Second-graders harvest salad greens

Mrs. Bazan's second-grade class harvested a bumper crop of mixed lettuces, spinach and radishes. With kid scissors, they snipped bunches of leaves, being careful not to pull out the roots, so that the plants could grow more leaves for another day's snack.

The kids also pulled every radish with a juicy red, pink or white root bulging out of the soil. The rest they left for another day.

Vesna Kovach, mother of Mrs. Bazan's student Ulysses and a longtime garden volunteer, led the effort. The kids carried the harvest back to their classroom, where they all took turns helping Vesna wash and spin the lettuce and spinach. Kids also twisted free the radishes from their bitter leaves -- which went into the compost -- and carefully washed them.

Each student piled his or her plate high with lettuces and spinach, and a few opted for a radish, too. As luck would have it, today was healthy snack day, and crisp cucumbers added to the green feast.

The students picked enough greens for four additional classrooms -- the rest of the second grade, and two more classrooms besides. Mrs. Bazan and Vesna distributed the leafy treasure to the other classrooms.

One teacher, Miss Thousand, noted that the lettuces were sweeter than that tasted at the second-grade field trip to Troy Gardens just the day before. The farmers there said the lettuce was on the bitter side because the weather had been so dry lately.

The conclusion is that 4G gardeners are keeping the lettuce happy with sufficiently frequent watering!

First-ever kid harvest!

For the first time in 4G history, students harvested a crop from the garden for a class-time snack!

Parents Melissa Mooney, Joanne Keane, Zivile Kudzin and Vesna Kovach helped a group of upperclass members snip lettuce and spinach and pluck some juicy radishes.

The kids took bags of freshly harvested greens indoors, where Zivile's handy salad spinner was used to rinse and dry them.

Students made short work of the delicious salad!

Garden receives award from Whole Foods

The  Great Green Growing Garden has been awarded a $100 gift card from the Whole Kids Foundation, a project of Whole Foods Market. Three thousand applications were submitted nationwide for the grants.

Thanks to parents Jim Porter for spearheading the the grant-writing project last fall and Wendy Gasch for her assistance.

Jim Porter, president of the Lake View PTA, was one of the original parents to get the garden project started. In 2009, he and his two sons broke the first ground at the site of what would become the 4G garden.

Wendy Gasch is new to Lake View, as her child started kindergarten this academic year. She is a horticulturalist who worked for several years at Olbrich Gardens and now runs an independent business with her husband.

In the award notification reproduced below, local Whole Foods staff shared some extremely complimentary words about our garden!

Date: May 3, 2012
From: Amanda Jahnke Sauer
RE: Whole Foods Market Madison School Garden Project

Hello Jim and the Great Green Growing Garden team

Thank you so much for applying for the Whole Foods Market School Garden Project.

Although we were not able to grant your school with the full $500 donation this year, we would be delighted to offer a $100 gift card to go towards seedlings, fruit bushes, supplies or anything else we might be able to offer at our store. 

Our Floral Specialist, Jessie, is cc’d. Please feel free to reach out to her directly with any questions on what we carry that might be of interest for your project. The gift card is ready and waiting up at our Customer Service Desk whenever you’re ready.

Let me just say that our review committee was incredibly impressed by your garden and all you’re doing to bring healthy snacks and eating education to your school!

Thanks so much for all that you do.

All our best for another great season,

Amanda