Today we’re going to be making salsa. Who’s had salsa before? What’s usually in salsa?

First we have to harvest the ingredients for our salsa. Each student picks a Harvest Card out of a basket, and is grouped by whatever ingredient they pull out
Each Harvest Card describes where that item is in the garden, what the plant looks like, how to harvest it, and how much of each item to harvest.
- to harvest: nasturtiums, tomatoes, onions, garlic scapes, cilantro
Wash Hands and Harvest!
Once you harvest the item, your group can return to the picnic table, where we will wash and weigh the ingredients
Separate ingredients so that each ingredient has its own bowl. Ask students to identify ingredients using the name-place cards, so that each ingredient is clearly labeled.
Explain that we’re going to chop everything and make a salsa, but first we have to identify what part of the plant each ingredient is.
- Ask: who’s learned about the parts of the plants before?
Pass out copies of the “Parts of the Plant” diagram. Using the ingredient cards, tape them up on the large poster drawing of the same diagram. Be sure to include brief explanations of what each part does on the large diagram.
- for example: look at the tomatoes in the bowl. Are the tomatoes fruits, seeds, roots, stems, or leaves? How do you know it’s a fruit? Do this for each of the ingredients.

Everyone hand-sanitize and glove up.
Do a knife demo: practice holding and using the chef’s knives
Students chop: onion, tomato, cilantro, garlic scapes, jalepenos, and corn.
Once ingredient is chopped, add to large bowl. Add salt and pepper, mix, and serve with tortilla corn chips
Eat! Do a “liked, loved, tried” chart.

Each student picks a piece of paper and a clipboard to go on a garden walk. Pick out one edible plant to make a poster about.
Once you pick our your plant, draw a picture of it on your paper with it’s title
Everyone get together and figure out what part of that plant is usually eaten. For example: Broccoli. What part of the broccoli do we usually eat? The root? The stem? Organize the food posters on a large chart that has the different parts of the plant
Review the items with the group, and move the posters if they aren’t correct.

What was the most surprising thing you learned today? What’s your favorite fruit or vegetable, and what part of the plant is that?

“Harvest Cards”: each card has a description of what item needs to be harvested & how to harvest the item. Have duplicates of each harvest item, so that each students can pick at random from a bowl at the beginning.
Giant poster board that has: drawing of plant, with labels of the parts of the plants & brief description of what that part does (example: ROOTS, absorb water for the plant)
Giant whiteboard
pruners (one pair for each group)
Large bowl (for salsa)
Serving spoon & plates for salsa
6 bowls for ingredients & Place-cards to label them: Tomatoes, onions, cilantro, lime, garlic scapes, corn, Nasturtiums, jalepenos
Ingredient Cards: Tomatoes, onions, cilantro, lime, garlic scapes, corn, nasturtiums, jalepenos
plastic gloves for food safety
cutting boards, knives
hand sanitizer/soap at wash station
Plant Part Diagram
corn chips
Parts of the plant name place-cards: Root, stem, leaves, fruit, seeds, flower

Garden Lessons: Parts of the Plant Salsa