Our young gardeners were invited to participate in a Kale Feast Photo Contest this fall. Here are some stories and photos.
Prizes for the contest were sponsored by SPUD (Sustainable Produce Urban Delivery) a local company that strives to source food from local farmers and organic producers. The winning classes, determined by a random draw, received either a presentation and smoothie demonstration (Weinlos School), organic apples (St. Kateri School) or a gift certificate to get some produce from SPUD (Ottewell Junior High).
We were very happy with the efforts demonstrated by all the classes who decided to enter the contest. Here are some snapshots from the submissions.
Grade 2 students at Elmwood School developed a recipe for a “Green Bomb Salad” with classroom grown kale, cucumbers, basil and lemon balm. Teacher Ms. Andrews writes: “There were many triumphs in the project. The main triumph is that all the students ate and enjoyed the salad. The students are so invested in this garden and they are so excited to taste their harvest even they had never tasted the vegetables.”
At Windsor Park School, the Grade 1 students made “Kale Chips”. The students wrote about the experience in their journal (see image below).
The Gardening Club at Ottewell Junior High made “Sweet Potato Kale Fritters”. One of the students wrote up how the group worked together to grow the plants for their recipe: “The gardening club has been meeting since November, that’s when the teamwork began. We have met faithfully twice a week to water, plant, prune, stake, build trellis, photograph, and giggle at our progress. Along the way we have harvested kale, basil, tomatoes, cucumbers, and legumes. The basil we dried. The kale we froze, everything else we ate fresh. We also set up an instagram page and have been adding photos as we’ve been taking them.”
Another delicious meal was served at Weinlos School. The students made “Kale and Basil Pizza” and also a salad with lettuce and kale from the classroom garden. Here are a few lines from Jade’s story: “The class was so excited and happy they couldn’t wait for the pizzas to be ready, one because we never tried it, two because we all love pizza! Soon we came in from another recess and we saw the trays with the pizzas. We all found our pizza and ate it. We didn’t really taste basil or kale because it was under the cheese. But it was really tasty!”
The Kindergarten class at St. Kateri School “had an absolute BLAST!” entering the contest. Teacher Ms Carignan’s report shows that her students really went to town with different recipes that included kale. They made a “Friendship Smoothie” with their reading buddies, they helped to make a “Kindness Salad” and tried other recipes such as “Banana Kale Muffins”, “Kale Chips” and “Kale and Basil Dip with carrots”. Wow, what a great way to use healthy kale in yummy treats.
Our Little Green Thumbs classes grow many other plants in their indoor garden, and most of all the garden is an opportunity to learn about cooperation, caring for plants, experimenting, measuring and many other activities. Here are just a few more photos that teachers sent from their gardens in the last month or so. It’s always such a pleasure hearing from the schools.
