Children ARE Our Future

2/18/2013

Candy Belsse's 5th Grade Class - Truckee Elementary

It might be a little corny, but Whitney Houston pretty much hit it spot on, "Children are our future!" And in keeping with the kids theme of the past few weeks, I wanted to share some pictures from two, recent, kid-driven harvests at the Truckee Community Farm.

Last Friday, twenty-five 5th graders from Truckee Elementary came out to the Growing Dome and in the matter of one hour harvested, weighed, washed and packed 16lbs of greens and rooted vegetables. About 8lbs will be used to make a soup for a cafeteria meal. But the kids got a special surprise for the weekend when they learned they would each be taking home a bag of lettuce greens to share with their families.

Three weeks before that, students from Tahoe Expeditionary Academy in Kings Beach came to do a harvest helping us prepare a food donation for Project Mana, our local hunger relief agency. Not only did the kids harvest 8lbs of veggies but they got to deliver the food to Project Mana taking their field trip to a whole other dimension and demonstrating the connection we all share with food. Check out the video and photo gallery below.

3 Comments

Joanna link

2/18/2013 09:49:12 pm

It is good to see how your dome works even in the snow, but I was wondering do you know how it works when the conditions are dull over winter? This last year we have seen precious little sun in Latvia and our temperatures have been anywhere from -20C (-4F) to just below freezing. We have had snow on the ground since the beginning of December and I guess that will help light levels but we also have low light levels due to being so far north.

Susie Sutphin link

2/19/2013 03:03:17 pm

Latvia? Cool! Thanks for the comment Joanna! Glad to hear we have readers so far away. Love it!

Yes, the Growing Dome still does great in these conditions. Two things…1) if you have harsh winters with little sun, you want to make sure you get your winter crops established early. Make sure everything is planted by October fist if not earlier, mid-September is even better. 2) I find using a floating row cover helps a lot in keeping the soil warm versus letting all that warm air escape from the soil at night. It is a little time intensive because you have to go down and cover the beds at night and take them off in the morning. You can leave them on if you want but will create too much humidity especially on a sunny day and you’ll get moss or fungus growing on the soil.

The water tank does a great job of keeping the dome humid which requires less watering in winter. And I do use small space heaters to buffer a 3-5° difference at night which isn’t much but helps a lot.

Susie

Joanna link

2/19/2013 04:09:51 pm

Thanks for the information, that was really helpful

Children ARE Our Future

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