Youth Crew 2015 – Day 4!

The crew started out right away by grabbing gloves – even color coordinated to our outfits – and heading over to get going with the compost!

 

Our work project for the day included sifting through the farm’s worm bin and separating finished compost from unfinished compost.

In addition, Youth Crew also weeded sunflower plants that were done for the season and prepped the raised bed to be planted with broccoli.

 

After weeding the beds, students then filled the empty raised garden beds with the fresh compost they harvested from the worm bin and tilled it into the soil.

Waqia then demonstrated to the students how to properly plant broccoli using planting triangles for proper spacing.

Having finished planting, students watered their newly planted broccoli bed.

After, they moved on to a lesson on trash and compost, learning about decomposition and how long it takes for materials such as food scraps, cardboard, paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, and styrofoam to breakdown. By making a “trash timeline” from shortest to longest decomposition rates, they discovered that while it might take food scraps and paper a mere four weeks to breakdown under the right conditions, it takes glass thousands of years, while a material like styrofoam never breaks down fully.

We discussed choosing products that can either be reused or composted, before resorting to products that have to be thrown away. At Real Food Farm, we accept compostable material from our neighbors and create new soil for our fields!

After completing the trash timeline lesson, Youth Crew got busy harvesting carrots and basil to make basil pesto pasta and fresh coleslaw for lunch!

Lunch prep included creating a fresh basil pesto sauce for our pasta and shredding mounds of red cabbage and orange carrots for the coleslaw. We topped the coleslaw with a honey vinaigrette. Take a look at this colorful plate!

After eating their meals and just before a crazy rainstorm landed, Youth Crew got practice using harvesting knives by cutting some of the cosmos flowers and creating a bouquet to take home! We love when the crew can share some of the farm with their families and often send home produce, lunch samples or flowers! See you all next week!