Baby garlic

Our garlic's coming up! How exciting that we were able to save our garlic "seed" from last year's crop to continue growing these stinky and delicious bulbs at Drew-Freeman -- this time in a long, in-ground bed!

Last autumn, we planted 3 raised beds with local garlic. One thing we observed last spring was how much better the garlic grew in the bed that we mulched with burlap pieces, compared with the two other beds that we'd mulched with the traditional straw mulch. (There was also a LOT less weeding needed in the burlap-mulched beds, largely because I think the straw we'd gotten had lots of grass seeds mixed in.)

Students have been working on cutting and tearing up burlap sacks in recent weeks to create inexpensive, biodegradable mulch to protect these little bitty garlic plants growing in our free-form beds over the long, cold winter. As soon as these tiny guys are another few inches taller, we'll start laying down our burlap mulch....

Let me show you how to do that

Today, I was joined at the Windsor Crossings hoophouse by Mr. Damian (STEER Center's volunteer coordinator), Ms. Pierre, and a few students from Drew-Freeman to start planting our winter crops. We started by clearing out the hanging pots, loosening the soil while removing debris and old plants. Next, we planted a row of carrots and swiss chard in one of the long, in-ground beds. Finally, we started seeding some of the newly cleared hanging pots with heirloom lettuce seeds. Mmm, it'll be good to have fresh lettuce during the winter and early spring!

Tianna, and Nyjah were excellent farm apprentices, asking lots of good clarifying questions. While they're both new to gardening, they took to planting like ducks take to water: they dove right in! After meticulously planting and labeling half a dozen hanging pots with lettuce seeds, they were experts. (I hope so, since they'll be leading a larger group of students planting more varieties of lettuce and spinach in coming weeks.)

The days are so short this time of year, so we had to pack up earlier than we would have liked... but not before loading up the trunk of Ms. Pierre's car with more hanging pots for planting back at the school!

We've made our bed...

Today we finished building another free-form bed with burlap and compost. We're pretty much experts at this now.

Now, you might be able to tell how hard we're working here, but you might not know from this angle quite how cool -- nevermind how gigantic -- the bed is that we're building. How about from this perspective?

Pretty cool, no? It was the students who came up with the idea to build beds to spell out "D.F" (for Drew-Freeman, of course). Now, after days of trying out designs and moving soil, we need to decide what we want to plant in it....

Sweet potatoes: a huge success!

You may not be able to tell from this photo, but this sweet potato -- dug up just yesterday alongside the Windsor Crossing hoop house -- is about the size of my thigh:

 

And I'll be darned if it wasn't delicious chopped up into my lentil soup for dinner. Can you believe that it grew from this little bitty thing we transplanted last May?

Moving some dirt around...

 

We've been busy this month, what with getting our free-form raised bed built and planted with garlic. Thanks to some new helping hands at Drew Freeman, we should be well stocked with garlic come warm weather!

Thanks, too, to STEER Center's new volunteer coordinator, Damian, for his help today getting our fourth raised bed filled with dirt and ready for fall planting.

Getting ready for cold weather

There's nothing like hauling around piles of compost and building raised garden beds to get the blood flowing on a sunny autumn day. Luckily, while Jessica was busy showing folks around the garden and snapping photos, Chris helped me lay out burlap and haul buckets of soil to start building the free-form raised bed which we'll be using to plant lots of local, organic garlic into next week.

You can't tell from the photo, since we hadn't started moving the compost yet, but we got quite dirty by the end, and once Nigel stopped by to help us out it was actually pretty fun. (Boy, did I sleep well after all of that manual labor!)

It wasn't all digging and hauling around buckets, though. When Ms. Pierre stopped by, we checked out the progress of the kale and strawberries, pulled up some of the overgrown radishes and weeds for the compost bin, and even dug up some of the beets and a single (giant) carrot from the round bed we'd planted in early summer. Yum!

Hope we can bring some more students out for our regular Tuesday workdays (1:30-3:30pm). I mean, we've got digging and planting to do. Plus somebody needs to make sure the strawberries are eaten before the frost. Yes, they're fruiting again!

Hoop, there it is!

Last week, I visited the hoop house at Windsor Crossing. Mr. Sanders had called to tell me that the plants were doing well, that I should come by and see it, that he was proud of the way the plants were flourishing. What he did not mention was that the plants were GOING BONKERS!

It was a veritable JUNGLE of tomato plants in there. Squash, tomatillos, cucumbers, chard, peppers. Even a few okra. Let me tell you, with some good soil, steady watering, and a little TLC, these plants were BURSTING with produce. We harvested a few large bowls of tomatoes and squash and cukes and brought them to Ms. Jacobs' office for her to distribute to the residents in the surrounding community. But Mr. Sanders and I agreed that those tomato plants needed a little more... guidance.

So I stopped by the hardware store for some strong twine, we borrowed a ladder, and returned -- along with Rodney (our other loyal garden helper, who it turns out loves growing things so much he's helping nearby Suitland Elementary start a school garden as well) and Jessica -- and yesterday we set to staking up the tomatoes.

It was hot and muddy work, but in the end, I think our plants will thrive. (My pants and shoes, on the other hand, might be goners.) Boy, oh, boy, we're going to have a LOT of ripe tomatoes soon!

Anyone for salsa??

Plant guardians

Thank you to Mr. Sanders for keeping an eye on our plants at Drew-Freeman and Windsor Crossing over the summer holiday! Looking forward to seeing the tomatoes flourish. And the peppers and squash and peanuts and lettuce and spinach and... wow, that's a lot of plants. Good thing he has lots of garden experience! Our little seedlings are in friendly, capable hands.

And if he needs a little backup, we've got the boyscouts (who helped us to build and then install irrigation in our hoop house):

They were definitely concerned about area hoodlums "messing with our plants after all of that hard work!" They may be kind and helpful, but you don't want to mess with the boyscouts....

Garlic harvest!

A group of recently graduated 8th graders helped out with today's garlic harvest at Drew Freeman. We pulled garlic, snipped any remaining garlic scapes, and tied them up to cure for a few weeks in the covered walkway alongside the courtyard garden. Oh boy are we going to have lots of delicious garlic to work with when the school year starts up again....

As a token of thanks to these helpers, I'd brought along a batch of my now-famous chocolate beet brownies. (The Eco-Friendly Group LOVED them when we made a batch together earlier this spring.) I hope to make them when the monthly community cooking classes start up next fall. So many folks who tried them today asked me for the recipe, so, for you aspiring bakers out there who thought you didn't like beets, click here for the recipe.

Today

Today Ms Logan give us are  certificate for are community hour and we have to take home a parent Survey and we being it Thursday   so we have money for nechrisdeandre49@gmail.comxt year when we have a gardening club.

Adventures with irrigation

This week's class meeting was a rainy one, but boy did we get a LOT done.

Before class, I met with Vinnie, who'd come down from Baltimore to help us install an irrigation system in the hoop house he helped us build earlier this year. We talked through the tasks that students would be helping with, including installing drip tape for both in-ground beds and hanging pots.

I then made my way to Drew, where the Eco-Friendly group paused to check out our productive strawberry plants, harvesting some beautiful berries as a quick snack before traveling to the Windsor Crossing hoop house.

The juicy strawberries were gobbled up in about 2.5 seconds, but don't worry, there will be more... especially for those students and teachers who make their way to the Drew-Freeman garden over the summer break to help with weeding and using the rain barrels to water plants until school begins in the fall. (Just putting the idea out there.) Speaking of watering plants....

The boyscouts who had helped us build the hoop house back in October came by to assist us again: this time with the installation of drip tape, to keep our plants well watered during the hot summer months.

 

While some Drew students installed the irrigation system inside the hoop house, we had some planting to do outside! We had to use 5-gallon buckets to move a huge pile of soil from Ms. Jessica's truck to build a raised bed along one side of the hoop house. (Curious that I don't have photos of us hauling around buckets of dirt, but I guess I was busy lugging buckets back and forth.) Once we'd constructed our bed out of soil and burlap, we got to planting sweet potato slips about a foot apart, each with a spoonful of rabbit manure -- a natural fertilizer that sweet potatoes love. Oooh, those tubers are going to be delicious in the fall!

Once the irrigation team finished up inside, we began to transplant some of the seedlings that Farmer Gail sent along for us to start growing ingredients for the salsa we'll be making with the Entrepreneurs Club in the fall. A number of different heirloom tomato varieties and tomatillos, to be precise. We also had some hot -- and I mean HOT -- pepper plants donated by Kid Power! It was nice to be inside the hoop house planting, since it started to rain while we were outside moving soil around....

The students and adults worked well together. I mean, look at the meticulous spacing of those transplants:

Since we'd been so busy this class, we didn't have a chance to cook like usual. We finished up our meeting with a snack that I'd made: spinach and strawberry salad + black bean burritos and fresh tomato salsa. Not a bad way to end a day, and we made it home safely before the rain REALLY started coming down.

One of my favorite days....

Okay, so I know it must seem like I say this every week, but I really think today was one of my favorite meetings ever with the Eco-Friendly Group.

My favorite part was making the Vietnamese summer rolls and dipping sauces.

No, wait, my favorite part was digging beds for our soon-to-be-transplanted sweet potatoes and other goodies.

No, no, WAIT, for sure my FAVORITE part was harvesting the onions we planted this past fall. And had I not brought in some onions from the 14th & U farmers' market for our summer rolls, I'd never have shown the students what the tops of onions look like when they're ready to harvest. It was James' keen eye that caught the almost-flowering tops of the green onions in our raised bed and the harvesting extravaganza began....

Seriously, this is my job? I love it!

Should you find yourself with some of your own fresh, green onions -- from the garden at Drew M.S., from the farmers' market, from your own garden, from the grocery store -- you might consider making some delicious summer rolls with them. By popular request, here is the recipe:

Vietnamese-style summer rolls

Ingredients:
•             Rice paper wrappers (available at specialty markets, or in the ethnic food section of many grocery stores)

Filling:
•             1 cup of green cabbage or 1 bunch of kale/spinach/spicy greens, chopped

•             5 green onions, thinly sliced

•             1 cup thin noodles, pre-cooked (use rice, Chinese, or bean thread noodles)

•             1/4 cup fresh herbs (use cilantro, basil, and/or mint)

•             2 carrots, peeled and then grated

•             2 cucumbers, peeled and julienned (a fancy word for "thinly sliced")
Optional additions:
•             1/2 cup bean sprouts

•             1 large bell pepper, seeds removed and thinly sliced

•             1/2 cup cooked chicken, shredded

•              shrimp, peeled and cooked

 
Directions:

Toss together filling ingredients in a large bowl.

Submerge rice paper wrappers in hot water until pliable, about 15 seconds.  Move one wrapper at a time to a large plate or cutting board.

Place about 2 tablespoons of filling in the center of each wrapper and form filling into a small hotdog shape.

Make a burrito with the wrapper around the filling. Place filled, wrapped rolls with the flap side down to help keep them closed. Be gentle, the rice paper is very delicate!

Serve with dipping sauce and enjoy.

Dipping sauce recipes (accompaniments for summer rolls)

Dipping Sauce #1: Ginger Soy
Ingredients:
•             1 TBSP lime juice

•             1 TBSP soy sauce

•             1/2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
Directions: Whisk ingredients together in a small bowl and chill until ready to serve.

Dipping sauce #2: Sweet Chili
Ingredients:
•             1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

•             1/4 cup hot water

•             2 TBSP sugar

•             1 lime, juiced

•             1 tsp minced garlic

•             1 tsp red chili paste, such as sambal

•             ½ tsp fish sauce (optional)
Directions: Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Serve with the summer rolls.

Dipping sauce #3: Peanut Sauce (the crowd favorite)
Ingredients:
•             2 tablespoons creamy organic or natural peanut butter

•             2 tablespoons rice vinegar

•             2 teaspoons soy sauce

•             2 teaspoons sugar

•             1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
Directions: Whisk ingredients together and get ready for dipping!

Which is your favorite combination of flavors and textures??

Quesadilla madness!

I think today might've been one of the most well-attended sessions of the Eco-Friendly Group. (I wonder if word got around after we made chocolate beet brownies two weeks ago. Attendance has definitely improved since....) Today's feast was made up of homemade veggie quesadillas, fresh salsa, and guacamole from scratch. Once we got past the shoddy electrical wiring in the classroom's single outlet and managed to get our portable burners working, the students banded together with some of the most fantastic teamwork I have seen to date. Washing, chopping, filling, flipping, juicing, stirring, mashing...it was great!

You think teenagers don't eat vegetables? Try chopping them up and putting them in a whole wheat tortilla with a little melted cheese. I can't TELL you how many students told me, unprompted, how easy the quesadillas were to make, how tasty they were, how they liked to choose what went into them, how they planned to make them at home for themselves, their siblings, their families. Well, my student chefs, all of the ingredients can be found at your local supermarket, or you can explore your local farmers' market once that starts up... and some of the ingredients we'll be growing right here in Suitland. Tomatoes, spinach, onions, garlic, cilantro -- yum! (Wonder if we can start some mushroom logs. Hmmm.)

Had I known how popular today's cooking would be -- at 5:00, I left with about a cup of salsa, as even the leftover mushrooms, fresh spinach, and guacamole made their way home in students' foil care packages -- I'd have brought more copies of the recipe. But after I mentioned to students that they could find the recipe here on the blog, I noticed quite a few of them scribbling down this blog address, so maybe the conservation of paper wasn't such a bad thing after all.Here, for your cooking pleasure, is the much-sought-after recipe: 

Quesadillas (Prep time: 5 minutes. Cook time: 5 minutes)

Ingredients:
Large flour tortillas
Grated cheese
Olive oil

Optional fillings:
Fresh mushrooms, sliced
Green onions, thinly sliced
Black olives, sliced
Fresh tomatoes, diced
Red onion, minced
Fresh garlic, minced
Fresh spinach, chopped

Lettuce/cabbage “slaw”:
A small head of lettuce OR a few handfuls of cut lettuce OR a small head of cabbage
A splash of apple cider vinegar
A pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Heat a large frying pan to medium high heat. Add a small amount of oil (about 1/2 teaspoon) and spread it around the bottom of the pan with a spatula (you could use butter as well). Take one large flour tortilla and place it in the pan. Flip the tortilla over a few times, 10 seconds between flips.

2. Air pockets should begin to form within the tortilla. When pockets of air begin to form, take a handful of grated cheese, sprinkle over the top of the tortilla, making sure that the cheese does not land on the pan itself. Add whatever additional ingredients you choose - green onion, sliced mushrooms, olives, tomatoes, etc. If you would like your quesadilla to be a chicken quesadilla, add some diced cooked chicken. (Take care not to layer on the ingredients to thickly - this is a quesadilla, not a quiche!)

3. Reduce the heat to low and cover the pan. The pan should be hot enough by now to have plenty of residual heat to melt the cheese and brown the tortilla. If the quesadilla begins to smoke too much, remove from the heat. After a minute, check to see if the cheese is melted. If not, return the cover and keep checking every minute until the cheese is melted.

4. When the cheese is sufficiently melted, use a spatula to lift up one side of the quesadilla and flip over the other side, as if you were making an omelet. The tortilla should by now be browned slightly and look like a flat taco. If it is not browned, turn the heat up to high and flip the quesadilla over every 10 seconds or so until it gets browned. Remove from pan and cut into wedges.

To make the lettuce “slaw” to accompany the quesadilla, thinly slice some lettuce (or cabbage). Then sprinkle some cider vinegar on it and some salt to taste.

Serve with guacamole, fresh salsa, and/or plain Greek yoghurt (a healthy alternative to sour cream, though I do love sour cream sometimes).

So... what would you put on your perfect quesadilla?

Transplant mania!

Today was not the most pleasant weather. In fact, I think it might've been the coldest, rainiest garden club meeting day this year. Blech. But the inclement weather meant we could catch up on some indoor work, including sharing some of our favorite things about spring, transplanting little bitty plants, and cooking.

During a break in the horrid weather -- still cold, but at least not raining -- we made our way outside to weed the strawberry bed (while checking out the tiny, green strawberries!). We also put our newly transplanted baskets under the shelter of the covered walkway. Yes, 44 pots of lettuce, spinach, and onions (baby plants courtesy, once again, of Farmer Gail over at Three Part Harmony Farm) now live at the Drew Freeman garden. Hopefully they'll be ready for harvest in time for our end-of-year celebration....

A day of discovery!

What a return to Drew Freeman after spring break. The weather was perfect -- clear and sunny, and, okay, maybe a little warm. Christopher kept reminding us all how hot and sweaty he was during our visit to the hoop house at Windsor Crossing, where we'll be growing the bulk of our ingredients for Suitland Salsa. But it was a beautiful day. And one filled with discoveries.

Discovery #1: We have a hoop house!
Thanks, STEER Center, for your financial support that allows us to grow way more food than we otherwise could, just a few blocks from the school. Coming months will find the space loaded with tomatoes, tomatillos, cilantro, onions, pepper, and more, and will be tended by students, neighborhood volunteers, and a head garden caretaker.

Discovery #2: Lamb's quarters are edible!
Who knew? These weeds – growing ALL OVER the rich, healthy soil in the hoop house we visited – are loaded with vitamins. I may be biased, but I think they are fresher and tastier than spinach. And they're free, growing right out of the dirt and otherwise tossed into the compost pile! I took mine home and tossed them with some fresh pasta and a few other odds and ends for a delicious, inexpensive, and (it is me we’re talking about here, so) healthy dinner. I think Mr. Carrington and Ms. Matthews and James and William have plans for their wild-harvested greens as well....

Discovery #3: Beet brownies are delicious!
The inspiration for the sneaky beet infusion comes from a conversation I had a number of years ago on my way through Madison, Wisconsin while I was working with one of the after school food educators over at Sherman Middle School. I was intrigued and begged her for the recipe, which she kindly sent along. Here's my adaptation (with less sugar and more roasted beets).... Leftovers? None.

CHOCOLATE BEET BROWNIES

Ingredients

1 bar of good chocolate (3-4 oz)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
6 TBSP butter (easier at room temperature)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs (at room temperature)

Directions

Wash and remove the greens from 3-4 small beets. Drizzle with a little olive oil, wrap in tin foil, and roast in a 400°F oven until soft (about 40 minutes). Cool beets, then puree and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350°F, then butter and flour a small (8" or 9") cake pan.

Melt chocolate in a small pot. Set aside to cool.

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl, use a hand mixer (or a lot of elbow grease and a whisk) to beat sugar and butter until creamy. Beat in vanilla extract and eggs. Stir in the beet puree, followed by the melted chocolate and then the flour mixture.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes. Cool and serve.

Well, we did a little transplanting of baby kale and collard plants out in the garden while the brownies cooked. Otherwise we might not have been able to resist the divine chocolatey aroma while they baked....

Leftovers? Psh. No way.

Farmer Gail brings over some transplants for the garden

Are your transplants delivered by bicycle? Ours sometimes are... though technically they'll be traveling by metro and carried on foot to their ultimate destination: the raised garden beds at Drew Freeman Middle School!

This weekend, Farmer Gail (of Three Part Harmony Farm) stopped by to deliver dino kale, russian kale, and collard plant starts that the Eco-Friendly Group will be transplanting at our next class. Pretty cool, eh?

All dressed up

Boy was last class a delicious one! To get us in the right mindset for planning our garden's expansion, we tasted lots of fresh veggies dipped in our own, made-from-scratch salad dressings. Below are a few new favorites.... 

Delicious, healthy dips and dressings for all occasions!

1. Ranch Dressing/Dip
Fresh herbs are essential for the flavor of this dressing; do not use dried herbs. Recipe courtesy of FoodPrints. Makes about 1 ¼ - 1 ½ cups.

Ingredients
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon minced shallot or red onion
1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro or dill
1 clove garlic , minced
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
pinch of sugar
½ teaspoon table salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
6 tablespoons sour cream (this is OPTIONAL, if you want it to be a dip)

Directions
Whisk all of the ingredients together in a bowl until smooth. If you keep this covered and in the fridge, it will keep for 5 days.

2. Low-fat, herbed Ranch dressing
Recipe adapted from www.epicurious.com. Makes about 1 cup.

Ingredients
¾ cup well-shaken low-fat (1 ½ %) buttermilk
2 tablespoons low-fat mayonnaise
2 tablespoons nonfat sour cream or plain Greek yoghurt
1 tablespoon packed fresh basil leaves, minced
1 tablespoon fresh chives, finely chopped
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 teaspoon dry mustard (you can buy powdered mustard or crush your own mustard seeds)
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, stems removed
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ teaspoon sugar

Directions
In a blender or food processor blend all ingredients and salt and pepper to taste until smooth. Dressing keeps, covered and chilled, 1 week.

 

3. Sweet Balsamic Vinaigrette
Recipe adapted from FoodPrints. Makes about 1 ½ cups.

Ingredients
1 cup olive oil
½ cup balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced (or pressed using a garlic press)
½ to 1 teaspoon salt to taste
1 tablespoon brown sugar (to taste)

Directions
Put all ingredients in a jar and shake well. (Great for those with a bit of a sweet tooth who want to eat more salad and fresh veggies.)
 

4. Lemony herb dressing
Recipe courtesy of A Bikeable Feast (http://abikeablefeast.blogspot.com). Makes 1 ¼ cups.

Ingredients
1 cup olive oil
juice from 2-3 lemons
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced (or pressed using a garlic press)
handful of fresh herbs, finely minced (don’t forget to wash first and remove the stems!)
salt & pepper (to taste)

Directions
Put all ingredients in a jar and shake well. Great with freshly sliced summer veggies!


How about posting your own favorite dressing recipe/idea in the comments?

Garden check: garlic and strawberry update

It was a pretty cool day, but sunny at least. Luckily our bellies were filled with lots of fresh veggies and homemade salad dressings and we had lots of energy to finally tackle that most meticulous of garden tasks: weeding.

And apparently the grass liked our rich compost as much as our garlic did....

While we were at it, we decided to check on our strawberry bed. Yep, everything looks good here.... Looks like the straw mulch has done a good job of keeping our little strawberry plants warm and moist and relatively weed-free.