Sunday, November 21, 2010

LAST WORKDAY PRIOR TO PLANTING DAY!



Ready for action!

Phase One of building the edible garden is finally done! We did it! We had lots of volunteers this weekend who came to help us shovel and rake the mulch surface, add compost to the planters, finish the brick patio, add touch up paint to our shed/kitchen,  install the drip irrigation for the woolly pockets and build our very cool gateway arch.The garden is now ready for the 7th grade science classes to start planting this week. The first plantings will be done by Ms. Schwendener and Ms. Holland's classes and led by Katie Dwyer, our garden coordinator. I will tell you more about Katie in my next posts.


Adding compost to the planters

Installing the drip irrigation to the woolly pockets
Building the garden's archway
The mulch pile is getting smaller!


Raking the mulch surface

Clean up - a hard day of work is done.








Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Project Lunch - The School Lunch Challenge


the chefs for the School Lunch Challenge
On November 12, I particpated in the Project Lunch: School Lunch Challenge event that was presented by Teens Turning Green and Marin Academy Eco Council. The event was held at Marin Academy. First, we walked into their auditorium and listened to some students speak (Ali Chan, Max Norman, Courtney Jacobson). They all had very intelligent things to say. After the students spoke Chef Ann Cooper (originally from Alice Waters’ garden!) talked to us about changing our schools lunch systems, and Congress member Lynn Woolsey talked to us about how government policies needed to change to be more supportive to schools and our health.

We then went down to the MA kitchen and prepare food; we broke up into six groups where local chefs were waiting to teach us how to cook a meal on $1.20 per student while meeting USDA guidelines. Once we finished the food we all sat down and ate a great meal. After several fire alarms (the smoke detectors went off more than once!) we went back up stairs and had a panel discussion where the student speakers asked questions to the adult speakers. We learned about what was wrong in the system and ways we can change it, like starting an edible garden and the importance of being organic.


the Project Lunch Stakeholders