Salad Days Program Underway!

Our Salad Days planting is well underway for the 2019 season! This spring, students from Bowe, Streiber, Stefanik, Litwin, and Lambert-Lavoie elementary schools will plant lettuce in their school gardens. This lettuce will be harvested by the students in June, and then they will enjoy it in the cafeteria the next day. Our philosophy is, "if they grow it, they'll eat it!" so we love offering students this seed to fork experience. 

Planting days are led by a team consisting of Farm to School Coordinator, Greta Shwachman, and the district's two FoodCorps service members, Kelly Zimmerhanzel and Anna Plewa. The team greets each class, and then divides them into two groups. One group heads straight to the garden to get their hands dirty, and the other plays a game. Halfway through, the groups switch, so everyone gets a turn to plant and have a "veggie dance party"! 

The planting process is organized and efficient, which allows each class to come through the garden in only 15 minutes! (We wish it could be longer, but this short time frame seems to work well for school staff). Students are assigned a square in the garden (each class gets 16 sq ft) and then are tasked with (1) making a "tractor claw" and loosening up the soil, (2) drawing 4 lines in their square, (3) pinching and sprinkling lettuce seeds into their 4 lines, and (4) gently covering up their seeds and saying "goodnight"! We end by having the students do a "farmer clap" to get the dirt off their hands before going back in the building. (Shout out to former FoodCorps member, Jordyn Kessler, for coming up with that one <3). 

We can't wait for June to see our lettuce all grown up and ready to harvest. A big thanks to Mother Nature for taking care of watering all our newly planted seeds!

**If you are a parent or community member interested in volunteering with us to bring Salad Days to more schools, please email Greta at gshwachman@cpsge.org. Thank you!**