Our second planting

It's been a productive spring, the kids planted both from seed and transplants from our local farmer and within just one week we began to see our efforts pay off. Our transplants took root and our seeds sprouted little shoots. 

kale and green chard transplants

radish sprouts from seed

snap pea sprouts from seed

don't blink carrot sprouts from seed

spinach sprouts

Just three short weeks later this beautiful radish was plucked from the soil, picture perfect by a six year old first grader who after the photo promptly brushed it off and took a bite ! Crazy that kids will try something they've created so easily!

our burgeoning kale beds

hand watering radishes in hand!

Meet our local farmer

This March marks our first spring planting at our edible garden but before being able to go ahead a trip to our local farmer in cohorts was required. Kevin Flaim of the Panther farm in Vineland took us on a tour of his working commercial farm to show children just where there vegetables come from and how they get to the supermarket.

Kevin Flaim of Panther farms

this is a special planting machine that takes each of the carefully greenhouse seeded transplants and one by one mechanically plants them in the ground

another view of the planting machine

the newly planted crops

a dry fertilizer spreader

more crops to plant

because it is threatening to snow again the new tender transplants must be covered with a "paper towel-like" tarp.

Kevin shows us how the spinach crop from last year is coming back, but due to the weather extremes it is pale yellow to white in some places. He hopes it will come back as it warms up.

We are shown the root structure to a Kale plant that has been planted last year and is coming back again this year

Finally, tender leek shoots are growing in the warmth of this long narrow greenhouse, one of many his farm has.

These are leeks one year in the making!

Kevin shares some leeks for us to take home and cook!

What's on our menu for Newbie's early Spring garden:

This time around we will be planting, red and yellow beets, red and green chard, kale and red cabbage from transplants Kevin has donated and from seed we  will be planting carrots, snap peas, mustard greens, spinach and radishes!!!

Hurricane Sandy and our garden relief fund

This fall green team members planted over 150 romaine, red leaf and green leaf lettuces. We donated our beautiful yield to our Newbie families and still had more than we knew what to do with.

Sadly Hurricane Sandy came and tore through New Jersey. We knew we as a community and school had to do something. So we set up a little farm stand at school and then on the soccer fields one Saturday and sold our lettuces to donate ALL the proceeds to the New Jersey Red Cross Southern Shore Chapter.

our farm stand for Sandy

A happy customer with a head of Romaine!

Another happy customer with Green leaf! 

And our garden is done until Spring!

Mark Newbie Garden First Planting

Our Mark Newbie Green Team

 Last year we began green team on a single quote found, it seemed to define for us what green team stood for, our mantra. 

Green Team Mantra

“In the end we will Conserve only what we Love,

We will Love only what we Understand, and

We will Understand only what we are Taught.”

~Baba Dioum Senegal

It is with these words and a weekly shopping trip to whole foods that this idea was born...a brochure picked up about whole foods giving grants to elementary schools to create edible gardens. What did we have to lose? What better way to give each child a sense of responsibility to the land that feeds them. We have begun a way of project based learning that in our suburban environment can give our children a safe space for the exploration of play and activity in the outdoors. This structure for the green team is hopefully just the beginning of a more hands-on outdoor classroom amplifying math, science and language arts that are currently only taught inside. And if nothing else we have begun a process of learning about where our food comes from and how to tend and care for what nurtures us.

Sal our builder gets some help from Superintendent Scott Oswald, Newbie Parents and Borough local teens

progress

placement of kindergarten bench

almost done, now just for the soil and plants!

Our first season of planting are lettuces donated by our Collingswood market farmer Kevin from Panther Farms in Vineland, NJ.

When these lettuces are ready we will be offering them to our Mark Newbie students to take to their families and enjoy, if there are too many to finish we will be donating them to a local food bank. 

This will be our first growing season we hope to learn a lot to help us toward our big spring planting.

planting our romaine transplants

ready set start planting!

After our first planting we received some press!

Collingswood Patch

The Retrospect

Green Festival Bound

Come join Mark Newbie's green team at Collingswood's very own town wide Green Festival.
Collingswood come rain or come shine will be educating whomever wants to listen on the benefits of rain barrel watering, composting, solar panels, bike rehabbing and more. Our town is all about green living and we're proud to be a part of it.  Learn how to make paper vegetables with recycled newspaper and wire hangers and a little coaxing.

 Or bring home your very own plant and get your face painted. If you'd like to support our endeavours you could order a bat house or buy one of our 100% organic cotton printed tote bags. We made them using vegetable dyes and real vegetables! 

Osprey Project

The green team began this year by fundraising to adopt an Osprey and build its' nest in Avalon Bay, New Jersey through the New Jersey wildlife foundations adopt a species program. The goal was to raise an overall total of $250,  $125 through a coin drive in which we raised $175 and the rest we raised face painting at our annual fall book fair.

 Our next project was to build the nest and install it in Avalon, but first we attended an assembly given by the New Jersey Wildlife Foundations educational director.

Our resident 4th grade green team writer for the month Samantha interviews Chloe about the process:

S: Chloe what did you learn about Osprey at the assembly?

C: I learned about how the osprey are an endangered species because they ingested a life threatening pesticide from eating contaminated fish which caused their eggshells to be weak. This means that less of the Osprey babies were born each year.

S: What did green team do to try and help this situation?

C: We raised money to adopt an Osprey and build an Osprey nest?

S: What was involved in building the nest?

C: The materials to build the nest were donated by a local construction company where one of our green team students' parents works. The design came from the New Jersey Wildlife's website and most of the green team parents and children worked together one Saturday morning to build it.

Parents help building

Building the platform

The children sign the platform

We just finished building the osprey nest. 

S: After the nest was built where did you go to install it?

C: A small group of us drove an hour and a half away to Avalon Bay, put on our rain boots, life jackets and boarded a boat to get across the bay to the marsh where it was installed?

S: How did you get the platform in the ground?

C: First the old Osprey nest needed to be taken down with brute force, then we dug deep a hole with shovels and hoisted it up with ropes on either sides.

S: Did anyone go back to see if the platform was in use?

C: There is a woman called a banter that band's the talon of each Osprey inhabiting the new platforms and she emailed the green team to let us know that our platform was a home to a male and female  Osprey. Mission accomplished. We hope to go back to visit.

going out to the marsh

we're almost there

hoisting the platform

heave, ho

We did it, and now there are Osprey living in it!

Our first post

 

We the students of Mark Newbie Green Team will be in the process of making a garden for our school this spring. We are applying for a grant through Whole Foods of $2,000 to make this possible. The Borough  of Collingswood and Warner’s Landscape and Patio is supporting us through our decision of making our garden. They will be the ones who are helping us to build the initial structure.

We have been throwing around a few ideas. It would be amazing if we had a rain barrel to recycle the rain by catching the water and using it to feed the plants and a composting bin to turn the rotten fruit and vegetables into fresh, nutritious soil to plant more.

Planting in the spring seems perfect for lettuces, garlic, carrots, peppers, eggplant and cherry tomatoes. It would be nice to plant jersey blueberries and a fruit bearing tree or maybe a lemon tree or a fig tree. An herb border will be perfect with lavender, rosemary and lemon thyme.  A barrel of herbs would also be great with parsley, basil, chocolate mint, and maybe some chives.

The crops from our garden will be offered and shared at lunchtime and any extras will be donated to a food bank. Hopefully everyone will all have fun and enjoy this garden.

In the end,

we conserve only what we love,

we love only what we understand and

We understand only what we are taught

Written By Evaristo,Catharine,

and edited by Samantha, Chloe, Zachary and Samantha

Sebastiano's  poetic contribution