Today we continue our gardening series with Dr. Mary Ball, PhD, who after a 40-year career as a college biology professor, became a Tennessee Master Gardener and enjoys gardening with kids. Dr. Ball has helped secure funding for gardening, nutrition education, and hundreds of dollars worth of donated seeds to schools and afterschool programs in rural East Tennessee.
“Bed Covers” (also called “Season Extenders” and “Low Tunnels”) are easy and fun to make and really do work to keep plants protected on cold Fall nights!
If you haven’t already had an overnight freeze, you may still have some vegetable plants you can protect to extend their production. Dr. Mary Ball is here with 5 ways to protect your garden from a winter freeze.
Here’s what to do before a “frost” or “hard freeze” occurs:
Survey Your Garden for Warm Spots and Cold Spots – Your own property temperatures can differ from those predicted for your community or even those of your neighbors. A raised bed near a south-facing brick wall may stay above freezing, while a bed in a “valley” in your yard may experience colder air. Plants in containers lose heat more rapidly, so consider moving them indoors or into a garage or “backyard greenhouse.”
Don’t worry about frost-tolerant plants – According to Horticulture Magazine, vegetables that can survive light frosts (30 – 32 ̊F range) include beets, Chinese cabbage, cauliflower, celery, collards, green onions, potatoes, lettuce, mustard, parsnips, radishes, salsify, spinach, and Swiss chard. Ones that can survive temperatures as low as 20 ̊F before being killed include broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, kale, leeks, rutabagas, and turnips.
Harvest vulnerable produce early – Pick all remaining tomatoes and let them finish ripening indoors. Pick remaining basil, beans, cucumbers, eggplant, hot peppers, and sweet peppers and use them in recipes calling for “baby ____!”
Trap warm air to keep plants warm – To save tomato and pepper plants that are still producing, use a milk jug or 2-liter bottle with the bottom cut off to trap warm air close to the plant overnight. You can also cover a DIY frame made using bent PVC pipes and metal “hoops” with garden fabric. (Avoid plastic sheeting because sunshine can heat the plant too much.)
Use warm water to keep plants warm – For a single cold night, use milk jugs filled with hot water to “circle” the plant. For a predicted string of cold nights, wrap water-filled jugs in black plastic so they will reheat more on sunny days.
Fall flowers add color to a bare bed and can be used to test how well DIY “season extenders” work.
Happy National Apple Month! Apples are also an OrganWise Guys Foods of the Month, and the perfect food for the fall. They are such a versatile food and can be used in anything from salads to desserts.
Here are some interesting apple facts:
Americans eat about 120 apples apiece each year!
Apples are nutritious because they contain lots of fiber, vitamins C, B6, and A, and potassium, as well as antioxidants.
There are about 2500 known varieties grown in the United States.
36 states grow them with Washington, New York, Michigan, California, Pennsylvania, and Virginia being the top production states.
Most are available all year round and are a perfect take-along snack anytime!
Apples don’t require peeling so eat the skin because it contains healthy nutrients.
Try introducing several different apple varieties to kids using this interactive apple taste test worksheet. Taste testing is a really fun way to introduce new foods to kids where they may typically be more close minded about trying new things.
We would love to hear about your at-home taste tests! Share with us how it went and include any pictures of the finished worksheets on our Facebook page!
Next week is National School Lunch Week (NSLW) 2015!! This year’s theme is “School Lunch Snapshot” and is all about sharing the best and real images of today’s school lunch.
Do you plan on participating in NSLW festivities this year? If you need some last minute ideas, be sure to check out the School Nutrition Association’s (SNA) toolkit with lots of inspiration for making this year’s NSLW the best one ever. Click here to download your copy of the toolkit. Also, even though October 12-16, is the “official” week of celebration, we recommend being OrganWise and participate in fun activities to promote the consumption of healthy school lunches every week.
Here are some examples of how you can celebrate National School Lunch Week 2015:
Get students involved – Make kids part of the celebration by having them participate in a contest, complete a survey about their favorite lunch foods, etc.
DECORATE! – SNA has items for NSLW available and if you have an OrganWise Guys Foods of the Month Kit, be sure to show off all your buttons and posters to promote healthy foods.
Keep parents in the loop – Download handouts from SNA and send home with students.
Get the word out – Take to your school’s social media (facebook, twitter, etc) to promote NSLW. You can even share this blog post for awareness.
Share your celebration – Take pictures, interview children and lunch staff, etc. Make this week a big celebration that you can share with your community.
What are you doing to celebrate National School Lunch Week 2015?
Taste testing is a great way to introduce new foods to kids who are otherwise apprehensive about trying them. Fruits and vegetables are the perfect food to use in taste tests because there is such a wide variety of them and so many that are unknown to most. It’s a great way to teach kids about the benefits of certain foods and why it is important to eat them. Taste tests can be done in a classroom setting, the cafeteria, or even at home.
Here are 5 tips for hosting a fun and successful taste test for kids:
Food selection – Determine whether you are doing one food or if you are doing a variety of a specific type of food. For example, will you be sampling an avocado or will you be sampling a variety of berries? Ideally you will pick foods that are in season for maximum freshness and it will save on the wallet as well.
Food preparation – Make sure all food is washed, cut and stored in containers ready to distribute. This will save on prep time onsite, and allow for more tasting time. If you can be creative in the presentation of a food, such as using a star or heart cookie cutter for melon, or putting berries on a skewer, this can be more fun and tempting for kids.
Go beyond taste – Involve the other senses for increased food awareness. Have the kids observe what the food looks like, what it smells like and what it feels like. This will enhance the tasting experience, while also putting their senses to good use!
Nutrition education – Use this time to teach kids about the nutritional value of the food and emphasize the healthy benefits it has on the body, including aiding in digestion and preventing sickness and disease.
Track the tasting – Use fun worksheets to go along with the taste test for increased participation and discussion about the foods. If doing at school, this is a great way to get a conversation about healthy eating started at home. You can download worksheets that we have created for a berry taste test, a stone fruit taste test and a tropical fruit taste test.
If you host a taste test, take some pics and share on our Facebook page!
We love that tomatoes are a September foods of the month. There are so many dishes to be made with this versatile fruit!
Here are some interesting tomato facts:
One of the most popular types of “vegetables” eaten by Americans, however, they are really members of the fruits family
High in vitamins C, A, and K and contain large amounts of an antioxidant called lycopene, which may help guard against certain cancers
Tomato paste and sauces, which contain highly-concentrated, cooked tomatoes, have greater amount of healthy lycopene than raw tomatoes.
Varieties – There are thousands of types of tomatoes! The most popular are classified into three groups: cherry, plum, and slicing tomatoes. Grape and cherry ones are fun, sweet, and really delicious to eat alone or in a salad.
Selection – Cold temperatures can damage tomatoes, so avoid buying ones that are stored in a cold area, and try not to put them in your refrigerator unless you cannot eat them soon. Pick plump tomatoes that have smooth skin with no bruises, cracks or blemishes.
Now that you are all excited about tomatoes, make sure and watch this video featuring Peri Stolic and Pepto, the stomach, sharing how to make their favorite tomato basil bruschetta recipe:
Today we continue our gardening series with Dr. Mary Ball, PhD, who after a 40-year career as a college biology professor, became a Tennessee Master Gardener and enjoys gardening with kids. Dr. Ball has helped secure funding for gardening, nutrition education, and hundreds of dollars worth of donated seeds to schools and afterschool programs in rural East Tennessee.
Recently, when we harvested eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes in our Boys and Girls Club Garden on our Club Kids thought the little striped fruit was a watermelon. They were disappointed to learn it’s a “Poquito Zucchini Squash” and the conversation turned to “What can we still plant and harvest this year? Pumpkins? Watermelons?”
Pumpkin plants aren’t for sale right now and a seed catalog says pumpkins take about 100 days to mature, so to have some in time for Halloween, we would need to have planted them in June! Watermelons mature faster, in about 80 days, but these formerly-African plants can’t tolerate any cold, so it’s too late for them, too.
Many folks have the idea that, after we have our first freeze (in October here in East Tennessee), it’s time to pull out all the dead garden plants, have bare beds until next Spring, and wait for our harvests to begin again in the summer. But only some veggies, like tomatoes, will be killed by the frost and have to be replanted in the spring for next summer.
Here are three helpful September gardening tips:
When veggie plants die, don’t remove them and leave the soil bare.
Bare soil can blow away or be washed away! Instead, plant something else (to harvest for eating, or as a cover crop*), or spread a decayable mulch, like straw, over the soil.
Next year, include veggies that will continue to grow outside beyond the first frost.
Try the beautiful and tasty “Swiss Chard,” and plant veggies in containers you can move indoors or into a “backyard greenhouse” to extend* the growing season beyond the first frost.
Use “days to maturity” info on the veggies to see recommendations in your area.
For example, radishes mature so quickly that we can still start those now, and we can plant them in among the things that are already in our garden. Here’s a fun idea: Each Spring, first graders in Charlottesville, Virginia, compete to grow peas and have the First Peas to the Table. Now would be a good time to plan a similar contest among classes at schools in your community!
One last tidbit – We learned to cut up our tomatoes using plastic knives, holding the tomato still with a “Corncob Holder.” We grated cheese and created a fresh pasta dish. Yum!
*Look for upcoming posts on cover crops and DIY Season extenders.
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