Harvest, Harvest, Harvest! That was the theme of today’s garden club meeting! Students harvested Bok Choy, arugula, and lettuce. The favorite of today was Bok Choy. I wish I would have taken photos of the plant after they “harvested”… it needs a bit of rest now. LOL! We are still waiting for our cabbage, brussel sprouts and cheddar cauliflower to sprout.
Bok Choy, aka Pak Choi, is a type of Chinese Cabbage. They have green leaf blades with white bulbous bottoms. They form a kind of “cluster” similar to mustard greens. We had to look this one up… we needed to know how to harvest and how to cook it.
Recipe Option: Ingredients: 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 2 garlic cloves, chopped, 1 shallot, chopped, 1 pound baby bok choy, rinsed, cut into quarters, 1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce
Preparation: Heat oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add garlic and shallot and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add bok choy, soy sauce, and 2 Tbsp. water and cover immediately. Cook 1 minute. Uncover and toss, then cover and cook until bok choy is tender at the core, about 3 more minutes.
Today, we also recreated our keyhole garden bed. What this means is we added a wire tube at the center of our garden bed to collect organic material. This will allow us to collect vegetable scraps, leaves, egg shells, etc to naturally fertilize the beds. This is composting at it’s finest! Want to teach your kids more about keyhole gardens and composting! Check out our TPT reading comprehension assignment!
In school, students are learning about soil formation and different layers of the earth. These students were so helpful making signs explaining what should be added to compost. While making signs, we had a few mistakes (which were made into beautiful oops- learned in art class). One student was creating a “food scraps” sign and made it rainbow color… when I said I LOVED the colors in her words, she said that in PE they learn they need to eat the rainbow! Our kids are learning all the things and making all the connections! Love this!
Gardening and Maintaining
Today, we also worked on our purple mums in front of the school. They needed a little TLC… meaning water and removing the wilted blooms. This is called deadheading. We taught students how to remove the wilted floral blooms so the plant may bloom again. Hopefully we will start to see blooms again. We also trimmed dead material from all items in the garden and watered all of the garden beds. Students continue to pick weeds, add weed barrier and mulch to keep our native Texan garden bed looking the best it can. Another thank you to ACE Hardware for the gloves, tools and aprons. The girls were loving them today! So cute!!!
