Aquafarm Tour & Farmers' Market

Interns toured the New Roots Aquafarm site to see how Tilapia fish are farmed through an aquaponics system. They also learned about different hydroponics growing systems.

 Interns also visited the City Heights Farmers' Market to meet local farmers and get to know the local food system a bit more closely. They conducted surveys on where the farms are located, how far the food had to travel to get to the market, who the farmers were, how it was grown, and what was in season.

 Surveys.

New Roots Farmers.

North Park Library Presentation

Interns presented at the North Park Library on Diversity. They shared stories of their own cultures, including traditions, foods they eat, and how they encounter other cultures at the Crawford Garden internship program. They also talked about Bio-Diversity in the garden environment.

 Summer Salsa with "Long" Lasting Flavor (Long's secret ingredient!)

 Eh Eh and Mu Aye shared about their Karen culture showing some traditional dress.

 Liz talked about her Mexican culture.

Long shared about being Vietnamese.

Composting Workshop

Interns participated in the community wide composting workshop led by Hoover High garden interns. There were three groups led in three different languages (Vietnamese, Spanish, English). Hoover interns taught about creating a compost pile, elements needed for a good pile, and how to manage the piles from start to finish. Hosted at the New Roots Community Farm.

Gardens in a Box

Our summer community project finished with delivering the Gardens in a Box. City Heights refugee families received a variety of potted plants to grow in their apartments of in courtyard spaces. The purpose of the project is to expose young children (5 years or younger) to growing plants and eating healthy, organic food. Interns also conducted surveys of eligible residents prior to delivery, then delivered to their homes. They will mentor the families along the way on caring for their new plants as well.

New Roots Community Farm Tour

Interns visited the New Roots Community Farm on 54th/Chollas Pkwy. to see different methods of farming from various ethnic groups in San Diego. After seeing different features of the farm, students were asked to plan out their own community garden. Each plan had to have sustainable features such as water conservation, intercropping, native plant areas, etc. They came up with some fun, creative ideas for farms!

Media Arts Center Produces Videos on Garden

Crawford High Garden summer interns worked with the Media Arts Center San Diego's Teen Producers Project who made videos about the school garden. Crawford interns practiced their interviewing skills in front of the camera, learning to communicate their knowledge of gardening and food justice issues in the community.

Summer Cooking Fun

Pesto Surprise with Mrs. Raymond.

 Cooking with Roberto.

 Summer squash stir fry.

Congratulations Crawford garden interns for summer 2011

Summer Intern program 2011 has begun at Crawford Garden. 

It's almost been a month since the last post.  There is a lot going on at the garden and these are the awesome garden interns for the summer! 

The summer program will run for 8 weeks where students will learn to maintain the garden and work on several projects in the community.  More to come on this!

Crawford Composting featured on KPBS!

Did you know, we composted over 5000 pounds of food waste from the cafeteria salad bars during this school year!

Students share about their composting experience in this video created by Megan Burke and Brian Myers at Media Arts Center San Diego.

So Awesome!

Urban Agriculture wins the district CCTE competition

In our neighborhood of Colina Park:
• 54% of the population is born in another country: They are used to growing their own food and different shopping than in America.
• 43% of our families live below the poverty level: They often live with public assistance and need access to healthy affordable food.
• 32% of the population don't have cars: They don’t have access to places outside of our community.
• 40% of the population in Colina Park are under the age of 18: Our youth need access to healthy, fresh food.
• the population density is nearly ten times the San Diego average: With so many people in one area, we need to have more green spaces and need to grow food more densely to fit their needs.

The intent of the Urban Agriculture project is to promote a healthier lifestyle in children and create a more environmentally sustainable community in City Heights.

Three students from the garden club and six students from the graphic design class presented the Urban Agriculture project at the annual CCTE competition. Students did a great job presenting about the Urban Agriculture project and we won!

The showcase and urban Agriculture was even featured in a Union Tribune article. The project will continue and expand next year as we move into the Urban Agriculture garden and community establish programming.

Urban Ag Grant

We have applied for a grant to create "Urban Agriculuture", a garden to empower students to create healthy learning environments, take ownership in their communities, and positively impact our neighborhood while providing food for families in need.

Urban Agriculture will be an outdoor classroom for both academic and hands-on learning.  There will be a composting and vermicomposting instruction area, an outdoor kitchen for cooking fresh fruits and vegetables, and an instructional area for teaching.  We will teach nutrition, cultural, and gardening lessons that will empower the students and community to make healthier choices.
We would rather have class outside because it provides fresh air, Vitamin D, and more space to work.  Using technology in the garden will help us keep track of the garden while we're gardening. It also saves paper.

By discussing issues within the community we can make positive changes. For example, trash is a problem. People do not clean up after themselves. Plastic wrappers, soda cans, bottles, etc. are everywhere. Trash in our community creates pollution and gives the campus a bad reputation.  So we want to give our peers more information about the importance of picking up trash on campus and taking care of our environment.

Please see our powerpoint below to see pictures of the Urban agriculture garden and our vision.

urbanag

Guest Instructor Teaches on Soil

Julie Galbraith came and gave us a lesson on soil. Julie has a half acre organic orchard and garden in her backyard and is a hobby beekeeper. She worked with a school gardens program and a 4-H club in the Peace Corps in Africa. She brought samples of soil and placed them in jars, put water in the jars, and shook them up to see how the soil settled in the jars.

SDSU films the Garden

Student from the Human Rights class at SDSU came out to the garden to film us for TGO.TV.
They asked us questions about how we came here to the U.S. and how the garden program started.
They also donated seeds, tools, and goody bags to us. They were fun to be around because of their energy.

Here are the links to some of the videos they made so far:

Miss Kaley talks about the garden.

Student Managers talk about their work.

Mission Hills Garden Club event

We presented the Crawford garden to the Mission Hills Garden Club last Wednesday night. We spoke to over 50 people. We also showed them how to make some seed balls that they got to keep and take  home.We want to thank them for giving us money for us to keep our program going. It was fun teaching people new things and sharing our greetings from home.

First Harvest of Spring

Interns washed carrots, chard, kale, kholarabi, cabbage, beets, radish, spinach, and sold them to ten teachers.
We made $115 in donations! The produce was fresh from the garden and looked very colorful in the boxes.
We had never harvested that much before.

 

Pedro hands a box of veggies to a Crawford teacher.

Madina harvests fresh greens for the CSA boxes.