garden news-fall harvest program

GARDEN NEWS-FALL HARVEST PROGRAM

these are the colors of the rainbow
this is a tarp with the rainbow colors on it
in our community garden we grow these colors of vegetables or fruits

each fall we do a fall harvest program that brings about 500 elementary students through our garden 
we do four 25 minute sessions with each group of students
we have 13 schools that send their students here over 13 days
the sessions last from about 9-11am

each child gets to harvest a baby pumpkin from our pumpkin patch

here are the foods we grow or as we call them rainbow foods

purple  eggplant passionfruit jujube mulberries 
blue  blueberries
green  kale collards spinach green beans peas peppers onions celery leeks
white  white pumpkin white eggplant
yellow  squash lemons grapefruit bananas bell peppers
orange  oranges pumpkins carrots
red  tomatoes apples peppers

red foods eg are good for the heart

this is the nature appreciaton session under the grandfather pepper tree
the kids love this one
its their relaxing session to learn about the bees and how to appreciate nature


this is the group walking from the nature appreciation session along a walkway with various fruit and nut trees like passionfruit thai limes mango bay fig macadamia nuts cherimoya pomegranate jujube some i cant pronounce or spell

along the way each student has a pinch of poppy seeds
we pause 
count to three with me counting in my donald duck voice
then we pop or throw them onto a small field where they will hopefully germinate next spring
and
produce a blanket of beautiful orange or red poppies

that kid in the orange shirt is mr hudson
yes he enjoyed the visit even though he comes to the garden all the time

from throwing out the poppy seeds or should i say popping them out
the kids go into the banana grove and try to find the racks of bananas hanging from the trees
all knowing there is a monkey named george sitting in one of the trees 
they know he is not real
but
they still get quiet when i shake a banana tree and tell them thats how it sounds in the jungle when a monkey jumps from tree to tree

they all get excited when they see george

if you ask them whats the highlight of the field trip 
they will mostly say george the monkey and the banana grove and their own pumpkin and of course the chickens

the other two sessions is one on seeds where they go through our greenhouse and see all our baby seedlings growing and see our loofas growing and get to plant their own sweet pea in our garden bed

the other one is the pumpkin or squash session where they see all kinds of different pumpkins and learn about how the pumpkin grows from seed
they also see if a pumpkin floats in water
the answer 
it does float

the other highlight beside george the monkey is getting to pick their own pumpkin from our pumpkin patch 

after the pumpkin session they get to go see the chickens and feed them some chicken scratch and vegetables
this is another highlight of the trip

a two hour field trip they will be talking about for awhile

george and the banana grove
the chickens
their own pumpkins

the organicgreen doctor