Garden Project Symposium

As you may recall, 7th grade Gamma students have been working on a project to learn more about the TMS Garden and how the community of Arlington Heights can benefit from what they have learned.

         I am excited to let you know that the Arlington Heights Memorial Library is holding a Symposium for the students where they will have a chance to display/present their project. The Symposium is set for Saturday, January 11^th, 2014 from 1:00pm – 3:00pm. 

         Students will be scheduled for a 15 minute time slot when they are to attend and stand by their project, explain what they learned, and answer any questions from community members who attend the symposium. 

Hope to see you there!!!

Garden Fruits & Veggies 2013

My students keep asking what was grown in the garden this season and I figured others may be interested, so here is the list (complied by Mr. Slowinski).

sweet potatoes

potatoes (blue and gold)

hot peppers (jalapeno, purple jalapeno, serrano, lemon drop)

watermelon

green peppers

japanese long beans

chard

kale (lacinato)

collard greens

napa cabbage

brussels sprouts

basil

tarragon

parsley

cilantro

oregano

onions

dill

arrugula

soybeans

tomatoes (various heirlooms)

tomatillos (purple)
asparagus

eggplant

broccoli

celery

carrots

popcorn (failed)

squash (delicata, spaghetti, Illinois[white pumpkin])

we'll plant garlic soon...

Garden Project

Now that most of the garden has been harvested, my 7th grade Science students are actively working on how to promote the garden to the community of Arlington Heights.  Students are choosing what they want to learn concerning gardens and healthy eating and how they want to share their knowledge. Some students are working with the Arlington Heights Library, others are creating movies to share with public access television, and some are creating informational flyers to post around town.  I don't know exactly what the results will be, but I do know that the kids are actively engaged, which is every teacher's dream.

The Garden Celebration....In the News

Click here to read the Triblocal article on our harvest event.

Harvest Celebration!

It was about a year ago that I began writing the grant for the school garden at TMS.  I actually remember writing the grant in the hospital after my daughter was born. Obviously the lack of sleep didn't have too much of an impact.  It's been a busy and productive year, and I want to thank all the students and staff and admin who have helped the garden along the way this past year.

And now our big day is finally here. I just checked the weather, and I'm really hoping the forecast holds true: sun popping out around 3:00, just in time for prep and the big festivities.  A nice crisp 55 degrees. Perfect.

After school today, students made two kinds of pumpkin soup, curried and apple with spices.  Both are delicious yet very different.  Unfortunately, it all happened so fast, I didn't even take one picture.  We'll let the soup itself serve as evidence that it actually happened.  All the pureed pumpkin and the ingredients for the stock were made with ingredients from the garden (except garlic, which we'll have next year).

I'm going to be posting all the recipes for tomorrows event on the blog under the recipes tab, so even if you don't get the chance to stop by, you can try out some of the recipes and see what you think.

SEE YOU ALL AT THOMAS TOMORROW!

JUST YAMMIN....32 Pounds of Sweet Potatoes.

We cut away the vines, dug into the ground, and unearthed some amazingly large sweet potatoes.  Check it out.

Prying potatoes out of the ground

Look what we found

Is it a seal...?

Sweet Potato Fries?

Crazy Carrots!

It has been a while since we planted our tiny carrot seeds, and at lunch yesterday we finally plucked our carrots out of the ground.  We were surprised by how well they did even if some of them were pretty crazy.

This was deemed "pig's foot"

These will make a nice addition to our stock and soup.

Making Salsa at Lunch

Some 7th graders came up to make some fresh salsa during lunch on Friday.  We had harvested some tomatoes and peppers from the garden and needed to do something with them.  Fresh salsa was perfect solution.  A little garlic, lime, salt, onion, plus a couple jalapeños, and a bunch of tomatoes = delicious salsa.  We froze our salsa and will be serving it along with pork, beef, and veggie tacos.  Can't wait.

TMS Harvest Dinner - OCTOBER 17th

On October 17th, the TMS Garden Club will be hosting a harvest dinner to promote healthy, sustainable, affordable, and fair food. It will be both a fun and informational event with student/chef demos, information booths, and samplings of food from the TMS garden and possibly other vendors who promote our cause.

If you are interested in being involved in any way, please let me know and we can talk about how you might be able to help.  We could use help both with preparation leading up to the event and at the event itself.  Email tslowinski@sd25.org to help.

Now That's a Lot of Squash!

Last Friday, the garden club harvested over 150 pounds of delicata and Illinois squash.  Several of the Illinois squash weighed in over 17 pounds.  Now we just have to figure out what we want to do with it.  Any Ideas?

A Watermelon Snack

While making pesto on a hot day, we all got a little hungry and decided to have a little watermelon snack.  It was quite refreshing.

Making (and eating) Pesto Pizza

DELICIOUS!

The Garden Club got together to make delicious pesto pizza.  We made our own pesto with basil and kale from our garden (recipe below).  The next day we grilled up some fresh pizzas topped with a variety of tomatoes from the garden.

Learning how to make pesto

Grilling our fresh pizzas.

Picking Basil

Cheesy

Finally some real pizza