As the equinox approaches and the first signs of red, yellow, and orange "autumn fires" begin to light up the tree tops in Northern Virginia, Terra Centre teachers have been busy taking their students on tours of the September Discovery Garden to see what changes have taken place in our crops since last June.
Butterflies!
Our two butterfly bushes have doubled in size and are laden with purple nectar-producing flowers. Along with the perennial flowers in the butterfly garden, these plants are the home to a plethora of butterfly species this year. We have adopted quite a population–or maybe they’ve adopted us!–including the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail that can be seen feasting on butterfly bush flowers in the top picture and the common buckeye that is sucking down sedum in the lower picture.
How many species can you identify?
Marigolds –An Organic Method of Pest Control
The giant marigolds in the first few beds were started from seed by last year’s 6th graders as part of their gardening elective. (These students have moved onto Robinson, but a piece of them remains here in the TC Discovery Garden!) Many invasive insects do not like the smell of marigolds, so ringing your garden in these beautiful flowers creates a natural barrier to harmful insects, eliminating the need for chemical pesticides.
Perennial Asparagus – An Example of Seasonal Changes The asparagus that we usually envision from the grocery store actually represent the stalks of the plant that emerge from the ground in April. Over the course of the growing season, these stalks open to create fern-like bushy fronds.
Students can sketch the bushy, tall asparagus plant as it looks right now and re-visit the plant in April to see how different the new stalks appear in early spring.
Red Peppers Are Really Mature Green Peppers
We have a few California green bell peppers growing in the garden bed closest to the butterfly garden. Watch these peppers develop into red bell peppers over the next few weeks.
Did you know that a red pepper is just a green pepper that has been left on the vine longer?
Red peppers are sweeter than green peppers because they’ve had a longer period on the plant for their natural sugars to develop!
Fresh Virginia Peanuts Lurking Below the Soil!
Our peanut plants are showing some yellowing in their leaves, which is a sign that harvest time is near. Peanuts grow under the soil, and are connected to the main plant by pegs.
1st graders will harvest the plants, and set them to dry while they learn about George Washington Carver, the inventor of peanut butter! 1st and 4th graders will learn how peanuts became an important Virginia cash crop in the early 1900s when the boll weevil devastated the South's cotton crops. George Washington Carver promoted the introduction of alternate crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, to improve quality of life for southern farmers.
Corn Experiments!
We performed an interesting experiment this year with our miniature Indian popcorn crop. Students planted one bed of corn seeds in monoculture ("Iowa-style"), flanked by two beds full of corn grown in mounds alongside beans and squash according to the traditional Native American methods (the Three Sisters). The theory behind the Three Sisters is that these plants thrive due to symbiotic relationships--that is, 1) the corn stalk provides a pole on which the beans can grow, 2) the beans fix nitrogen into the soil, improving its fertility for the other two plants, and 3) the squash has big leaves that shade the roots of all three plants. Which method do you think performed the best? Students will harvest the ears of corn in the coming weeks, and the hardened colorful kernels will be saved for popping during the 2nd grade unit on Native Americans later this year.
Powdery Mildew Returns!
Many students may remember watching Mrs. Arseneau spray milk on the powdery mildew infected pumpkin plants last fall as they listened to Miss Nevin read "The Fungus That Ate My School" in the outdoor classroom. Apparently, milk raises the pH of the plant to a level where the acid-loving fungus can no longer exist. Organic chemistry in the garden! Unfortunately, our great garden nemesis is back again this fall after having lain dormant in the soil for the past year. Kindergarten is busily harvesting our green pumpkins to use in their Pumpkin Lifecycle lessons, while Mrs. Koch is eyeing our gooseneck gourds, which we will dry out for use as maracas in music class.
Monticello Cotton
Our cotton crop is much smaller this year, but starting to show signs of setting bolls. These bolls have seeds inside, which produce moist fibers that grow and expand under the hot sun. As they develop, they will eventually push forth from the browning, ripening boll, exposing a fluff of cotton that looks like cotton candy. Traditionally, this rough cotton is ginned to remove seeds, and then spun into cloth.
This year, we planted Monticello Cotton in honor of one of our most famous Virginians, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, who planted cotton mainly for home manufacture rather than as a cash crop due to the shorter growing season in Virginia compared to the Deep South.
Our cotton will be ready for harvest around the time of the 4th grade Colonial Fair in mid to late November. Students will get to see the open bolls, as well as a real spinning wheel demonstation!
The Many Colors of Heirloom Tomatoes
Our bountiful tomato plants are laden with a rainbow of fruit. We planted three different heirloom varieties last spring, which are producing three different colors of tomatoes this fall –Purple Cherokee (purple), Brandywine (large & pinkish), and Rutgeerts (smaller & red-orange). Of course, there are also many green tomatoes.
2nd grade partnered with Seniora Plante this month to make Discovery Garden Salsa with our first haul of ripened tomatoes and herbs. Students ate the salsa during their Spanish classes in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15th).
Sunflowers Bow Their Heavy Heads to Fall
The Mammoth Sunflowers are beginning to wane. Their heads are full of seeds and will dry out in the garden over the coming month. The seeds will be used to make suet for the Terra Centre winter bird population, and possibly maybe some yummy human snacks as well.
Produce Donated to Food for Others. Much of our fall bounty has been consumed in the classrooms (Mrs. Beil's Green Tomato Cake was a hit for a 2nd year in a row!), but we are happy to report that Terra Centre families have made two trips already this year to Food for Others--a local food bank that distributes our extra produce to needy families throughout our community (http://foodforothers.org/). 
Peanut Harvest Fun! Also in October, our 1st graders, the K-1 class, and 4th graders had the opportunity to harvest Virginia peanuts. Few garden experiences are more satisfying than tugging on a big, leafy green peanut plant to reveal a cluster of hidden peanuts pegged below the soil line. Fourth graders coupled this experience with a lesson on the Origins of the Peanut and a trip to see peanut plants at Green Spring Gardens. They can now readily identify peanut pegs and are familiar with the plants history, including its origins in Brazil or Peru (~3,500 years ago), its migration to Europe, Africa, and Asia with the Spanish explorers, and finaly its arrival in Virginia with the African slave trade. Later this year, 1st graders will draw connections between their experience harvesting peanut plants and George Washington Carver, the famous American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor who is credited with developing 105 food recipes involving peanuts, as well as 100 useful products made from peanuts for the home and the farm. Carver recognized the value of the peanut as a cash crop and recommended that it be planted as a rotational crop in the Southeast cotton-growing areas where the boll weevil insect was devastating regional agriculture.
El Jardin de Descubrimento. After serving Discovery Garden salsa to her classes in honor of Spanish Heritage Month (thank you, 2nd grade chefs!), Senora Plante took her Spanish classes to the great outdoors. Students spent time up in the Discovery Garden developing their vegetative Spanish vocabulary (pumpkin, tomato, flower, etc.) and singing fun garden songs. Senora Plante also recorded videos of her classes enjoying a hunt through the garden for her favorite and ever-blue classroom buddy, "Papa Pitufo" (a.k.a., Papa Smurf).
Corn Harvest Did you know that corn and its many chemical derivatives are present in one form or another in most of the foods we consume? Sodas, processed food additives and preservatives, most meats and dairy (feed lot cows, chickens, and pigs all eat...corn!). Maize, or corn as we know it today, would not exist if it weren't for the people of central Mexico who cultivated and developed it nearly 7,000 years ago from a wild grass called teosinte. From this region, the crop migrated south to Peru and north to the Eastern Woodland Native American tribes of North America. When Columbus and other European settlers landed in the New World, corn was a major component of the Native American diet. These explorers brought their new corn discovery back to Europe. Did you know that corn is a human invention, a plant that does not exist naturally in the wild? It can only survive if planted and protected by humans. This month, our 4th graders helped harvest our Native American miniature popcorn crop, which our 2nd graders will "pop" later this year when they study Native American cultures.
The Discovery Garden Farmstand! Those of you who attended Back to School night in mid-September may have noticed our new Discovery Garden Farmstand in the front hall of the school. Mrs. Occhuizzo not only spent her summer dreaming up creative garden learning opportunities and recipes for our kids, but also constructing an entire Farmstand for them. Thank you Mrs. Occhuizzo! Not only do the Terra Centre students, teachers, and parents love this wonderful addition to the main hallway, but the resident crickets in the building also love it! They can be heard chirping merrily from their cozy new perches in the decorative corn stalks.
