Hi all,
We are happy to show you what we have been working on this month in the Phoenix School Garden. The link for this month’s Garden Update video will be posted below so take a look and see some of the cool stuff we have been doing! It has been quite the productive month! We hope you are all enjoying the nice summer weather and we will see you all soon!
Hi All,
Our crookneck squash and zucchini have really been producing! We had more of it than we knew what to do with so we decided to find some ways of preserving it so we could use it whenever we needed. If you ever find that you have too much produce than you know what to do with and you have the extra storage room then food preservation is a great way to have access to your garden produce year round. Below is a new video of how we decided to preserve the large quantities of squash and zucchini so we could use it later! Enjoy!
Hi all,
The Phoenix garden crew has been continuing to work hard. We have already been able to harvest some zucchini, squash and onions this week and we have a new educational video to share with all of you! The video is gives you some information on the yarrow plant and some of its many uses. The link will be posted below so please check it out! We are hoping to release more educational garden videos on a weekly or biweekly basis so look for those! So please watch out video, let us know what you think and we will see you next week.
Hi all,
The Garden Update video for June 2020 has just been uploaded! The link will be posted at the bottom. Take a look and see what we were up to in the garden this month and see how all of our lovely plants are doing. We plan on continuing the Garden Update series every month and we plan on having more educational garden videos posted as soon as next week! Stay posted for more awesome Phoenix Charter School Garden content!
Enjoy the nice Summer weather and we will see you all later!
This has been a trying time for all of us including the Phoenix garden crew. Due to social distancing, we do not have the help of the garden students like we normally would but the garden staff have been working diligently to keep the Phoenix garden running. We are happy to say that we have all of our beds planted and are starting to see our hard work coming to fruition, literally! We plan to continue throughout the summer and using the fruits of our labor to help support Phoenix and the community. We hope to continue with weekly blog posts and monthly garden updates and we also have plans to create some more educational garden videos so look out for those!
We also want to congratulate the graduating class of 2020!
Thanks for reading and look forward to new content soon!
During WW1, a food crisis came about in Europe after agriculture workers were either drafted or joined the military and farms became battlefields. The burden of millions of hungry people fell on the United States. In 1917, weeks before the U.S. enters the war, Charles Lathrop pack organized a national war garden commission to encourage the U.S. to the war effort by gardening and donating the food to the allies. Citizens were urged to use all idle land, including schools, company grounds, parks and any open space that could be turned into a garden. Propaganda was put up to encourage gardening. The Federal Bureau of Education initialed U.S. Schools Garden Army (USSGA) to get kids to enlist as soldiers of soil. Soon there were 3 million new garden plots in 1917 and more than 5.2 million were cultivated in 1918 when WW1 ended the home gardens were called Victory Gardens.
By Michael Lowry
Hi All,
The garden staff have been hard at work in the garden. We have created an update video so we can show you all the cool things we have been up to. We are hoping to do a new update video every month so look out for those!
Below is the link to the video. Enjoy!
5,000 years ago the Sumerians who lived in Mesopotamia had made clay tablets with several lists of hundreds of medicinal herbs. Ever since then people have been eager to learn about these plants and want to try them out themselves to see if certain aspects of their health would improve. Especially today like never before people are starting to go organic or all-natural. But there has been an abundance of speculation about whether or not all-natural is always the safest and healthiest option.
One of the most well known medicinal plants would have to be turmeric. This plant is part of the ginger family and is generally grown in Indonesia and several other countries. One of turmeric’s most prevalent compounds is called curcumin, curcumin is known for its strong antioxidant properties that advance the bodies own antioxidant enzymes. Turmeric also has anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory properties.
There’s also chamomile that is most commonly used in tea and is said to help sooth anxiety and kickstart relaxation. And garlic is supposedly said to lower blood pressure and cholesterol according to German studies. But the FDA points out that if you ingest too much it could interfere with your body’s natural processes and potentially be very harmful. Although it goes without saying that too much of anything can damage your health.
So jumping on the medicinal plant train doesn’t seem too harmful right…? According to researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia medicinal plants can cause damage to the liver and even cause kidney failure. Studies there have shown that certain plants/herbs respond detrimentally with other drugs and contain toxic chemicals. Clearly there are studies that both support and oppose this method of medicine. What we should all take away from this is that we should be excited to explore and experiment but you should be cautious when wanting to try this out and always consult your doctor.
-Andrea Montpas
Gardening has been around for long time. Some people use it as therapy in these ways
Gardening is something that can keep you busy all year long. Some vegetables grow better in the summer and some grow better in the winter. Tomatoes, Corn and Carrots are all vegetables that grow best in the summer. Peas, asparagus and garlic all grow best in winter. Some vegetables you can grow all year around like potatoes or radishes because they are all root vegetables.
Also, you can do sister planting (the three sisters) the three sisters are used to help plants. Protect and feed off each other. It started off as corn, beans and squash by doing this the corn provided stability for the beans to grow. The beans produced a chemical called nitrogen. They also soak up the water. The squash covers the ground and keeps it moist the pointy leaves keep the bugs away. Sister planting was brought to the north Americas by trade and was adopted by many different cultures.
Another way to help your garden is recycling. Like an old boot as a planter or an old suitcase. Or your own plants. You can use them to put in your soil. For example, beans they release nitrogen. Nitrogen turns into protein which the plants feed from. Protein like humans help the plants grow faster and stronger. It is also the green tent in the stem and leaves that conduct photosynthesis.
By Emily Hinerman
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