Veggie Swap

School gardens offer a wonderful opportunity to connect with community members. 

Consider hosting your own Veggie Swap featuring the fresh produce from your garden.  Invite nearby school gardens and local and family gardeners to harvest the fresh produce from their garden and come together for a fun gardening event.

Gardeners can share and swap their produce.  Parents and students can create a pot luck with the fresh produce and celebrate your harvest.

This is the perfect opportunity to try a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and share your bountiful harvest. It can also be an inspirational evening of learning gardening advice and tips for the next gardening season.

Best of all, your students will realize that they are a part of a larger gardening community and their eyes will be opened to even more fruits and veggies.

Check out the map of school gardens in Wisconsin to find a fellow gardener near you.  If you have a school garden and aren't featured on the map, let us know and we'll gladly add your school garden!

Getting Parents Involved in School Gardens

Parents can be a vital asset to the success of your school garden.  I was recently asked how to involve parents in a school garden project and thought I would share a few suggestions. 

Feel free to add your own thoughts and suggestions in the comment section below.

• Have parents donate gardening tools. Parents may have extra tools lying around that they don’t need. Donations save money instead of having to buy new tools. Parents can put their names on tools and pick them up after the gardening season is over.  By donating tools, parents will feel more invested in the project.

• Invite parents to help plant/care for/harvest the garden. Create a volunteer schedule. Send information home in a letter or newsletter; provide specific tasks so parents know how to get involved.

• Host a garden party.  It can be a planting/harvesting party where everyone works in the garden.  Or simply invite parents to tour the garden.  Students can show the parents around and tell them what they have learned.  Again, seeing the children get excited may encourage parents to pitch in.

• Invite parents to plan the garden. Involve them in the process early on to make them feel invested.

• Allow students to take fresh produce home. It may get parents more excited about the garden.

• Invite a parent to come in and cook with produce from the garden.

• Invite a parent to come in and read a children’s book about gardening.  Click here for a list of recommended books.

• If a parent is a gardener, have the students interview him/her and ask for advice/tips for their garden.   

• Don't forget about your PTA/PTO organization, which can be a great resource for funding ideas or volunteers!

Students Write about their Microfarm

Students from Woodland Elementary School in Barron, WI have also been busy planting and harvesting a microfarm. Check out these adorable letters from the students describing their experiences.

Dear Mr. Wright,
Our class Micro Farm went great. We all loved watching
it grow. When they were finished growing, we got to eat them. My
favorite ones were the purple kohlrabis and the carrots. The one I did not like was the sunflowers. I got to plant the purple kohlrabis. I loved planting the purple kohlrabis. Thank you for inventing the Micro Farm.
Love,
Mackenzie

Dear Mr. Wright,
My class Micro Farm is going very well. We are harvesting around Oct. 21. We have purple kohlrabi, tenber green mustard, carrots, and sunflowers. One of the carrots was a foot taller then the other. The carrots were the last ones starting to grow. I can not wait until we harvest them. Thank you for giving us the farm.
Your friend,
Grace

Dear Mr. Wright,
Thank you for the micro-farm. It was fun watching the plant’s grow. My favorite was the purple kohlrabi. The sunflowers tasted funny. The tendergreen mustard and carrots tasted funny. It was fun to harvest the greens. I planted the sunflower. I planted the sunflowers with Walter and Kambria. We had it with ranch dressing.
Your friend,
Kiara

The first harvest from the microfarm

After planting my first microfarm less than two weeks ago, it is time to start harvesting!

The sunflowers and hybrid popcorn were the first microgreens harvested.

Harvesting was incredibly easy and a lot of fun. It was like giving my microgreens a haircut. Using a pair of scissors, I trimmed the tops of the plants, leaving a small shoot behind. As I harvested the plants, I could imagine a group of young students eagerly awaiting their turn to harvest their crops.

(Above: Before harvesting)

(Above: Harvesting)

(Above: [Left] Sunflowers; [Right] Hybrid Popcorn)

Tonight I'll try the microgreens in a salad. I'm a little nervous about trying the microgreens since the sunflowers look similar to clovers and the hybrid popcorns bare a strong resemblance to grass clippings. As I write this, though, I can hear my parents’ oft-repeated phrase while I was growing up: "If you haven't tried it, you can't say you don't like it."

(Above: Close up of Sunflowers)

(Above: Close up of Hybrid Popcorn)

So I guess it's a hybrid popcorn and sunflower salad for me tonight!