Garden Club: Harvesting Peanuts
Behind the Scenes
The teens had their first performance reviews in their new positions as educators. Overall, they were very positive; they have shown their dedication to the program and are engaged on a day-to-day basis. One challenge that presented itself: How to work in a group on a task that is sort of never-ending. For example, in school, group projects have an end date. Students can, generally, grit their teeth and get through the project, doing the project for the grade but rarely for the "project” itself. In Green Teens, working on Garden Club planning every week requires more self-regulation. There isn’t a grade, and every activity planned or schedule laid-out is for the kids, not for a grade. This kind of planning means the teens have to figure out how to lay a foundation to regulate and manage time in a way they may have not had much practice at before. We don’t have enough time in our planning meetings to go through every activity we found or every idea we have- how do we decide how to pair it down? How do we organize ourselves as a group?
The group brainstormed and came up with some basic principles that could lead Garden Clubs. Each activity done in garden club had to be:
Hands-On (it couldn’t be only an adult demonstrating. Any demonstration had to be apart of a hands-on activity)
STEAM-related (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math)
Tailored to serve the garden (or involve gardening in some way (making slime is a blast, but it’s not gardening!)
Once they came up with those boundaries, the quality of the ideas and activities improved and the team was able to focus more, feeling less overwhelmed with the task at hand.
Garden Club: Peanuts & Cover Crop
Keeping in mind the new “guidelines", the Green Teens first took a look at what needed to be done in the garden while planning Garden Club. Peanuts, a crop never grown before at Highland Youth Garden, were ready to harvest. Following the harvest, weeds had to be pulled, and cover crop sown.
A Garden Club student showing off her haul of peanuts
Though the whole process was only 3 steps, the team thought it over carefully. The teens showed students how to use a pitchfork to gently pry the peanut roots from the ground; everyone watched completely mesmerized, amazed that peanut plants came from underneath the ground. Many questions arose: can we eat these peanuts now? Why do they grow underground? What’s cover crop? Why do we have to plant more plants we won’t even eat over them?
Student curiosity naturally led to excellent STEAM learning: Legumes are nitrogen-fixers, and, just like how we as people need vitamins and minerals to stay healthy, the soil needs certain elements to remain healthy as well.
Sometimes weeding leads to other treasures: leftover hot peppers from our summer crop rotation!
Everyone grabbed a pitchfork and, after a few gentle reminders about how we use tools safely in the garden, the peanuts were pulled and laid to cure in no time.
Next, students had to clear any leftover weeds from the bed to prepare the soil for the cover crop seed. Many gardeners love weeding, as it provides a meditative activity, time close to their plants, and an excuse to be out in the sunshine. For some gardeners (especially young ones!), weeding is a task that, at first glance, seems boring and endless. We knew that kids would take one look at the task of weeding- ugh- and drone on about how boring it was. A trick for pretty much any group of young people: take a seemingly boring task and turn it into a game or competition. It’s a surefire way to engage people quickly and get the job done faster. The kids were split into two teams and, each team armed with a bucket, the “weeding race” was off.
After the weeding was finished and we chatted about how important weeding is to reduce competition of resources for our other crops, students helped sprinkle and spread cover crop seed (clover and oats) into the soil.
One piece of reflection from the Green Teen crew: The gardening went smoothly, and the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves. But with all of the activity going on, it was challenging to answer everyone’s questions about cover crop, peanut processing, and weeding all at once. How can educators engage young people and answer all these great questions, while still making it “fun,” and not too much like traditional school?