Sustainability at Hall Middle School

This week in Sustainable Agriculture, my partner and I went to Hall Middle School to present our final project on Sustainable Agriculture. We were hosted by a 7th grade science teacher and presented a slideshow on the class, as well as talked about sustainability in our community and ways they can get involved both in sustainable agriculture and by practicing sustainability. The kids were very engaged by asking questions throughout the presentation and seemed very interested in the class and inspired to practice sustainability in their everyday lives.

Once we finished our slideshow, we did an activity to have the students practice sustainable agriculture in real life. We all made seed balls. Seed balls are a ball containing seeds, compost, and a binding material such as flour. Because the materials are in a ball, the seeds can't be eaten by pests and won't blow away in the wind. To make them, you combine the dry materials and add water to create a putty texture, making sure it isn't too runny or dry. Then, you take a small piece of the formed mixture and roll it in the palms of your hands to create a marble sized seed ball! After they are formed, let them dry and then simply toss the balls into the area where you want flowers to grow and they will sprout there! The 7th graders were all smiling and laughing when doing this activity and the resulting seed balls were perfect.

Cooper McLay

Last Market of the school year

On Wed. 23, our Sustainable Agriculture prepared for our final market. In order to have a thriving market, we prepared a variety of plants and vegetables. In addition, since it was our last market, we harvested all available crops to sell. It was an especially busy day on the farm, with students doing an array of tasks to prepare such as harvests, preparing bundles of crops, and recording our harvests. This week at school it was also Sustainability week. In honor of this week our class held an extra market time during lunch. 

To prepare for our market, each students harvested crops from their A-bed (our individual group beds) as well from beds around the garden. During 4th and 5th period, on this foggy day, students worked hard to get a number of crops available. Once the crops are harvested from the beds, we weigh and record what we picked so we have a record of what we grow. Then we clean and trim excess stems or roots so they are ready to be bundled. Each bundle is sold for $2. As seen below, students are bundling harvests such as flowers, salad mix (kale and lettuce), celery, strawberries and garlic.

My group runs bed A11. We had an especially successful day and harvested all of our crops, leaving 2/3rd of our bed empty. Our most abundant harvest was our garlic. Our garlic has been growing since November and was finally ready to be taken out. We knew it was time for our garlics to come out because the previously tall green leaves were now a yellowish brown color and were slowly wilting. We had about 13 garlics planted—weighing a total of about 1.91lbs. We also picked carrots, radishes, kale, and lettuce. Our kale and lettuce we contributed to the salad mix that we were selling. 

In the future, our farm will start being prepared for the summer as it awaits its new Sustainable Agriculture classes. 

Jordan Overmyer

Last week on the farm

This week on the farm was busy but efficient. The class broke up into groups and worked on their projects for the farm that they chose. These projects were based on ideas that the students thought would improve the quality of the SustAg farm.  Our group's idea, for example, was to create a raised bed. raised beds are more soil efficient and we believe the time we would put into creating one would be worth the output the raised bed would generate. We used cinder blocks and logs for an outer barrier and dug a trench around our location for the walls we would be putting in later. This week was also sustainability week. On Wednesday and Friday we had speakers come in to talk to us about the dangers of both global warming and invasive species. Both issues are important and relevant to the class, and climate change specifically is something our farm is meant to counter. This was another successful week on the farm, and we're hoping for many more. -Zoe

Sharing the FARM

Educating children and other people who contribute to society about being sustainable is important. Growing knowledge into the community is a huge part of how we can make a change because if more people are aware of how us as humans affect the environment, we can change our ways.
Ways we can educate people are being more sustainable in our homes (taking shorter showers, and composting), and limiting waste.
I took these methods into Bacich Elementary school where I stood in front of 40 2nd graders and asked them how they contribute to sustainability. I brought paper cups, sunflower seeds, and compost from the RHS farm so that they could experience what we do every day in sustainable agriculture. The 2nd graders were surprisingly very knowledgeable about these environmental factors, but my goal was to expand that and make sure they knew everything that I did. I narrowed it down so that it was more understandable for them, and they absorbed the information like sponges.
The 2nd graders had a lot of fun learning and they loved the concept of making changes in their homes, and bringing their sunflower seeds home so they could make sure they grew.  I also had a lot of fun because every single hand In the room shot up when I asked a question and when I asked for input.
Overall, educating students and adults is an important factor and it is a way our community can make a difference and save our planet.:)

-Kaitlyn Yang

Some words about last week from Aiden

Last week on the farm was a strange week due to the fact that many people in the class, including me, had AP testing on some of the days. Much of the work we did on the farm consisted of working on our final projects, however on Wednesday we took a break from this and did our final iron chef competition. The secret ingredient for this round was fava beans. Many had worked the Tuesday and Monday before to shuck the beans, and they were ready to be cooked by Wednesday. Groups prepared everything from fava bean tater tots, to fava bean bruschetta, to fava bean toast. Although all the groups made delicious entrees, the winner was the team that made the fava bean tater tots. Many believe that this may have been a conspiracy, as this group was the only one that hadn't yet won an iron chef, however there is nothing that can be done about that now. Other then the ever eventful iron chef, the work on our final projects has been fulfilling. My partner and I were able to fully finish our digging of an irrigation trench for the week, although I will admit, the work was mostly his as I was gone for AP testing.

Last Market of 2017-18 School Year 5/23/18

The last SustAg Farmer’s Market of the year is WEDNESDAY (tomorrow) at lunch, 7th and after school.  We will have a wonderful organic salad mix amongst many other things.  Good food at good prices.

Projects - by Josh D.

This past week was a busy week on the farm and in the classroom. It first started off with a discussion on the books we had read. All Sust. Ag students were required to read 100 pages of a book relating to agriculture. From these books we were supposed to find any interesting ideas to either help our farm economically or sustainably.  On top of discussing how we could help the farm we actually did do work to help improve the farm. This week marked the half-way point of our projects. Some projects that are being done are new stools for the farm, another table for the hoop house, and an upgrade of the compost piles. Although, the majority of the week was focused on our projects there was work being done on our 1-beds and continuing to keep the class beds efficiently producing calorie crops and compost crops. All in all a lot was accomplished and learned during this past week on the farm.

               

Table build

This week in Sustainable Agriculture we had our final Iron Chef and the theme was Fava Beans. The Fava Beans didn't come from our farm but a teacher's organic farm. My group decided to make a fava bean salad with lettuce and strawberries. We simply sauteed the fava beans in a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, cleaned and cut the lettuce and strawberries, and served the dish on a nice platter. The salad was garnished with some vinegar and olive oil too. 

Separate from the Iron Chef, all Sustag classes worked on their final projects this week. My group decided to build a new hoop house table in order to store seedling. The table is close to being done and we have coated the table with a clear sealant so the wood is projected mainly from water. Once the sealant dries we should be ready to add the wire mesh to the top of the table and the then the table will be done.  —Cam

The Unsettling of America

This week (week of may 7), we had a seminar in class about sustainability. This seminar was based on books that were read by students. Some of the problems discussed were about our culture of convenience. This gets in the way of sustainability because achieving it requires thought and care. For example, waste cannot be simply thrown away as we are all so used to doing, it must be composted and recycled to the extent that it can be in order for sustainability to be possible. As Mr Stewart pointed out, it is important to get people to enjoy practices that promote sustainability because that is what it takes in order to have a cultural shift away from convenience. I personally read the book the Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry. This book discusses the environmental, cultural and economic impacts of industrialized farming. These impacts include an increase in the psychological distance between Americans and the land in which their food is grown which leads to a loss in respect for the natural environment, the destruction of farming communities, and the reliance of farmers

 on federal subsidies. 

Tommy

Iron Chef #4

This week was a special week for our class because we had our last Iron Chef competition. The theme of the competition was centered around fava beans. On Tuesday, we received a large donation of fava beans and spent the class period shucking them to prepare for Wednesday. On the day of Iron Chef, myself and others decided to saute the fava beans with kale, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. This is how we cooked the fava beans: In a large frying pan over medium heat we heated the olive oil. Then we added the fava beans to cook, stirring frequently, until the favas were tender, for about 3 minutes. We added salt and pepper to taste. Before sauteeing the fava beans, we had to boil a pot of water and let them cook a bit in order to cook the layer of shelling that protects the actual beans from the environment. Fava beans are one of the oldest domesticated food legumes. References to favas occur in both the Talmud and the Mishna, indicating they have been part of the Middle Eastern diet since at least since the 4th century.

We had a blast cooking this week and are all sad that this was our last Iron Chef!

Kenzie

More final project work

This week was the first week that we started our end of the year projects. The first day (Tuesday) was very chaotic because everyone was trying to finalize their projects with Mr. Stewart. The second day (Wednesday) was more independent. We all got started on out projects right away. There are many different projects going on at the same time. One group is making a new table for the hoop house, another group is making stools to sit on while working, another is making a mural, others are making new signs for the farm, and I think you get the point. We are trying to beautify and improve the farm as much as we can. My favorite project is adding new compost bins in the parking lots to collect more compost for the farm. I think that this is a very necessary item because there is too much food that goes to waste every day. So, although this week is crazy, it is really fun to work on thing that we believe can help the sust. ag. kids for years to come!

—Raya

Final Project Work

As we're approaching the end of the year, all sustainable agriculture students have been challenged with creating their own final project that incorporates some of the techniques we have learned throughout the year. The guidelines are loose and the purpose of this project is to take self-directed action and help improve the RHS farm. This week, both sustainable agriculture classes had time to create a detailed plan of their project and begin working. One student, Carson Gilley, has come up with the idea to create stools that can be used on the farm. He believes that having a place to sit while working, instead of kneeling, will allow people to be comfortable which will make students more productive. Another group is making compost bins that will be placed in the front lot of Redwood. Along with the bins, they are creating posters that clearly label which foods go in which bin. They plan on monitoring the bins at lunch on certain days and bringing the compost to the farm to use. Other groups are working on making the farm more visually pleasing. For example, one group is working to create a mural that would be placed on the front of the gate of the farm. Can't wait to see how all of the projects turn out!

Olivia Treadway

IVC Organic Farm

Every block Wednesday, Sophia and I head to IVC in Novato for our internship. We work on a lot of weeding in the beds that have overgrown weeds and we get to wear really cool straw hats so we're basically real farmers. A few weekends ago, we volunteered at their plant sale on Sunday and got to do a lot of hands on learning. We spent the day learning about the different kinds of plants being sold and restocking them and watering them. We planted and watered many seeds that will soon grow into taller plants to be sold. There was a huge range of plants such as chard, kale, tomatoes, basil, and native flowers. One herb that I really liked the taste of was the licorice mint, also known as Anise Hyssop. It's neither a licorice or a mint plant, but it tastes exactly like both. It's an herb that can be used for desserts or drinks! The rest of the day was spent weeding the strawberry beds with big red strawberries about to be harvested while a small band of people played the guitar and banjo. 

Market Gardener

On Monday, April 23, 2018 both Sustainable Agriculture classes watched Chapter 3 to Chapter 5 of The Market Gardener.

Chapter 3 demonstrated how Jean-Martin Fortier prepares his 30 inch wide by 100 foot long raised beds.  Fortier first removes the black tarp used to kill weeds and increase the rate of decomposition of left over waste from previously grown vegetables.  A walking tractor is used to minimize the CO2 emissions that is able to have many attachments to be of multiple use on their farm.  The soil is turned using an attachment for the tractor, aerated with a broad fork/u-bar, 5 or 6 wheelbarrows of vermicompost and local chicken manure, then another attachment is used to mix all amendments.

Chapter 4 mentions green manures and the importance of rhizobium that causes beneficial root nodules on crops.  First, this chapter of the movie explains to never leave soil bare and that cover crops should be planted a few weeks before the current crops are harvested so that they all mature by the time the crop is pulled.  Next, those cover crops are then chopped and left on top of the soil to create the green manure.

Chapter 5 is about how Fortier transplants his seedlings into the raised beds on his farm.  To plan where each seedling will be placed a rake is used to space each row in the bed by used rubber caps to create the rows when the rake is run along the length.  The same technique is used along the width of the bed to create a grid in the soil where the seedlings will be placed at the intersections.  His technique is to plant intensively but also keeping in mind that when the crop is 75% to full growth he wants to leaves to be touching to create a canopy that avoids the growth of weeds and maintain moisture in the soil. --CN

Spring Planting

This week in sustag we planted different varieties of lettuce in the beds north of the hoop house. We started by removing large weeds and old crops from each bed. We then turned the soil with a shovel to slow further weed growth. Compost was added to improve the soil quality and fill in any larger holes left over from turning the soil. Next we raked the topsoil on each bed to make it smooth and put the irrigation lines back in place. To begin planting we used the six inch dibble board to mark the correct spacing for each plant. Finally it was time to plant, we used trowels to make each dibble hole larger and transplanted the lettuce starts into the holes. We dug each hole deep enough so there was ample room underground for the roots to avoid j rooting. Finally we thoroughly watered each newly planted lettuce start and checked the irrigation for any holes. We hope to harvest this lettuce in a couple of weeks and sell it back to the community during a market day.

—Dutch