Planning a market basket and retail product at Gourmet Gorilla

The Agriculture Task Force took two trips to Gourmet Gorilla, the company that supplies CJA's meals.  In Laron's words, "what we did was talk about products we are going to make and sell in a famous store. We also talked about logos and the market basket we hope to do.  A market basket has a lot of foods that we and our buddy Gourmet Gorilla will sell to families...I had fun and it was like Fourth of July all over again."

Derrick calculated profits for different products in our market basket.



"As we were there we took a tour"--Artis

"Our second trip to Gourmet Gorilla we had more time to be in the kitchen.  It was like we were chefs.  We made tomato soup and strawberry jam.  It took a long time to make."--Derrick

We flavored our jam with real vanilla from real vanilla beans.  Artis takes a whiff.

Everyone got to take home some jam we made, and we gave the extras to teachers who inspired us to do this work.

We also made tomato soup flavored with bacon, and everyone took some home as well.  We hope to sell the jam and the soup we created in a grocery store near you.

Field Trip Friday 11/18/11

We are going on a trip to Gourmet Gorilla, the company that serves our food. We are going to be observing how our food is cooked then brought to us. This is going to be a really helpful event in the agriculture task force. You will be able to read all about it in my next blog post.

--Dion

Can't wait

I can't wait until the next farmers' market.  It is bugging me badly that our crops still have to grow.  Why can't they simply just grow more quickly?
--Dion

 A bed seeded with fall and winter greens.

 Pea sprouts are coming up.

Another Successful Market

Here are some pictures from our second Farmers' Market on Friday, October 14.

 Bell peppers and acorn squash.

 Artis and Dion sorting produce.

The Agriculture Task Force at work at the market.

Announcement

CJA Farmers’ Market

Friday, October 14

From 2:30pm dismissal until 3:00pm

Outside the atrium

·        Great prices on crops grown at CJA!

·        Build a STRONG, HEALTHY, SAFE community

Profits support the agriculture program at CJA

Member of the agriculture Task force

Hi my name is Dion Nimock. I am proud to say that I really enjoyed the farmers market. It was a big success. In total we made $50.00. We sold basil, swiss chard, eggs, and more. I look forward to seeing you at our next farmers market.

NEW MEMBER!

 

Hello, my name is Artis M. McCastle and I'm a member of the CJA taskforce!

The other day we had sucessful farmers' market. There were lots of custumers

and I want you to be one for our next market.

The first Farmers' Market was a success!

On Friday, September 30 we held our first Farmers' Market.  We sold out and made $50 profit!  Here are some pictures.

The Agriculture Task Force (from left to right: Artis, Derrick, Alzario, Dion)

 Some of the produce for sale at the market.

 Derrick and Alzario package some eggs from our chickens.

Parents browse our healthy, affordable produce.

Mr. Houlihan submitted this photo of him cooking some Swiss chard he bought at the market.  He said it was delicious.

Harvesting for the Farmers' Market

Keyshawn volunteered his recess to harvest produce for the Farmers' Market tomorrow (Friday, September 30 from 2:30pm to 3:00pm in front of CJA's atrium).

Cherry tomatoes

 Eggs in the coop

The pineapple is still growing!

 Harvesting lettuce

 The bell pepper from a previous post is almost ready!

Parsley

CJA Farmers’ Market

This Friday, Sept. 30

From 2:30pm dismissal until 3:oopm

Outside the atrium

·      Great prices on tomatoes, eggs, greens, parsley, basil, and 0ther crops grown at CJA!

·      Build a STRONG, HEALTHY, SAFE community

Profits support the agriculture program at CJA

New member of the Agriculture Task Force

Hi,my name is Alzario Palmer I'm a sixth grader at CJA. I'm very happy to be a part of the Taskforce and to be a CEO of the taskfocre. I am happy to be working with everyone on the market box. There will be more to come.

Blossoms and young fruit

While the students are away on break, Mr. Dwyer is looking after their crops.  They're missing quite a show in the garden!  Many plants are putting out blossoms, while others' blossoms have already been pollinated, and young fruits are developing.

 

String bean plants have white and yellow blossoms.

Cantaloupe blossoms will turn into melons when they are pollinated.

This sunflower is almost ready to bloom.

This orange blossom will become a green zucchini.

These nasturtiums attract insects that will pollinate other crops.

When a blossom is pollinated, a fruit develops, like the young watermelon you can see below the flower on the left.

This bell pepper is about the size of a golf ball.

These cherry tomatoes are almost fully grown, but in a few weeks they'll ripen and turn red.

An ear of corn grows alongside the stalk after its flowers have been pollinated.

Besides flowers and fruit, there are roots, bushes, and leaves that are developing.

Onions grow below the surface.

We eat the leaves of the kale plant.  These are ready to harvest.

This pineapple bush was rescued from the compost bin.  It has taken root in the garden.  Pineapples usually grow in tropical climates in volcanic soil, so only time will tell how this experiment turns out.

Week 5: CJA Agriculture

This week in agriculture some students had a debate about unsustainable food systems. They discussed Cheerios and Fruit Loops, comparing how healthy they are.

This week we learned about sustainable food systems. These systmes use less processing of food and treat the animals with respect. On the other hand, unsustainable food systems do not treat animals with respect, sometimes making them stand in their own waste. This can lead to the animals becoming sick, which then leads to people getting sick. We also learned that unsustainable food systems use a large amount of plastic to wrap up the products we use today. Sustainable food systems, on the other hand, use much less plastic and also use fewer steps to get the food from the farm to your table. This minimizes pollution and waste.

Mr. Durkin with one of our chickens. At CJA we treat our animals and environment with love and respect!

Mr. Nimock transferring compost with his trusty pitchfork. Instead of buying fertilizer and soil, we use old vegetables and fruits and turn them into soil to place in our garden.

Week 4: CJA Agriculture

Garden Group:
Overall this week the granden group uprooted weeds so they won't take away water from our plants. The garden group does not believe in using pesticides and herbicides because they are harmful to humans and the environment. They also cut down cilantro, pulled up carrots, and harvested lettuce to eat in our school potluck. They also used new soil from the compost to prepare to grow new plants.

A cantaloupe growing from our garden

Compost Group:
Mr. Walter Jones and Mr. Francois Castillo dug up soil from one of our compost bins to enrich the soil of our garden. Our watering team watered the compost to help the organisms inside decompose the waste. The compost group also mixed in orange peels and other fruits and vegetables so they could make more soil for the garden.

Mr. Jones and Mr. Castillo using teamwork to take out soil from our compost.

Week 3

This week, the students watched Food Inc, a documentary directed by Robert Kenner about how our food is produced.  Here are some of their reactions:

"Corn is a remarkable plant." --J. Boss
"There are no seasons in super markets." --D. Nimock
"$300,000 are put into chicken coops" --L.Simpson
"Tomatoes are ripened with gas." --D. Jefferson
"The Industry doesn't want you to know the truth about what you are eating."
"There are a handful of companies controlling our food system." --D. Jefferson
"Can a community like us stop a factory productions like Tyson?" --D. Jefferson
"Food oversite and protection is not protecting peoples families."
"The animals stand in their own manure." --J. Thomas
"They have vegetables on high prices but cheeseburgers cost less." --J. Thomas
"Farms feed cows corn so they can get fat faster." --K. Ayers
"They feed cows corn because it is cheap and it makes cows fat." --W. Jones
"Real people slice a chicken's throat." --T. Ratcliff
"They hire immigrants cause they don't have many rights in America." --T. Ratcliff
"Where do we get organic food at stores?" --T. Ratcliff
"Why do they use machines to kill our food?" --T. Ratcliff
"Some animals are killed in bad ways." --Q. Williams
"People have to reach inside the chicken and take out the insides." --D. Jefferson
"Chickens need to eat healthy so we can be healthy." D. Nimock
20) "When you modify a crop, you own it." --T. Ratcliff

Week 2

During the week of June 27 to July 1, the students were in Michigan at camp.  Mr. Dwyer took care of the garden, chickens, and compost in their absence.

Week 1 of CJA's Agriculture Program

During the first week we harvested lettuce, cilantro, swiss chard, and arugula. We also took all the chicken droppings and placed it in the third compost bin. The chicken group had to make a pen and place the white hen in the pen because the white hen was overly protective of its eggs.

This week we learned several things:
1) We learned how to mix up the corn for the chickens by hand so that the chickens eat more.
2) We use shovels to mix up the compost so that it does not smell and in order to speed up the process of fertilization.

This is Dion with swiss chard:

How we got here

CJA students have worked for two years on the garden.  We built compost bins from shipping pallets, built raised bed boxes from reused lumber, built a chicken coop and a chicken run.  Now we're in our second growing season.

We learned a lot about how food is grown, and why it's good to grow it locally.

We've eaten eggs from our chickens, and basil, cilantro, bell peppers, arugula, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more from our garden.

This is what CJA looked like before we started our garden.

Here is a picture of us building a new compost bin:

Here is a picture of our first egg, in December 2009:

Here is a picture of us working in our garden in 2010: