The Orca K-8 School Garden Blog!

myanmar-children-eating

When I’m not foraging for greens, making french fries from Orca potatoes, hypin’ youths about sustainability, and causing a ruckus in the Orca Garden- I also have a passion for travel, adventure, and international service. I am off to Myanmar aka Burma & Cambodia for two months. In Yangon- the capital of Myanmar, I will be building gardens at a school. I’m still using grant funds from Boeing (yes even the largest weapons manufacturer in the world has a green thumb and a kind heart). You might remember that last year I built gardens at a school in India. Check it out here.

So the garden will be shut down for a couple months as the snow and rains come in. Good thing we mulched the garden and got it nice & cozy. Have a great Winter- I will see you at Environmental Science Night on Wed. Nov. 28th at 6:30.

Crazy group of foragers

What better way to celebrate the end o’ the season in the garden?!?! Edible bouquets! We picked chard, kale, fennel, and mint. Take it home and love it with your family please. What a tremendous sight to see 1st graders walking around going at kale like it was a lollipop. It’s the greens revolution!

Chunks of unfiltered beeswax, olive oil, and calendula flowers= AMAZING calendula balm. It’s a medicinal salve that heals cuts and wounds. We grow a lot of calendula in the garden, so it’s a chance for us to explore plants as medicine. so go ahead and bang yourself up a bit kids- the garden has given you a small container of calendula balm/medicine.

AND Lavender oil was part of our festivities today. Orca lavender has been soaking for two months in olive oil and is some of the most delightfully smelling stuff of all time. Everyone got their own mini-bottle that has a small stick to apply it to your skin. How fun.

I think it’s always kind of profound to have students take something home, share it with their families, and be able to carry around a piece of the garden with them. They have something to use and share and hopefully have the realization that the garden is something that gives them sustained love- if they love it back a little bit too!

It’s an annual tradition around here to cook up some stone soup while telling that fabulous folktale to the students. Not only do we harvest fresh chard, kale. potatoes, and onions out of the garden, but we also get to talk of sharing, community, and food. Then we eat! The students love this story, love the soup, and love the drawing/retelling that they get to do of the story. After they finished up the soup, they got to fill up with mint tea to get extra warm on this sunny & chilly day.