By Susan LeVine and Tom Shepherd
Summerland Publishing
January 1, 2012

Many years ago, every citizen had a garden. Today, some of us are too busy or don’t know how to grow a garden. So, how do you make a garden and become a citizen farmer? This Handbook for Citizen Farmers was written by Tom Shepherd and Susan LeVine. Tom has been an organic farmer since 1973 and shares his secrets in this simple format to inspire children, families and schools to grow their own garden. Susan, a gifted artist, provides beautiful watercolor illustrations that help tell the story of growing a wonderful garden of your very own.

Teaching Farming to the Next Generation – Tom Shepherd and Susan LeVine Co-Author A Handbook for Citizen Farmers

By Katherine Guzman
Santa Barbara’s Independent
January 21, 2012

Excerpt:

With terms like “urban homesteading” and “locavore” becoming nearly as ubiquitous as “tweeting” and “blogging,” one can say that things in this country may finally be on the right track. People are realizing that taking care of their own health also means taking care of the health of this planet, and the movement to eat better and live better now also involves making a conscious effort to lessen the impact we make on the environment.

For some people, like Tom Shepherd, this awakening happened long ago. Shepherd starting organically farming in 1973 after he became aware of the chemicals in our food supply and their damaging effect on human health and the environment. “I just started paying more attention,” said Shepherd, who then taught himself to garden, and eventually farm, organically. Owner of Shepherd Farms in Carpenteria, Tom sells his produce to schools, restaurants, and in farmers markets, and has become rather iconic on menus that simply announce “Shepherd’s greens” as their salad offering.

Read the complete article here.

See the book here.

Truly Living Well Camp

Susan Mittleman
WABE News
2011-06-17

Excerpt:

ATLANTA, GA (WABE) – This Friday concludes the inaugural session of the first urban-farm camp in Atlanta. Truly Living Well manages four-acres of land in the Wheat Street Gardens, across from the Wheat Street Baptist Church and the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta’s historic 4th Ward. WABE News has more on this unique camp smack dab in the middle of downtown Atlanta.

Between the sounds of chickens, sirens and the swell of the hot summer heat, children’s voices can be heard singing camp songs .. of a slightly different variety.

Camp TLW is an arm of Truly Living Well, a four-acre urban farm based downtown at the Wheat Street Gardens, in the Old Fourth Ward. Once a housing project, now it’s a pastoral setting tucked between historic black churches and the chaos of the city.

Camp Director Amakiasu Shabaka-Ford says the camp’s unique environment is a fun and educational way for kids 6-14 to spend their summer learning about organic farming and growing their own food.

“Because the garden is such a rich place for children to learn. And I’m talking eveyrthing. There’s math, writing, spelling, reading there’s literature. There’s science of course. It’s wonderful and it’s a teacher’s heaven.”

And it’s heaven for kids who live in the city and like to play in the dirt.

“My name is Gillian, I’m 11, I really like it here, It’s a lot of fun. Learning about the different plants and things.”

Mornings are spent outside, singing and drumming along with activities around the garden.

They learn about soil, and “bugs” good and bad.

What are you most excited to see grow here?

“Everything! I’m not sure what I like most… everything’s awesome. It’s amazing. It’s sooo cool…it’s so pretty and I love all the fruts and vegetables. But I have to say my favorite are the pomegranites.”

Read the complete article here.

Moore feels a powerful attachment to the English countryside.

Excerpt from a Guardian article about Inga Moore

I was spellbound by The Secret Garden as a child, and always lingered over Charles Robinson’s colour plates. Looking at that old book now I’m astonished to see that it had only nine illustrations. Moore has provided more than 100.

Again the old house provides inspiration with a real secret garden of its own, just like the one in the story which becomes a sanctuary for Mary, a lonely, unwanted orphan, and her sickly cousin Colin. Thanks to the garden, this story of loss, loneliness and ill-health soon becomes one of physical and spiritual regeneration.

‘The bird alighted near the gardener’s foot’ illustrated by Inga Moore, in The Secret Garden.

‘One o’ the kitchen gardens’ illustrated by Inga Moore, in The Secret Garden.

Moore’s great strength here is in her magical use of garden imagery. We see trees pruned, topiarised, espaliered and clipped to within an inch of their lives, while in the secret garden plants are left to their own devices, roses ramble unchecked, creepers run riot and wildlife flourishes. With high walls and occasional glimpses of the open moor, these illustrations are open to all kinds of imaginative interpretation.

Read the complete article here.

Purchase the Secret Garden here.

Purchase Inga Moore’s illustrations here.

Playmobil toys for the City Farmer

From Wikipedia:

Playmobil (pronounced play-mo-beel) is a line of toys produced by the Brandstätter Group, headquartered in Zirndorf, Germany.

New products and product lines developed by a 50-strong development team are frequently introduced by Brandstätter. Some of these, such as promotional products, are only produced in limited quantities.

For example, Playmobil introduced limited edition sets with the logos of seven different airlines, sold only aboard flights and in duty-free shops. These practices have given rise to a sizable community of collectors. Collector activities extend beyond collecting and free-form play with Playmobil and include customization, miniature wargaming, and creation of photo stories and stop motion films. Adult Playmobil people are approximately 3 inches tall and are a 1:22.5 scale.

Shed with Garden Tools

Apple Harvest

Girl with goats

Animal Farm

See PlayMobil here.

See “Playmobil’s German inventor Hans Beck” dies aged 79 here.

“We have all sort of lost touch with where our food is coming from.”

By Rebecca Sesny
CUNY J-School
Dec 14, 2011

Excerpt:

The administration agreed in the fall of 2010 to create a new program with initial funding coming from the PTA. Local farmer Zachary Pickens and Madiba Restaurant, which has its own rooftop garden, agreed to partner with the school to create this class. Mr. Pickens began the program in the spring of 2011, teaching third grade classes about composting and worm growing. The children grew their own lettuce and the chef at Madiba Restaurant came in to teach them how to make salads with their vegetables.

“We can teach about healthy eating, sustainable agriculture and science education, and a school garden seemed a way we could combine all three,” said Ms. Middlestadt. “We have a beautiful indoor greenhouse on the second floor, which is where we started, and our next step is this pollinators garden.”

Read the complete article here.

“The main difficulty in our American mode of life now is that we are tending to obliterate the distinction between work and play, by crowding work into hours which ought to be devoted to perfect relaxation of mind and body.”

Scientific American Magazine
April 6, 1878

Excerpt:

As a rule school hours are intelligently adjusted with a view of taxing the young brain to a safe limit; and to put any more upon it, by compelling children, voluntarily or involuntarily, to absorb more knowledge of the kind which should be, if it is not, taught in school, and this during their play hours, is simply continuing work. Besides play that is of any value as play has its very essence freedom.

Sweden, which is the the home of garden schools, takes the lead and has 2,000 of them.

Scientific American Magazine
Oct 27, 1900
Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in America, began life on August 28, 1845.

From a Department of State pamphlet:

In France school farms increased rapidly, and in 1852 there were seventy, the number allowed by law.

The following are some of the advantages of the system: The children obtain an intimate knowledge and intercourse with nature, they learn about the cultivation of fruits and vegetables. It educates boys beyond the tendency to pilfer fruits and flowers in orchards, and instills in children a fondness of rural life.

By Mary Quattlebaum
Illustrated by Laura J. Bryant
Dawn Pubns (March 1, 2012)

Old MacDonald had a … garden? Yes! Sing along with young Jo MacDonald as she grows healthy food for people and wild creatures. E-I-E-I-O! Find out how butterflies, bumblebees, and birds help a garden to thrive—and how you can help them too. And keep an eye on one mysterious plant. What will it become? Youngsters learn about garden ecosystems and stewardship through this playful adaptation of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”

Buy the book here March 2012.

Molly’s Organic Farm

By Carol L. Malnor and Trina L. Hunner
Illustrated by Trina L. Hunner
Dawn Publications (CA) (March 2012)

Whoosh . . . the wind blows open a creaky gate. Inquisitive and mischievous, a homeless little cat scampers through—and suddenly finds herself in the wondrous world of an organic farm! Affectionately named “Molly” by the farmers who discover her, she romps, naps, and hunts among the vegetables. Seen through Molly’s eyes, the reader discovers the interplay of nature that grows wholesome food. But what will happen to Molly when winter comes? Based on a true story, Molly will touch children’s hearts while introducing them to plants and the key elements of growing food organically. Standards-based science concepts and activities at the end of the book expand the message of the story.

Buy the book here March 2012.

Vancouver Foundation’s “Green Generation” Awards kick-start youth-run environmental projects

Wendy Szeto was a bit skeptical about the idea of planter boxes popping up on her boulevard in Vancouver’s leafy Dunbar neighbourhood.

“At first, we didn’t think we would participate in the project,” she says. “But we decided to give it a try. And we are so glad!”

Szeto lives on the same block as 14-year old Michelle Marcus. Marcus is shy and soft-spoken, but she’s also a keen environmentalist.

Marcus really wanted to start a community garden, but didn’t have access to any land. So she daydreamed of putting food planter boxes on the generous boulevards of her street.

Then she heard of Vancouver Foundation’s Generation Green Awards. The project offered young people, 6-24 years old, cash awards for projects that would “green” their neighbourhood.

The Foundation wanted to celebrate Vancouver’s 125th birthday and support the city’s goal of becoming the world’s “Greenest City” by 2020. They also wanted to empower a generation of young community leaders.

Marcus promptly submitted an application. She was ecstatic when her “Boulevard Veg!” project was one of 19 projects (out of 120 submissions) chosen for funding.

The $1,250 award paid for the lumber and soil. Marcus and her mom Yvonne spent weeks building the planters themselves. Then the community-minded teen told her neighbours about her project.

The response was overwhelming. “We ran out of boxes really quickly,” says Marcus.

Marcus then filled the boxes with food plants, and taught some of the gardeners how to care for them. A few months later, the planters were overflowing with cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, beets, beans, peas and potatoes.

For Szeto, growing her own food was a revelation.

“I never knew you could grow your own food in the city,” says Szeto, who came to Canada from Hong Kong 30 years ago.

“But it was so easy! We grew beans and green onions. We ate some of the beans last night. They tasted so good! And we haven’t had to buy green onions all summer!” Szeto’s face glows with pride.

“We plan to grow more food next year. We are going to open up some garden space behind our house.”

“We got to know our neighbours too, because you are out on the street to water the plants, and harvest, and your neighbours are out there too, and you have something to talk about. Before I didn’t know my neighbours’ names. Now I know all my neighbours. It’s been a multi-purpose project,” she says happily. “I think these projects should be encouraged in every neighbourhood!”

Marcus too is thrilled how her idea turned out. “Everyone was amazed at what we could grow! I’ve seen lots of people taking walks and looking at the signs . It’s going to keep going; we want to plant winter crops next.”
“I wanted to bring people together, and teach them about the environment and growing food, and it really worked.”

This young Vancouverite had a great idea. Vancouver Foundation’s Generation Green Awards helped make it a reality. Now, not only is her block greener, her Dunbar neighbours have grown together.

Even better—Marcus wasn’t alone in her efforts. Across Vancouver, 18 other youth projects were greening their own patches of the city.

Find out more about Vancouver Foundation’s Generation Green Awards here.

By Lynne Cherry
Blue Sky Press
2003

Review by Shelle Rosenfeld
American Library Association

Little Groundhog loves eating from the neighbor’s vegetable garden–maybe too much. Perhaps it’s time he planted his own garden and, fortunately, Squirrel is willing to show him how. The two animals collect seeds, store them, and after winter hibernation and spring thaw, plant and tend them. By summer, Little Groundhog is joyfully harvesting and eating what they sowed. And such a plentiful harvest calls for sharing, bringing a wonderful Thanksgiving feast for all to enjoy.

In simple, descriptive language, Cherry, author of The Great Kapok Tree (1990), tells a charming and also informative story about plants, gardening, and environmental respect. Her beautiful, full-color illustrations–realistic and wonderfully detailed–often incorporate spot-art borders of labeled seedlings and plants, highlighting a diverse array of wildlife.

Purchase here.

By Susan Grigsby
Albert Whitman & Company
Forthcoming: February 1, 2012
32 pages

Maya loves contests, so she is excited when her teacher announces they will plant a school garden like Thomas Jefferson’s garden at Monticello–and they’ll have a “First Peas to the Table” contest, just like Jefferson and his neighbors had each spring. Maya plants her pea seeds with a secret head start –found in Jefferson’s Garden Book– and keeps careful notes in her garden journal.

But her friend Shakayla has plans of her own for the contest. Susan Grigsby’s light-hearted classroom story also presents scientific and historical information. Nicole Tadgell’s watercolors add both appeal and botanical accuracy.

Purchase the book here.

By Susan Grigsby
Albert Whitman & Company
32 pages
Sep 1 2010

Sally is a young girl living in rural Alabama in the early 1900s, a time when people were struggling to grow food in soil that had been depleted by years of cotton production. One day, Dr. George Washington Carver shows up to help the grownups with their farms and the children with their school garden.

He teaches them how to restore the soil and respect the balance of nature. He even prepares a delicious lunch made of plants, including “chicken” made from peanuts. And Sally never forgets the lessons this wise man leaves in her heart and mind. Susan Grigsby’s warm story shines new light on an African American scientist who was ahead of his time.

See inside the book here.

Purchase the book here.

Denver Green School seeds new innovation – growing their own food

Chris Cunnyngham
Big Think
September 21, 2011

Excerpt:

A previously abandoned one-acre field behind the school has been taken over by Sprout City Farms, a project devoted to “innovative urban farms on underutilized land, rooting farmers in the city and bringing good food to neighborhoods.” The food grown is then sold back to the school to be served in the cafeteria. As you may imagine, there were lawyers involved at various steps of the process but Allen Potter, 6th Grade teacher and founding partner of the school, was quick to point out that school district lawyers “were actually our allies in this.”

Allen gave me a tour of the garden and indicated a remaining small patch of scrubby, weedy dirt. “All of this land looked like this. It was just crap. This is all productive land now.” He introduced me to Sprout City Farm Manager and Co-Founder Chad Hagedorn. Chad has the firm handshake and calm demeanor of any other farmer you might meet, even if his current spread is 50 feet from a jungle gym.

Read the complete article here.

See Sprout City Farms here.

An Algonquin Happy Book – No. 157

By Gladys Nelson Muter
Illustrated by F.Y. Cory
Algonquin Publishing Co.
1924

This charming, vintage book tells the story of some hungry bunnies and their love of vegetables.

See the complete story here.

We’re chopped for hash and fixed for mash to make potato crust

Pictures by Florence Kate Upton
Verses by Bertha Upton
Longman’s. Green & Co.
1897

The Vege-men’s Revenge, first published in 1897, features Poppy, a little girl, who is coaxed by Don Tomato and Herr Carrot to Vege-men’s Land, where she is buried on the promise that this will make her grow. Poppy sleeps through a nightmare of all the chopping, boiling, etc., that makes vegetables edible and eventually awakes to take this same sort of revenge on the stuff in her garden.

See the complete illustrated book here on Google Books.

Sprout City Farms, in partnership with the Denver Green School, Denver Urban Gardens, and Denver Public Schools, is building a one-acre vegetable farm in a corner of the schoolyard at the Denver Green School (DGS).

DGS is a public elementary and middle school (pre-K to 8th grade) focused on environmental and social sustainability through a “hands-on, brains-on,” project-based approach to learning. The Denver Green School Community Farm aligns perfectly with the values of the school, providing opportunities for students to engage in the natural world, food production, and interaction with the local community. It also gives them space to run around outside chasing grasshoppers.

During the school year, we are selling produce directly to the school cafeteria so students can follow it all the way from the field and enjoy it in the lunch room. 50% of students at DGS participate in the Free/Reduced Price Lunch program and may not have access to fresh, organic produce at home.

See more here.

See slideshow at TreeHugger here.

Today show’s Jenna Bush Hager (Jenna Bush) visits school garden for celebration of Chez Panisse’s 40th anniversary

Rosemina Nazarali
Foodista
August 25, 2011

Jake Gyllenhaal has teamed up with Chef Alice Waters to teach Bay Area inner-city youth about sustainable farming and eating healthier.

“I grew up around gardens and growing my own food, my family did that a lot and that was real source of community,” the Source Code actor said. “Growing up, more than anything, I got to know my mother and father and my sister and they got to know me at the dinner table.”

Gyllenhaal also said the point of teaching kids about growing their own food is to get them to think about where their meals come from.

“The essence of the idea with these gardens is that kids can come into them and they can experience what it’s like to grow something and see something grow. When they do this they have a different relationship to what they eat,” said Gyllenhaal.

Waters and Gyllenhall both hope to expand their program into other school districts.

Link here.

The Mother of the Locavore Movement Serves Up Her Gastronomic Curriculum

A short film by Lisa Eisner
Nowness
Aug 24, 2011

Restaurateur Alice Waters expounds on the inspiration guiding The Edible Schoolyard in today’s short film by Lisa Eisner. Waters’ pioneering project at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, California, has transformed a vacant lot into flourishing community farmland, combining horticulture, gastronomy and education. Visit any of the myriad farm-to-table restaurants defining the modern culinary scene, from Dan Barber’s Blue Hill to Suzanne Goin’s Lucques, and you’ll trace the chefs’ collective methodology back to Waters.

The 67-year-old’s Berkeley jewel, Chez Panisse, birthed the locavore movement in 1971 and celebrates its 40th anniversary this weekend with a three-day benefit festival for the Edible Schoolyard Project. “I truly believe in the power of delicious food as a way to have people think differently,” says Waters, whose philosophy has found favor in luminaries including Bill Clinton, the Obamas and the Dalai Lama. NOWNESS talked to the cutting-edge cook about changing the diet of a nation.

See the film and more here.

The Perennial Plate Episode 67: Kids at a Farm from Daniel Klein on Vimeo.

By Daniel Klein
The Perennial Plate Episode 67: Kids at a Farm
Aug 23, 2011

Excerpt from Serious Eats:

Janus Youth Programs has operated community-based programs for children, youth, and families in Oregon and Washington since 1972. They have a network of over 20 programs includes, including Janus Food Works, which employs 14 to 21 year-olds from Portland. The youth get involved in the planning, growing, selling, and donating of over 4,000 pounds of organic produce each year from the one-acre organic farm on Sauvie Island.

These teenagers were farming (really farming), working all day and selling their produce. While kids are often exploited in farm work, here they actually got paid. After filming with them, we created a dinner with the Plate and Pitchfork farm dinner series to showcase their work, and also invited the kids to enjoy the fruits of their labor. With these young farmers in attendance, a good time was had by all.

Visit the Perennial Plate site here.

A Manual For Teachers, Parents And Communities

Kraisid Tontisirin, Director,
Food and Nutrition Division
Mahmoud Solh, Director,
Plant Production and Protection Division
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Rome © FAO 2005
198 pages

Foreword

The keys to the development of children and their future livelihoods are adequate nutrition and education. These priorities are reflected in the first and second Millennium Development Goals. The reality facing millions of children, however, is that these goals are far from being met.

Children who go to school hungry cannot learn well. They have decreased physical activity, diminished cognitive abilities, and reduced resistance to infections. Their school performance is often poor and they may drop out of school early. In the long term, chronic malnutrition decreases individual potential and has adverse affects on productivity, incomes and national development. Thus, a country’s future hinges on its children and youth.

Investments in nutrition and in education are essential to break the cycle of poverty and malnutrition. FAO believes that schools can make an important contribution to countries’ efforts to overcome hunger and malnutrition, and that school gardens can help to improve the nutrition and education of children and their families in both rural and urban areas. In this regard, it is important to stress that school gardens are a platform for learning. They should not be regarded as bulk sources of food or income, but rather as a way to better nutrition and education.

FAO encourages schools to create learning gardens of moderate size, which can be easily managed by students, teachers and parents, but which include a variety of nutritious vegetables and fruits, as well as occasionally some small-scale livestock such as chickens or rabbits. Production methods are kept simple so that they can be easily replicated by students and parents at their homes.

Food systems are the unifying concept. “From plot to pot”, students learn how to grow, tend, harvest and prepare nutritious seasonal produce, in the educational settings of the classroom, the garden, the kitchen, the school cafeteria and the home. The experience promotes the environmental, social and physical well being of the school community and fosters a better understanding of how the natural world sustains us. Links with home gardens reinforce the concept and open the way for the exchange of knowledge and experience between the school and the community.

Such food-based strategies have the merit of sustainability: they create long-term dietary habits and put food choices into the hands of the consumer. A strong education component ensures that the effects go beyond the immediate time and place, to children’s families and future families.

Nutrition concerns also link the developed and the developing worlds, which share many dietary problems. For example, the need to change perceptions of fruits and vegetables and to learn how they are best grown, prepared and eaten is common to many communities, rich and poor, and may be critical in building community health in both. This makes for meaningful joint efforts and exchanges of experience, ideas and teaching materials.

FAO has prepared this Manual to assist school teachers, parents and communities. It draws on experiences and best practices of running school gardens all over the world. Classroom lessons are linked with practical learning in the garden about nature and the environment, food production and marketing, food processing and preparation and making healthy food choices.

We hope that the Manual will be a useful tool for all those who wish to start or improve a school garden with the aim of helping school children to grow in both mind and body.

Contents:

Introduction

Part 1: What Does It Involve?

Running A Garden Project

Part 2: Who Will Help Us?

Involving The Family And Community

Part 3: What Is Our Garden For?

Aims And Principles

Part 4: Where Do We Start?

Raising Environmental Awareness

Part 5: What Does Our Garden Need?

The Garden Site

Part 6: What Shall We Grow To Eat?

Improving Nutrition

Part 7: What Shall We Grow To Sell?

Market Gardening

Part 8: How Do We Grow Things?

Gardening Methods

Part 9: How Will We Eat Our Garden Food?

Preparing, Processing, Promoting

Part 10: What’s The Plan?

Planning The Project

Part 11: How Do We Get Going?

Organizing The Work

Part 12: How Do We Keep Going?

Motivation And Ownership

Appendices:

Food Factsheets

See online edition here.

Download PDF here.