Read this if you want info on the compost assignment and need data!

Hi Everyone,
Well, we are busy gathering and interpreting our data. At the moment we have Brandon going down to the farm to count carrot seeds and Brocolli leaves, Tiara going tomorrow to count the brocolli leaves in her berm and Bridget going tomorrow to count Bok Choy leaves and all of the brocolli leaves (just to have as much data as possible). Please post on your blogs, so all of the students can share!

Here are the individual assignments for the compost book: You are responsible for one piece of your section (previously decided by your group).
Part 1: data, history, impacts
Part II: Biology, chemistry and physics
Part III: How it is used, studies on effectiveness and examples of innovative ways to compost in large-scale project.

Remember you are being graded according to:
Support from Reading/Research: "Demonstrates effective use of text support to answer prompt."
Controlling Idea: "Controlling idea that states the purpose and/or addresses the task's question."

The Effects of Trash
What afect does our production of garbage have? After looking at the graphs, videos, websites, articles, etc. write a brief explantion that examines how much waste is produced. what types of waster are there and where does New York city garbage go? Explain the effects of waste on the environment, health and resources of the planet. What impilcations can you draw? Support your discussion with evidence from your research (include the links within your essay)

How Does Decomposition Happen?
What makes compost happen? After reviewing the sources that your group has accumlated, write and essay that explains the deomposition process. Be sure to address the effects that Carbon, Nitrogen, Water and Air have on the biological, chemical and physical properites of the process. Support your description with evidence from your observations and from your research (include links).

Benefit of Compost:
What are the many benefits of creating and using compost? After analyzing the data, write a chapter for the book that showcases the benefits of composting on various aspects of the environment. Support your discussion with evidence from your research(include the links within your essay).

What else is due?

In addistion to the other assignments listed on the previous post we now have a couple of new things due:
1. Description of pH experiment
2. Description of field trip to BKFarmyards to learn about hoop houses.
What are they? What are the pros and cons of them? Can CAS have one? Would you build one?
3. Final reflection: What did you like about the class? What are you still interested to learn about or be involved in? What do you recommend be different for the next class?
4. Your part of the chapter of the Garbage to Gold (Trash/compost) book.

The Compost Book

Our garbage affects our health and the environment. Unfortunately, there is no safe and easy place to put all of our waste indefinitely. We can, however, decrease our trash flow by separating and composting the organic waste.
Your job is to create a compelling book/resource guide that describes the problem, how decomposition works and the benefits of using compost.
Each student will:
1. Choose one area from the three sections described above and find at least 5 sources of information. These sources should include a variety of information, graphics, data, etc.
2. Meet as a group to identify which sources (should be 5 from each person) should be included.
3. Write your section of the guide using your sources as reference material. Each student will be responsible for a part of the section.
The problem with our trash: Each student pick one area:
a. history
b. data
c. impacts
How decomposition works:
a. The biology
b. The chemistry
c. The physics
The benefits of compost:
a. How it is used
b. Studies on effectiveness
c. Examples of innovative ways to compost in large-scale areas.
4. Each section should have at least 2 visuals (graph, table, picture, etc.), 1 video, 1 podcast and 4 written articles.

New Blogs Need Updating

Hi,
Today I read through the students' blog and they are very good. They all seem to need updating and more detailed information though:
At this point you should have:
1. First impressions of the farm.
2. Map of the farm
3. Description of companion planting and what crops you have chosen to plant based on companion planting.
4. Daily observations of the berm and the work that you do: Planting, thinning, dead-heading, weeding as well as observations of the plants: germination, harvesting and general health.
5. Soil and air temperature daily as well as soil moisture.
6. Description of our soil: N:P:K as well as pH and soil texture. Describe the process of getting the results.
7. Experiment Description for raising nitrogen: In Detail!
8. Research for lowering the pH of the soil organically.
Lots of Pictures!!

This is a picture of the roots of the cover crops improving the health of the soil by increasing organic matter and preventing erosion.

new Class Blogs

Here are the new crops of Blogs!
Titianna: http://titiannafisher.blogspot.com/
Tiara: http://www.tiara-thomas.blogspot.com/
Bridget: http://infiniteonature.blogspot.com/
Bobby: http://bobbysiafakas.wordpress.com
Mike: http://mikearcosfarm.blogspot.com/
Louis: http://city-asfarm.blogspot.com/
Aja: http://ajagrantsfarm.blogspot.com/
Hersh: http://hds-inquiry.blogspot.com/2011/09/hershs-first-farm-impression.html
Kendrick: http://farmingwithken.blogspot.com/
Rukiya: http://rukiyadaurbanfarmer.blogspot.com/
Tianna: http://yamuddda.blogspot.com/

Wow! Hot, Hot, Hot and Harvesting!

I went to the farm this morning and it was amazing!
Everything is growing robustly. Really! There is even a 5 inch watermelon developing. So much basil, the largest tomatoes I've ever seen, lots of blooming flowers attracting the good bugs, everything!
I thought I'd go for an hour and ended up staying for hours..It go so hot though that I almost passed out biking home. Luckily, I could cut up the cucumber, mix it with aloe vera and use it as a cooling face mask.
Anyway,
Here is a pic of the harvest from today:
Eight little carrots
.5lb of pineapple sage (I'm making tea out of it). It is so large it needs to be harvested. Please come and harvest some).
1 lb of basil
4 cucumbers
14 Nardello peppers

Bees and Pix

Hi,
Here is a picture of our beautiful cilantro and the nasturtiums with sugar snap peas.

Also there are two bee demonstrations happening: tonight (thursday at 6pm) and tomorrow morning (Friday at 10am).
Here is a great youtub of the bee waggle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ijI-g4jHg
Lastly...go see the movie, Queen of the Sun tonight at Cinema Village. It got great reviews and its closing tonight...all about bees, GMO's pollination, seed saving, importance of people planting in their communities, etc.

Times at the farm, nutrient test results, recipe for quinoa salad and bee talk

If anyone is interested in making up time or just being at the farm.
I can be there the following times. Please email/text me that you are coming:
Friday (6/17) afternoon:
1:30 (Bee talk at the hive...very exciting!)
Monday (6/20)
1:30
Wednesday (6/22)
1:30

Alissa and Adrian's test results (thanks to Massiel)
Phosphorus: abundant
Potassium: No precipitate (this is interesting since I don't know if this was the fertilized or unfertilized, I look forward to reading about it on your blogs!0.

Recipe for Quinoa salad, this isn't exactly the one I had today, but similar:
Quinoa Salad with Spinach, Raisins, and Walnuts

1 T olive oil

2 T minced red onion

1 garlic clove, minced

1 c quinoa, rinsed (rinsing is to remove the bitterness from the seeds)

1 ½ T golden raisins

1 ½ T dried currants

1 2/3 c water

1 c frozen chopped spinach, thawed

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

¼ c toasted chopped walnuts

2 T chopped parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

1-2 T good quality extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

3 oz feta or goat cheese

In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil to medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for 2-3 minutes or until soft. Add the quinoa and continue to sauté for another minute or so. Add the raisins, currants and water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and allow to cook until water is nearly absorbed, about 10 minutes. Stir in spinach and cover again and let cook another 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. Stir in lemon zest, lemon juice, walnuts, and parsley. Season generously to taste. Drizzle olive oil over and stir in. Serve chilled or at room temperature, topped with a bit of feta.
http://tastyeatsathome.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/quinoa-salad-with-spinach-raisins-and-walnuts/

Homework on Seeds:

To make it digitally easier, I've posted this handout on-line. Please read pages 69-74 and write a short essay that summarizes the reading that includes three questions.
http://www.oaec.org/sites/default/files/A-Handful-of-Seeds_0.pdf

Love the bees! And the Radishes!

Hi,
We harvested five radishes six

heads of lettuce, the lolla rossa and buttercrunch. We observed the bees, weeded and drew. All in all, very pleasant! We were all impressed with the work of the bees. Now that we know each bee will make about 1 teaspoon of honey in HER lifetime and that she has to make about 10 one-hour flights into the field each day visiting up to 10,000 flowers just to make that small amount we will savor every drop of honey we eat from now on!

This is a great clip from Microcosmos showing the ants/aphid relationship and a ladybug:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut90wbLRqac

Here is another clip from the BBC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43id_NRajDo&NR=1

I really recommend you watch the whole Microcosmos movie and will grant you two hours of make up time if you do!

Making up time

I know we discussed it today in class, but just in case here are your opportunities for making up time. Please remember to post a journal and picture on your blog for every time you make up.
The Farm:
Any afternoon, Thursday(6/9), June 11th and 12th. Also, during Regents Week, we can discuss next Tuesday 6/14.
Washington Square Park: Water the woollies!
Any appropriate events highlighted on the Food Systems NYC website: Check it out as there are cool and interesting things taking place!

http://www.foodsystemsnyc.org/events

Growing season

It is so surprising how much things have grown since Tuesday! More tomatoes, lettuce, basil, everything is taking off. We noticed the Oregano needs a little help so we will add more dried blood next Tuesday. It seemed to have an amazing effect on the tomatoes!
We also did a lot of work on the compost. We turned and turned. We took stuff out and cut it up and mixed it with brown leaves and now it should be ready in the near future.
We also watered our three sisters garden. Everything had sprouted and was looking really good.
Here are the varieties we planted last Tuesday:

Well, here are some pictures...I'll take more next Tuesday which is our last day :(
Also, we'll take some videos!

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Seeds that we Planted:

Veggies:

Okra

Summer Squash

Water Cress

Lettuce “Lolla Rossa”

Heirloom Cauliflower

Sugar snap peas

Velencia tomato

Arugula

Kentucky wonder bean, Hutterite bean

New mex joe parker pepper

Nardello pepper

Beet

Spinach

Batavian endive

Fruit:

Green rocky ford melon

Herbs:

Cilantro/coriander

Parsley

Sweet marjoram

Chives

Basil lime

Thai Basil

Dill

Flowers:

Nasturtium

Hollyhock

Coleus

Little Berm: Big Harvest!

Today we harvested 4.2 lbs of mesculun, 1.4 lbs of spinach and one strange beet from the berm. Students brought everything home and I hope they enjoy it while its fresh!

Here are some pictures of the happy farmers:

We also took some notes on our radish experiment that hopes to test whether the PlanTone is effective.  We dug up two little one today for a baseline comparison.  The one on the left is the control.

Attendance for Urban Farm

Andres, William

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Andrews, Adrian

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Burke, Erika

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Carouso, Nikola

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Carrion, Jeremiah

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Cornwall, Octavia

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Daskalova, Alissa

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Edrei, Anika

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Graig, Analee

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Hoffeld, Rose

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Jenney, Emma

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Kopaleishvili, Natia

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Li, Ryan

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Negron, Nicole

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Rueda, Massiel

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Vinasco, Sebastian

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This is the attendance for the class: The first number is the number of absences and the second is the latenesses.

Dried Blood?

Well, we just planted our strawberries when we heard about the marauding squirrel problem. Turns out they ate all of the strawberry plants that another group recently planted.  We did a little research and we found that coyote urine works best as a deterrent.  Unfortunately, that is hard to find in NYC, so we decided to try Dried Blood.  We sprinkled it around our strawberry areas and now we are hoping for the best.  Here is the picture of the product.

I'll have to post the picture later as my internet connection seems to be having problems.

The brand is Espoma Organic Traditions if you would like to google it.

Science Illustrated Fertilizer Experiment

t

Picture of our friendly farmers

Pictures for the 5/24

Students took out everything to mix with the brown leaves and the coffee grinds.

 Everyone got to help!

 The sweet peas are growing!...can you see the strawberries in the back?

Here is our latest crop of lettuce.

 The tomatoes are on the vine and we're just waiting for them to ripen!

 We plan to harvest the marjoram and chives on Thursday...research the recipes.

Homework assignment

On your blog:
Part 1:
Write a short two paragraph piece that incorporates the three
readings: If you are particularly interested in one side of this topic
you can choose to research further and have two or more other sources.
I think these are good jumping off points.

http://compost.css.cornell.edu/why.html
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/fundamentals/benefits_benefits.htm
http://www.slate.com/id/2284361/

Part 2:
Seeds and Harvest: Write a short essay that summarizes the reading that includes three questions
Who ever finishes first and answers someone else's question (s) gets a
prize! (Think one less homework assignment, make up time, cookies, strawberries, letter of recommendation, etc.)

Our first harvest!

Yesterday Mateo from Farming Concrete came to the farm to show us how to track our harvest.  He also gave us a scale.
It was an exciting day as we harvested the lettuce for the school picnic.

We decided to give the lettuce a "haircut" instead of pulling out the whole plant.  We hope this speeds up the re-growth process.  Afterwards, you couldn't even tell we harvested there is still so much lettuce! And other things...the snap peas have germinated as well as the nasturtium!

We weighed our harvest and it totaled .7 of a lb of Mesculin!

We also harvested some of the Apple Mint, but it was so light you couldn't weigh it.  We hope to make a refreshing iced tea. 

Later.....Everyone enjoyed the mesculin salad which we added local goat cheese, apple, walnuts and dressing to!

Here are some pictures

Pictures of Rich's students test the Phosphorus and Potassium of the Lettuce leaves

On Wednesday, May 18th students tested the phosphorus and potassium levels of the leaves growing in their farm plot at Battery Park:

The dark blue color indicates that the phosphorus level is high.

The level of precipitate (solid) that forms indicates the potassium level, therefore, we need to compare this to the leaves after we add potassium-rich fertilizer (Plant Tone).