Walter discusses the uses for mint

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Another successful harvest and farm stand

On Friday the CJA Agriculture Club had another bountiful harvest and farm stand sale.

In this clip, Brian discusses the merits of our produce.

Walter shows off a honeydew melon.

In this video, Malachi unearths a carrot.

Malachi overcomes his initial ambivalence about the carrots in this clip.

Malachi shows off the harvest, which included kale, basil, carrots, swiss chard, mint, melons, and bell peppers.

Students browse the farm stand.  The hot sauce was a big hit!  We should have another crop of jalapenos on the way, so we'll make a second batch.

Viewing Videos

Thanks for reading our blog!  If you keep up with our garden activity via our email updates, you might not be able to view the awesome videos we're posting.  Mr. Dwyer is working on fixing this, but in the meantime, if you'd like to view these videos, simply click the title of each blog post.  This will take you to our website, and you can view the videos there.

CJA's Finest Spices

Our hot sauce is now available.  Get yours while supplies last!

Turning the compost (with video!)

There are certain types of bacteria that do most of the work of changing chicken waste and table scraps into compost.  In order to do their job, these bacteria need oxygen.  In order to get oxygen to the bacteria in the middle of the compost pile, we periodically "turn" the compost pile.  This means shoveling out one bin and filling another.

Note: we're experimenting with posting video to our blog.  If you have trouble viewing the video, post a comment or click "Email us" on the sidebar of the blog, and we'll try to fix it.

Here's what the compost pile looked like before we started.

You can see the layers of wood chips, chicken waste, and food scraps.

Once we dug down a few inches, we could feel the heat that the bacteria give off as they're digesting all that waste.

Here's a short clip of the worms that help the bacteria break down all that waste into healthy compost.

Walter shovels the compost.

Malachi adds compost to the new pile.

Here's the bin after we finished moving the compost.

Brian and Malachi lift the last bucket into the new pile.

Harvesting tomatoes

We've had an issue with critters getting at our tomatoes before they ripen.  We decided to harvest them green and let them ripen off the vine.

Walter, Brian, and Malachi look for good candidates for harvest.

We'll sell these tomatoes at the farm stand, making sure to tell our customers to let them ripen in a dry, cool place.

Update on some recently planted crops

Two weeks ago, we planted broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas, and lettuce.  These crops grow well as the weather gets cooler.  Some of them are already growing.

Malachi points to young broccoli plants.

Brian shows off sugar snap pea sprouts.

Walter points out a young pea sprout.  He planted this seed on September 9th.

Cauliflower, carrots, and lettuce haven't germinated yet.

More work on marketing hot sauce

The hot sauce we made last week is in bottles, but we still have some work to do before we can sell it at this Friday's farm stand.

Walter and Brian put the finishing touches on the label design.  Walter suggested that the label emphasize two things that make our sauce really special: it's got a delicious spicy taste; and the ingredients were grown by CJA students right here in our garden. 

In order to figure out how much to charge for our sauce, we listed all the expenses for the project.  Then we used division to determine the cost of each bottle.  We knew we had to charge more than that in order to make a profit.  We compared our price to a bottle of Tabasco sauce, and then estimated how much people would pay for our very special product.

Making hot sauce

Today we made hot sauce!  All the peppers, onions, and garlic in the recipe were grown at CJA.  What fun!

Malachi washes up to get ready.  Cleanliness is very important.

Brian and Malachi cut jalapenos, demonstrating safe knife techniques.  They wear rubber gloves because the oil from these spicy peppers can linger for quite a while and cause irritation to the skin, nose, and eyes.  Mr. Dwyer learned this the hard way when making a test batch.

We remove the seeds and save them for planting next year.  All the stems and membranes go in the compost.

Malachi peels an onion grown in our garden.

Brian peels a garlic clove grown in our garden.

Walter opens a can of tomato paste.

Brian adds the ingredients to the food processor.

Walter hits "go" and watches the ingredients mix together.

Once the ingredients are processed into a smooth paste, Walter adds the mixture to a skillet over medium heat.

As the sauce simmers, Malachi and Brian add salt and vinegar.

Mr. Dwyer and Brian taste the mixture.

There was quite an aroma!

We use a funnel to pour the finished hot sauce into bottles.

Walter spent some time coming up with great ideas for the label.  Which do you like the best?

Here's the finished product.  We still have to make labels and do some math to determine our price.

Brian shows off our delicious and home-grown creation.

We'll sell our very special hot sauce at upcoming farm stands.

Preparing to make and market hot sauce

The Agriculture Club is making hot sauce from ingredients grown here in our garden.  It's a lot of work and a lot of fun to operate a small business!

Malachi and Brian crunch the numbers to determine how much we should charge for our sauce in order to make a profit.

Malachi shows off a spicy jalapeno that we'll use in our sauce.

Brian harvests peppers.

Walter is excited to make the sauce.

Planting Lettuce and Carrots

It really feels like fall today in CJA's garden!  While summer isn't quite over, cooler weather is on the way.  That means we continue to plant late season crops in the garden.

Brian (grade 7) shows how to make holes for lettuce seeds with his finger.

Walter (grade 6) places a carrot seed in a hole.

Ms. Lucy works with Malachi (grade 7) and Walter.

Late Summer Planting (and some other updates)

Some plants mature best in cooler weather.  These crops are usually the first to be planted in the spring, and the last to be planted in the summer.

Walter (grade 6) plants peas.

 Brian (grade 7) plants sugar snap peas.  Malachi (not pictured) planted broccoli in the row where we just harvested potatoes.

There are also lots of other chores to do...

Walter and Malachi add wood chips to the compost pile.

Brian moves wood chips to be spread under the chicken coop, where the chickens like to cool off in warm weather.

 The students' hard work is paying off.  Here are some garden highlights.

Good Mother Stallard bean pods are showing up on the vines.

Eggplant are maturing.

We have some big tomatoes that will soon be ready to eat.

Beet and potato harvest

It's time to harvest potatoes and beets!

Walter (grade 6) and Brian (grade 7) carefully dig around the roots of the plants, the leaves of which have turned brown.

Brian points out how to spot some potatoes with his trowel.

Malachi (grade 7) shows off a whopper of a potato.

After washing the potatoes, the group shows off the harvest.

Malachi shows off a freshly-picked beet.  This is our second planting of beets this season.

We'll sell the beets and potatoes, along with other fresh produce, at a farm stand at dismissal on Friday.