Salad and Quiche

Amazing things have happened in this second semester. This is Tyler. He is eating salad for the second time in his life. (The first time was in our class, too.) What you don't see is when he licked his plate after finishing his lettuce.

Everybody loved the salad we made; this bowl was filled many times!

Another favorite turned out to be Swiss Chard Quiche, which we made today. One more harvest of lettuce, and school is out!

Spring Gardening

 It has been too long since we've added anything to the Garden Blog. During the second semester we finished our greenhouse harvests of beets, carrots, bok choi, lettuce, Swiss chard, and spinach. The winter greenhouse was a tremendous success, despite the fact that we planted in the late fall.

Our raised beds brought us enough vegetables for classroom cooking and sharing. We made sweet beet cookies and pasta with bacon and greens, among other things...

Glenvar Garden Soup

On the last day of the semester we used our final garden harvests to make our own "Glenvar Garden Soup" with everything we grew. The only things we purchased were canned tomatoes, chicken broth, and pasta.

 Here, Jordan slices the carrots he grew.

Dominga and Noah chop the leaves of kohlrabi and red cabbage.

 

Kohlrabi forms bulbs at the base of its stem, and Conner sliced these into bite-sized pieces.

We added our onions, a few Brussels sprouts, and turnips from Mr. Noland's garden, some pasta, and cooked it for about 45 minutes. Yum!!

Look for the link to our recipe on our blog.

Dustin and Jared Make Spanakopita

Before Christmas, Dustin found a recipe for "Green Greek Slices" in a cookbook he was reading. Turns out it's a great recipe for Spanakopita, a classic Greek favorite and very labor-intensive to make. This week, with the help of Jared, they spent their 3rd block in my room creating a masterpiece with 16 sheets of phyllo dough and lots of garden vegetables. This was their contribution to a farewell gathering for Mrs. Neely.

We didn't get a picture of the finished product, either unbaked or baked, but it was quite beautiful. After their hard work putting it together they washed and dried every dish!

The spanakopita was absolutely delicious!

Harvesting from the Cold Frames

During the week of January  9 we made our last trip to the garden to harvest the remainder of the vegetables that had been sheltered in the two cold frames. After nights of below freezing temperatures, the cold frames were covered in ice.

 However, when we opened them, we found lots of green, healthy vegetables!

From the two gardens we cut kohlrabi, red cabbage, lettuce, and Brussels sprouts, pulled onions and carrots, and transplanted 5 cauliflower plants to the greenhouse.

From the cold frames we had enough vegetables for a big pot of "garden soup" for each class, as well as greens for Dustin's Spanakopita (see another post) and a large salad for 4th block to enjoy.

Cooking what we Harvest

Over the last few weeks we've done a lot of cooking with the harvests of the fall garden. Here, Morgan and Montana enjoy Roasted Turnip Salad; the turnips were a gift from Mr. Nolen, our PE teacher. We used our Oriental greens, Italian cress, and lettuce. With the turnips we also made Crispy Turnip Fries and Braised Turnips (AKA: Turnips with Bacon).

Next we used the cress in Garden Corn Bread, and added more of our greens to make our favorite Mixed Green Salad. The dressing is the best! We used fresh garlic from last year's garden.

We also enjoyed Pickled Radishes with our salad, and last Friday we enjoyed Chinese Mustard Green Soup on a cold day.

November Harvests

After nights of freezing temperatures, we checked last Monday to see how the plants survived. The gardens have grown abundantly with the warm fall days and plentiful rain, and we have just begun to harvest them regularly.

 If you look closely, you can see the melting frost on the leaves...

Everything looked even better than the week before! Obviously, these plants love cold, fall days and nights.

Sarah made a final harvest of her Easter Egg radishes.