Sunday Farmer Market--Pics!

Sunday Farmer Market

Today I made my way over to the farmers market located at the Civic Center in San Rafael. The farmers market is open in the morning and it proved to be scorching hot. There were waves of people scattered around looking for fresh fruits and vegetables. I really enjoyed the size of the farmers market. There are lots of people that attend yet it never feels too crowded. The farmers market is a great way to eat amazing food while supporting local chefs and farmer. My sister and I decided to try out the crepe stand and they were amazing! We ended up buying lots of peaches and nectarines after the samples left us no choice. I had a conversation with the guy who runs the Ortiz family farm stand. They run an Organic family farm that sells lots of different products. We talked about water usage and sustainability. He explained how they use water from the lake in order to conserve water. He explained how little things that they do in order to save water goes a long way, especially on a smaller sized family farm. I would most definitely recommend taking a trip to these farmers market. It is open on Sundays every week and they carry relatively inexpensive produce throughout. It's great to eat breakfast or lunch.  -Cole

Sustag Farmers Market

This week in Sustag we had our last farmers market of the year. The Sustag market is a very important part of the class because it helps students understand the whole agriculture system and its supply chain. It allows students to actually sell the products they grew, and through this action see how produce is taken from the farm to the consumer. It is easy to see the food you buy and not think twice how it got to your table. However, the Sustag farmers market allows students to see how the food is planted, grown, harvested, and sold. It teaches the supply chain at each level, with the final level being sales at the farmers market. This hands-on take to learning the supply chain allows students to have a better knowledge of how much time and labor goes into the food on their plate. Another part of the farmers market that is important is selling the product. Through the sales of produce, students learn what to make with different vegetables, if a customer asks. This knowledge will allow students to know what recipes are best for certain crops as opposed to other crops. With the knowledge of the supply chain and how to cook different crops students are able to fully understand commercial agriculture and how their food gets from farm to table.

By Maggie Robison

Final Project

       This week in Sustag my group and I worked on our final project. We actually did the physical work this week. During the prior week, our work related to the final project largely consisted of us making plans. Our project is attaching a gutter to the roof of the chicken coop and attaching pipes to allow water to go down to a bucket where it may be used. On Tuesday after school, we went to Home Depot to acquire the necessary supplies needed. The supplies that we purchased were: a gutter, clips to hold the gutter in, mesh and attachments for the gutter to go downward. We used these supplies to build a sustainable water catchment system. The rain tested our system out and it worked well. The water from the rain flowed down to the bucket and all that's left is for us to put a top on the bucket so that when the temperature rises it doesn't overheat. —john

Bumper Crop

by Georgia B

This week in sustag we harvested lettuce and chard and delivered it to teachers around campus. The lettuce and chard is growing in beds A15 and A16. This lettuce was also harvested and was used in the farm to fork in class on friday. It was fun to be able to grow and harvest produce from the farm and deliver it to teachers around campus. They all really appreciated getting organic lettuce and chard grown right from the farm. It was exciting to be able to deliver fresh produce to them that we had seen grow and flourish right on the farm and know that they were going to use it. It was fun to see how the lettuce and chard that was growing in these beds flourished and we were able to harvest bundles of it and know that it was gonna go to good use. Compared to other beds on the farm, these two seem to be doing exceptionally well and it was amazing to see how fast the lettuce and chard seemed to grow. Although I personally did not plant the lettuce or chard, it it always uplifting to see when certain produce or plants do well on the farm and this is definitely one that will last for a while.

Mini Greenhouse

This past week, my group and I started to really get going on our project, Haiden, Diego, and I all went to Home Depot to get all the supplies we need to make our project as good as possible. We got 50 feet of PVC pipe and several attachments to go along with it. We also got plastic sheeting that you can see on the current hoop house in the farm. Our project is basically a mini hoop house for the strawberry bed. Strawberries are among the most demanded item from our farm and we believe that this will help bring some revenue in on market days. Not only will it bring money in, strawberries and extremely delicious and we want to make sure that the strawberries being grown at the farm are the best they can possibly be. You never know, maybe one day the Redwood high school farm will be awarded to best strawberries in Northern California! We have to go back to a hardware store to buy a few more items, however, we are confident that we can make our project something the farm uses for a long time. We really wanted to build something that would be used and where we could come back in years down the road to see how he helped the Redwood farm. Below are some pictures of what we expect our project to look like. —Evan

We are using PVC pipe, not wood, however it will look similar to this. We liked the idea of the retractable roof so you can get in and weed around the strawberries, but our design has shown to be light so you can just lift it up and move it.

Starting our spring final project

This week we started working on our final project. This project is focused on giving back to the farm and community by implementing everything we have learned this year into a project of our choice. For my groups project we chose to work on the 2 strawberry beds and get them ready for the upcoming growing season. Strawberries are perennials which mean they last for more than 2 years so the dead strawberries from the past growing season is still there. This past week we spent most of the time weeding between each bed so the individual plants have less competition and can get all the nutrients they need. After weeding the beds, we added a bunch of fresh soil and compost to give the soil some great nutrients. Lastly, we added mulch in the form of straw, in between each strawberry plant. Mulch is very important because it gives the plants and temperature buffer and protects them from cold or hot temperatures. Mulch also helps the plants retain water and helps keeps weeds out.
--charlie