More than 700 students in three age groups competed to win $1,000 for their Farm to School program and an Annie’s Root 4 Kids prize pack valued at $150.

It wasn’t an easy choice, but posters designed by these three young ladies rose to the top and took the home the prize: 5th-grader Caroline Roeder of Greenfield Elementary in Fairfield, Mont.; 8th-grader Miya McLaughlin of Stanwood Middle School in Stanwood, Wash.; and 11th-grader Phynesse Graham of Cab Calloway School of the Arts in Wilmington, Del.

The schools are still making plans for how they will spend their winnings, but we hear a school-wide local food lunch is in the works, and a CSA farm in Oregon might have a new place to sell their produce.

The poster contest was held in honor of the first National Farm to School Month in October, and the winning posters will be used to promote next year’s celebration.

Hundreds of schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia celebrated Farm to School Month by featuring local food in their cafeteria, holding special taste-tests of featured local items and inviting farmers and chefs into classrooms.

A very important piece of legislation called the Farm Bill is being written in the next two weeks and programs that support organic may be cut UNLESS the folks in Washington, DC hear from you.

Organic agriculture is one of the fastest growing sectors in agriculture. It creates jobs in rural America and provides lucrative market opportunities for American family farmers. Nationwide, the organic sector has become a $29 billion industry, creating jobs at four times the national rate and served by over 14,500 organic family farmers.

In the last Farm Bill, very important programs for the organic market were funded, such as critical data collection on organic agriculture, increased research at land-grant universities on organic farming, and support to reduce the cost of certification for small producers and handlers. These are essential programs that grow consumer confidence, convert acres, and result in organic sales are now at risk of being cut. While we understand everyone has to contribute to balancing the budget, Farm Bill money devoted to organic is a miniscule part of the total Farm Bill spending. Of the $283 billion five-year total cost of the 2008 Farm Bill, organic received only $130 million. Bottom line, the organic industry cannot afford to lose its critical funding resources. Please help us let Washington know you care deeply about supporting the organic industry. Take action with these two very simple steps:

Email your Congressional representatives. Click this link to add your name to a letter by the OTA. They have already done the work to write it. You just need to add your name and include the programs you want to have supported. It’s that simple.

Call your Congressional representatives. Click on this link that will allow you to type in your zip code to tell you who need to call. Tell your Congressional representatives to: “Remember organic. We are growing at 9% and creating jobs at four times the national average. We need your continued support.”

Thank you for your support of organic. Thank you for taking action.

-Annie’s Homegrown

One winner will be selected from each age group (pre-K-5^th grade; grades 6-8; and grades 9-12), and the selected posters will be distributed far and wide to promote next year’s National Farm to School Month. That’s right—fame and fortune could be yours! All you have to do is break out your art supplies and get to work.

Sometimes it also pays to be fast: The first 25 classrooms to send in their entries and include a Root 4 Kids pledge with their submission will receive a special gift package from Annie’s Root 4 Kids. Download the rules and submission guidelines for more information.

For inspiration, visit www.farmtoschoolmonth.org to learn more about Farm to School and find additional resources including this year’s promotional poster. Direct your poster contest questions to posters@farmtoschoolmonth.org.

Good luck!

Grassy weeds, which resemble clusters of overgrown, uneven patches of grass, include nutsage, crabgrass, foxtail and annual bluegrass. The gardener can effectively kill grassy weeds with tactics such as mulching, in which one covers the soil with several sheets of newspaper and layers wheat straw, grass clippings or chopped leaves on top. However, reducing the reseeding of grassy weeds is the most effective way to eliminate them from your garden. To do this, one must prune weeds at their base when they reach seed-bearing age. Thus, new generations of weeds will not reproduce in the garden.

Broadleaf weeds have large, wide leaves and occasionally flowers. These include dandelions, horsetails, white clovers and English daisies. Ridding your garden of these weeds is simple: you just have to pull them out. Be sure to remove the entire root from the soil, otherwise the weed could grow back. Doing so while the soil is wet will make this process easier. Let weeds dry in the sun for several hours in order to dehydrate their seeds. This will prevent future reproduction after composting the weeds and using them as fertilizer.

Finally, woody and vining weeds include morning glory, poison ivy, bindweed and wild buckwheat. Organic herbicides, which use none of the toxic, synthetic chemicals found in other herbicides and pesticides, will successfully remove these unwanted weeds from your garden. Products containing clove oil and/or acetic acid will be effective, as will soap-based herbicides, which dehydrate the plants they contact. Organic herbicides work best in warm, still weather, when the wind won’t blow chemicals onto the wrong plant. Young woody and vining weeds will have the strongest reaction to herbicides, while deep-rooted perennials may require more attention.

Learning to identify and manage the weeds in your organic garden will keep your plants healthy and the garden beautiful. You may even teach someone else your newfound skills!

Chapters were invited to submit descriptions and photos of their work in the community, demonstrating how they’re helping kids dig, plant and try real food so far in 2011. The chapter able to capture the most kids in action by the end of the contest was awarded the grand prize of $500 in funding to help advance or further program development, directly benefiting the students they serve.

Root 4 Kids would like to thank program coordinator Tammy Stotts and all participating chapters, which included Iowa City Community School District Chapter, Van Buren School District and Northeast Region.

Congratulations to our winner, Iowa City Community School District Chapter, who was recognized at Iowa Farm to School’s collaboration event on July 14.

Read on to learn more about each participant’s wonderful efforts!

Iowa City Community School District Chapter

The ICCSD Farm to School chapter has had an exciting 2011 spring semester, getting kids thinking about where their food comes from and trying fresh, local foods! In partnership with local growers and the district’s Food Service Director, the chapter recently hosted “Spring Greens Day,” providing 300 pounds of local greens to nearly 12,000 students in its district. The chapter also hosted its second Farm to School Farmer Fair, inviting farmers, parents, instructors, teachers and students to participate in several lessons: mozzarella cheese making and testing, building a composting system, seed planting and a local food sampling.

Van Buren School District Chapter

This spring, Van Buren Farm to School Chapter helped students plant seeds and learn how to prepare produce. Each class at the elementary school – approximately 200 students in total – was given a place in the garden to plant. For lunch, students were able to eat radishes and lettuce harvested from the garden. Over the summer, the chapter is hosting a summer camp for all students K-8. The more than 150 students enrolled stay busy in the garden weeding, picking and planting flowers. During rainy days, the students spend time inside shucking corn and snapping green beans that are served the next day for lunch. As “fruits of their labor,” the students snack on fresh fruit kabobs and fruit smoothies with frozen yogurt. They also demonstrate their new knowledge by creating a recipe book that includes recipes for the fresh fruits and veggies they have learned about.

Northeast Region Chapter

The chapter’s cross-age teaching program has engaged high school youth as Farm to School educators through training offered by Iowa State University Extension. Learning about stages of youth development and benefits of local foods equip the students with the skills necessary to deliver monthly lessons to elementary school students. The chapter also launched an effort to better understand why lettuce grown in Riceville High School’s greenhouse wasn’t getting eaten by students. Findings showed that simply growing the crop doesn’t mean students will eat it. It takes students connecting to their food and fully understanding how it’s grown to make amazing things happen.

Ingredients:

1 lb. or more firm, ripe tomatoes
1-2 cucumbers
1 green bell pepper
1 small red (Bermuda) onion
Romaine lettuce leaves, washed and trimmed
1 cup chick peas, drained
¼ lb. Feta cheese
¼ lb. or more Kalamata olives
2 large garlic cloves
1 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano, or 1 tsp. dried
1 bottle Annie’s Naturals Lemon & Chive Dressing

Preparation
1.    Cut tomatoes in fairly large rough dice or wedges, place in colander, and sprinkle with salt to drain excess juice and seeds.
2.    Peel cucumbers (unless using English seedless variety); cut in large dice like tomatoes.
3.    Core and seed green pepper, cutting out white membrane, and cut in strips or large dice.
4.    Cut onion in half, then slice in thin half-rounds.
5.    Cut feta into cubes.
6.    Crush garlic together with salt, then toss together with tomatoes and oregano.
7.    Place all ingredients together in bowl, heaped on top of lettuce, with olives on top.
8.    Pour on Annie’s Naturals Lemon & Chive Dressing, adding salt and pepper to taste if desired.

Our friends at Nourish Life explain how in this recent article and accompanying video.

The summer brings a bounty of fresh produce: stone fruit and berries, garden salads with ripe tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, watermelon, and more. Farmer Nigel Walker, chef Bryant Terry, and others share why eating seasonally is good for your body and the planet—and it tastes better, too. What seasonal foods do you enjoy?

Reasons to Eat Seasonally

Eating with the seasons connects us to a particular time and place. In America, we might think of corn on the cob in the summer, sweet potatoes in the fall, cranberry sauce during the winter holidays, or fresh strawberries in the spring.

Fresh, seasonal, whole foods support and nourish our bodies. In the winter, heavier foods like squash and root vegetables warm and ground us, while lighter foods like salads and fruits are cooling in the warmer months. Foods harvested at their seasonal peak reach nutritional maturity, which means they are richer in nutrients, vitamins, and antioxidants than produce that is grown off-season or picked early and left to ripen in transit.

Eating seasonally often goes hand in hand with eating locally. Foods that are grown in their appropriate climate and allowed to naturally ripen require fewer fossil fuels and resources to grow and transport, which is better for the environment.

There are many ways to tune into the seasons:

• Shop at farmers markets. Get to know what foods grow in your region and when by buying direct from the source. Talk to the vendors at the market, taste new foods, and discover what’s fresh each week.
• Create a food wheel. Get to know what’s in season by making a seasonal food wheel. This is a fun project to do with kids. (Read more about this activity in the Nourish Curriculum Guide.)
• Join a CSA. Subscribe to a local community-support agriculture (CSA) program to receive a weekly box of seasonal produce. Farmers often included seasonal updates and recipes for the items in your box.
• Seek seasonal specialties. Never had a fava bean or a persimmon before? Create more variety in your diet by picking up seasonal specialties and finding creative ways to prepare them.
• Grow with the seasons. Find out what foods grow well in your area and when to plant them. Talk to your neighbors or visit a local urban farm, a community garden, or your local gardening store.
• Preserve the harvest. Many of us live in areas where it’s hard to find fresh produce year round. For centuries, people have extended the growing season’s bounty by freezing, preserving, or culturing foods. Read up or take a class in food preservation to learn about these traditional foodways.

Resources

• Epicurious: Interactive seasonal ingredient map, with produce descriptions and recipes
• Locavore: Free phone app that let’s you know what’s season and where to find it
• Local Harvest: Discover farmers markets in your area

- Story from Emily Ullman

We’ve grown many things over the years, from popcorn and tomatoes to edible flowers and our own wheat crop!  We keep a small community of worms in our worm composter, which the students feed with their lunch leftovers.  However, the favorite gardening activity by far is composting all our cafeteria scraps and turning them into soil – the kids just love all the critters they find!  We are hoping to raise enough money this year to build a grape arbor for our wild grapes and create an outdoor classroom space from it.

- Story from Cristi Lewis

Our garden was designed to grow healthy herbs and veggies for the students to eat. I wanted to include nutrition and health standards into each lesson so that the children understood that by eating from their garden they were making healthy food choices.  We planted squash, pumpkins, lettuce of all varieties, carrots, broccoli, beets, cabbage, basil, thyme, rosemary, and onions such as yellow, chive, and scallions. 

The students had previously voted on what they wanted to grow (insert a little lesson on the benefits of living in a democracy and their right as an American to vote) and researched (first grade technology standard) what was possible to grow that time of year. They contacted local farmers and asked for suggestions. They also thought about what veggies made for great recipes in anticipation of their harvest. Our special garden was a huge success. The students learned about organic farming, sustainability, and how to grow their very own healthy food source.

The garden unit grew even bigger when our veggies began to sustain a newly acquired “free range” chicken coop and the three hens living in it! The children raised funds to purchase a coop by having their very own lemonade stand. They became entrepreneurs as well as gardeners. Our hens were named after three strong women in history; Ruby for Ruby Bridges, Mae for Mae Jemison, and Maya for Maya Angelou.  Ruby, Mae and Maya also enjoyed our delicious veggies. Our food waste was either given to the hens or placed in the classroom compost bin. The compost was created with the help of red wigglers to create healthy soil for our next garden project. And the cycle continues….

As the venture developed, the students began to connect more with our planet realizing that their actions had a direct effect on what happened to the soil, the air, and their natural environment. This simple gardening project has changed the students into “Green Leaders.” Each child had a new sense of purpose. They no longer litter the schoolyard and take pride in it’s appearance. The “Green Leaders” began to campaign for a food waste reduction program school wide titled: Tap & Stack. In addition, A school-wide recycling program was also created by my class.  It’s amazing what has “organically” transpired over the course of the last few months and to think it all started with some simple Brassica seeds.

- Story from Melissa Tranchida, First Grade Teacher, Memminger School of Global Studies