding in the garden 

group photo of our first harvest ! 

pulling them weeds like we do

Pea seeds

Today we planted some pea seeds in see through jars so that we can observe their development as they germinate.

Harvesting Seeds

Today we learned how to collect different types of seeds so that we don't have to buy them next season.

Esperansa harvesting a type of lettuce seed

Jonathan collecting a different type of lettuce

a group of panther gardeners collecting pea pods and lettuce

Kalysha grabbing some lettuce seeds

Our First Day pulling weeds!

Today we pulled weeds for the first time as a class.

Before we pulled weeds we talked about why we need to do this important chore.

1.) They steal nutrients from our plants
2.) It teaches us discipline
3.) They take up room
4.) It makes the garden healthier and look better!
5.) It could help old ladies!

After pulling weeds here are some thoughts we had:
1.) You can stick yourself with pointy sharpy things
2.) Pulling weeds can be fun!
3.) Weeds are a pain it is WAR!
4.) If you have a bad day you can take out your anger on the weeds (stress reliever)
5.) Plants surrounding by weeds looked like they were being strangled

Happy Plant Day!

There is hope for this class !

NEW GARDEN CLASS: Sustainable Agriculture Students answer the question: Why Garden?

Today is our second day of Community Gardening Adventures in Science Elective Class here at Stewart Middle School. Because many of our new class members have never gardened before we are going to spend some time figuring out WHY would anyone want to participate in this activity.

We brainstormed in partners, groups and as a whole class why someone would want to grow food/garden or participate in activities like this. Here is what we came up with:

Tagro
Saves Money
Fun
Fresh
Nature
Community Time
Downtime
Outside Time
Healthy
No CHemicals
Organic
Active
Share Knowledge
Charity
Rewarding
TASTE'S BETTER!


We also watched some very awesome videos about community gardening, the politics of gardening, and an example of one in Juneau Alaska!.

What's Wrong with our food system? TEDX Kids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Id9caYw-Y

Subversive Plots TED X https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezuz_-eZTMI

Juneau Community Garden http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB8iNW3dh3s&safe=active

Fall Garden Update. WE'RE BACK BABY!

Hey everybody! Guess what! We're back! What a great summer of hot weather, the garden is doing pretty good and a lot of produce is being produced for food banks and summer gardening programs. Also we got our Community Garden Elective class reinstated and will start class 7th period on the first day of 2013 schoolyear! Mr. Iverson is coming back and is so excited to start the next phases of the garden as we transition to a new school soon and possibly anticipate the building of a newer high tech garden that is the centerpiece of the whole school!!!! 

Tomatoes and Green Beans oh MY!

Tacoma Green Thumbs Summer program helping us out. Weeding, collecting seeds, harvesting and watering! Thanks for the help!!!!

Pulling them weeds!

The Roosevelt Elementary Garden where the Greenthumbs sharpened their skills!

Look At that spread! Tamales, pizza, spinach salad, pasta salad, cucumber salad, all from produce from the Stewart Community Garden and the Roosevelt Garden! YUM! Thanks for inviting me to your party so Gourmet!

Have a great summer!!!

Should You need to contact Mr. I over the summer you can reach him at kiverso@tacoma.k12.wa.us

or 253 651 9092 for access, water and tool issues.

Hip Hip Hooray!

Love The Garden Kids!

Gardening Elective in Jeopardy

This next year Stewart will see some changes to the courses we will offer our students. The model for our school used to be providing a diverse range of experiences (electives) for our students ranging from construction class, to choir, to graphic design, to theatre, to art, to guitar, to all sorts of mini terms and other offerings in order to build a love for school (because of a special elective) that would transfer to the core skills measured on tests (in the vein of SOTA/SAMI success). We believed that this exposure would result in a transformation of school culture to innovation and creativity. Unfortunately high staff turnover, 2 years of unclear and unreasonable behavioral expectations (or lack of them at all), last years 5th grade enrollment freeze, multiple principals, multiple special education models, funding use issues and audits, and a dilapidated building that became the poster child for the districts Prop. 1 bill all combined with a socioeconomically struggling community to predictably strain the Stewart STREAM (Science Technology Reading Engineering Art and Math) SIG (School Improvement Grant) Model for improvement and, more importantly to the financial powers that be, reduced test scores across grades and subjects (except science). Additionally Stewart also had to endure a battering ram of bad press year after year, a district culture of gossip around building happenings and a massive (albeit only partially responsible for) drop in enrollment resulting in the loss of FTE (funding per student) for our school and the staff and services it provides. With the impending move to HUNT for two years we can expect this trend to continue in loss of enrollment and FTE as well as a site move to an even more dilapidated facility.

That is all a very long explanation to set the stage for the fact that there is a really strong possibility that the community gardening elective class will not be offered any longer at Stewart Middle School. Because we will have so few electives many other courses/classes will have to absorb the influx of the loss of this course diversity, class sizes will likely go up, and frivolous courses such as the one you have grown to love, watch, cheer for and learn from on this blog will be lost to compensate.

Here are a couple of reason's our class has brainstormed on why the school district should increase our FTE to a point that our counselors and principal can schedule a community garden elective class in the fall that is essential to the running of the Stewart Community Garden.

§Calming physically fit activity for students at the end of a long day

§Donate 200+ pounds of veggies a year to the community including a battered women's shelter, students and staff

§Positive publicity for our school (we don't always get highlighted for the good we do)

§Brings diverse community members together in a safe way

§Learn about advertising and persuasion (LA standard)

§Learn about history of agriculture and worker rights (SS standard)

§Encourages multigrade collaboration and friendship and mentoring in multigrade elective class

§Teaches students to grow veggies for their families (sustainability) and reduces waste

§Teaches responsibility to care for something other than self

§Learn about cells, plant types, weather, soil, compost, food web, insects, photosynthesis, (all state science standards)

§Practice measurement and fractions when planting (math standard)

§Creates a safe place in the community and improves property values nearby

§Its beautiful and we beautify the school grounds!!!!!!

The garden has faced many challenges over the years. We've had our water shut off, we've had the process for collecting money stifled. We've had our native plants poisoned and chopped down by maintenance, but little did we know that eventually our garden could possibly go neglected due to something far beyond our control. We can't control enrollment. We can't control the misuse and decisions of those high above our simple goal of learning to grow food together for those in need in our community. In fact the garden itself is a metaphor for the transitions and challenges this school has endured over the last 4 years.

In the end we hope that all the photos, donations, activities and teachings/learnings we've gained and provided from our garden were not in vain. We also hope that this blog serves as a 3 year chronicling of how insanely difficult it is to change the culture of American education towards sustainability, healthy habits and philanthropy.

We've had a blast and hope you have too. Until next time...

keep growing :) 

Harvesting Day/delivering

                                                     All of the cilantro Mr.Iverson harvested

                                                Mr.I and alex putting mint into the bag

                                                              David weeding beds

                                 Jeffrey harvested lettuce and preparing them to get delivered

                                      Chives and oregano that have been harvested from the garden

                           

                                          Mint that have been harvested for Teachers to get

Tacoma Garden Club Glove/Shovel Donations!

Thank you so much for our new gloves and trowels. Our old gloves were cracked and nasty and these new gloves, kneepads and trowels help us make our least favorite job a little more bearable!!!

Everyone with their new gloves!

Yay for Donations 

It inspired a weeding party of ferocious nature

die weeds!

watch the lettuce!