BEANS Teens... Putting Our Heads Together for a Healthier Community

Hi everyone! I'm back. If you didn't get a chance to read my last blog, I'll fill you in. My name is Megumi and I've been working for BEANS for over a year.

Last Friday, on April 22nd, our BEANS team and many other local gardeners from Willits gathered together at the Willits Community Garden to tend to the garden plots. It was fun.

I'd never been a big gardener, but my mom used to grow a variety of veggies when I was younger. I'd help plant the seeds, along with my sister and brother. So, last Friday, when I was in the garden digging and pulling weeds, memories of my childhood came flooding back to me. Memories of my siblings and I trying to freak each other out by scooping up the long pink worms with our shovels and flicking them at one another. I know it sounds cruel, but hey, we were kids, cut us some slack. Memories like this and many others that stick with you throughout your life start with something simple.

Anyway, on Friday, our team cleaned up some of the garden beds by pulling weeds and then we started to work in our own garden plot. We didn't exactly get too far, but it was a start. Soon we'll see shiny green sprouts and blossoming flowers breaking through the earth!

Megumi, BEANS teen peer educator

Willits Farm-to-School

With an abundance of rains and some splendid splotches of sun in recent weeks, garden beds have steadily began to flourish. However they aren’t the only things in the area turning over a new leaf. Members of the Farm to School project team have been continuously working to incorporate more nutritious, locally sourced food into meals at Willits school cafeterias.

The team, which consists of North Coast Opportunities employees, local farmers, Willits Unified School District Employees and cafeteria staff, local students and Head Chef of the Ukiah Valley Medical Center, has come together to establish a “Meal of the Month” program.

The program will feature one meal prepared with locally grown, seasonal, organic food every month at each of the public schools in Willits. In addition to receiving a fresh local and nutritious meal will be an educational component attached. One premise of the program is to provide information about where the food is coming from and how it is grown to help educate students on the vast impact food has on their health and community.

“Meal of the Month is a proactive approach to improve grades, attendance and health while enhancing community at the schools through more nutritious meals,” said Mason Giem, a member of the Farm to School Team.

It is set to kick off with a trial run in late May at the Willits High School with a menu that has been developed by the Farm to School team and includes a salad, entrée and dessert. Food for the event is being grown by local farmers Antonia Partridge at Brookside School Farm, Becky Bowlds at Willits High School and Ellen Bartholomew at Ridgewood Ranch.

In the weeks leading up to the first “Meal of the Month” Chef Jim Stuart of the Ukiah Valley Medical Center will be facilitating training days at each of the schools. These trainings were established to help the eager and ambitious yet overworked and understaffed cafeteria employees utilize the equipment presently available in their kitchens in the most effective ways possible. With tight budgets and the possibility of more funding cuts the schools are not able to purchase additional kitchen appliances and attachments needed to prepare fresh produce and cook from scratch.

The Farm to School project has teamed up with Willits students to raise funds for a sustainable and lasting program. The Willits High School Peer Counseling Class is selling eco-friendly stainless steel water bottles in which profits will benefit both Peer Counseling and the Willits Farm to School program. All of the Blosser Lane Elementary students are selling re-usable bags that will provide much needed funding to their garden as well as the Willits Farm to School Program. These fundraisers and others are made possible through the local non-profit, GreenTree Footprints, and are available for any group wishing to raise money in an eco-friendly way. These environmentally friendly items can be purchased from any Blosser Lane or Peer Counseling student and will benefit a number of students throughout Willits. Contact Mason Giem at 707-841-0464 for more information about the fundraiser.

written by Cate Oliver

April Garden Tips

What to do in your garden this month:

The beds are ready, the soil has been amended, the tools are cleaned and organized, the irrigation system has all been given the “once-over” for leaks or to see if any parts need replacing. Seeds have been started indoors for my favorite vegetables and flowers. The garlic that I planted a few months back is really starting to take off. I started to do some serious pruning of my citrus trees now that the bulk of my citrus fruit has been harvested. I’ll finish off my citrus pruning and feed with a good citrus fertilizer. I still need to exercise some caution and some restraint. For this is the time of year where you see flower and veggie starts everywhere at your farmers markets, local grocery and local nurseries and I am usually overcome by temptation to buy, buy, buy! But beware, there is still a risk of the dreaded frost that lingers for just a few more weeks.

Fortunately or unfortunately for me, my husband has instituted a “same day planting” rule in our house that I must abide by. You buy it, you plant it… 24 hours or into the compost heap it goes. (Can you imagine??? What a dreadful thought and I think he might actually be serious!)

What to plant?

In April, beets, carrots, chard, kale, lettuce, potatoes, celery and turnips can all be directly sown into your garden.

You can start seeds indoors for lettuce, chard, cucumbers, melons, zucchini, summer squash, pumpkins.

This month you can take your lettuce, leeks, onions, brassicas, chard and kale that you started last month outdoors to transplant.

Brighten up your yard and home by directly sowing cold sensitive flowers such as Morning Glory, Nasturtiums, Alyssum, etc. You can also directly sow dill and cilantro. Indoors, you can start basil and parsley from seed.

Final thoughts…

So last month, I nagged you about the rain bringing weeds! Unfortunately as the weather warms, those weeds will go from pesky, little, ugly green things to pesky, large, still ugly green things but soon they will have flowers and they’ll be ready to spread their seed in the millions all over your garden area. The larger your weeds get, the more inhabitants they will attract such as damaging insects and critters like voles. Prevention is still the best measure, so be sure to stretch your limbs in the garden and continue to take a few minutes each morning or evening to pull up a few new weeds. It may look daunting but the more you pull early, the easier it will be on you in the long run.

For year round tips on what to plant, click Greater Hopland Planting Guide (Peter Huff and Kate Frey's Monthly Planting Calendar for Inland Mendocino, also found at the "How to - Grow Food" page on The Garden's Project Website).

As always if you have a question about what to do in your garden, there is a tremendous body of knowledge about gardening in California, provided by University of California Cooperative Extension. This site, geared toward the home gardener can be found at http://cagardenweb.ucdavis.edu/.

Happy Mendo Gardening!!

The Merit and Joy of Preschool Gardening

In November of 2009, I fell into coordinating a preschool garden when the then coordinator had to step back for reasons of familial health. Almost a year and a half later, I am a convert, a true and firm believer, in the merit, value, and worth of gardening in preschools. Not to mention a recipient of the joy of it.

When I begin working at the preschool garden, I hadn’t spent a ton of time with preschool age kids, or done a ton of gardening, or a ton of coordinating of school or community gardens. I would scramble to come up with activities to do with the kids; something engaging for little ones but also productive for our garden. We started peas, transplanted all sorts of greens, weeded, sowed radish seeds, harvested tomatoes and brought them to the cook.

As I’ve become more comfortable with the little ones, though, and with the rhythms and realities of gardening, the nature of our preschool gardening has changed. We play more now. We dance and sing and use our imagination and laugh a whole lot. And what used to be our work – planting, weeding, harvesting – continues but has grown increasingly playful. The whole thing – the playing, the working, the eating – has become one thing – exploring.

Encouraging exploration and creating a safe, joyful, and engaging space for it to happen, is what preschool gardening is all about. And what gardening at any age should really be about. Exploring this magical world we live in, in all it colors and contradictions and deliciousness and smells and interconnectedness, and exploring our own relationship to that world.

These pictures are from a day when we played a game where the leader would put on this green vest and use the magical deer horn to find different colors in the garden (purple, orange, red, blue, white…) and the rest of us followed with our garden spinoculars made out of painted toilet paper tubes on a piece of yarn around our necks and looked at the things the leader found, or anything that caught our fancy.

I’ve watched as kids get soooo excited about broccoli and spinach, and care for a plant as it grows from a seed to a radish they can eat, and learn to treat other creatures gently. And I’ve seen as their parents learn, too. As one mother repeats over and over in delighted astonishment that she didn’t know that, when I tell her about how fruit comes from flowers. Or as the parents learn what a pea looks like growing, or that broccoli doesn’t have to look like the big compact head you buy at the grocery store, that you can eat leggy florets, too, and that their kids love to do so.

And I’ve heard as the parents tell me how their kids ask for more vegetables at home now, and how they try and plant seeds in the dirt on the side of the road.

Getting kids when they are this young, at the very beginning of their institutionalization, and impressing upon all of their senses the magic of this world, is a good time to start. It’s better than first grade. It’s better than sixth grade. It’s better than ninth grade. The earlier these kids can experience the flavors, the colors, the smells, the textures that really are life, the more they will be receptive to those experiences later on in life and want them. And if we can get their families involved at that young age, too, and make eating well something that doesn’t seem impossible but seems delightfully familiar, then we are golden.

Preschool gardens forever!

Willits B.E.A.N.S

Okay, so this is my first blog so bear with me.

My name is Megumi, I'm a junior in high school and I've work for B.E.A.N.S (Better Eating Activity and Nutrition for Students) for a little over a year now. I love it. I get to educate elementary and middle school kids about the benefits of eating well and exercising while making new friends.

When I started out I was stationed at Bechtal Grove Middle School and there were only three students! It was a little discouraging but the three kids that came were enthusiastic about B.E.A.N.S and it all worked out. The lessons I taught at Bechtal Grove were a little more casual since the kids already knew about all the preservatives and food substitutes they put into processed foods. Then the following year when I returned, the B.E.A.N.S group grew! It was exciting. Our lessons were soon filled with a bunch of energetic kids shooting their hands up to answer questions and comment about the food we were making that day. Then those comments became more in depth discussions about why they eat a particular way or how their families' eating habits effect them.

However, as you can imagine we didn't have these discussions with the younger kids. Instead we had to think of new and innovative ways to get the students interested into healthier foods. These younger kids had no problem eating fruits, just like the middle schoolers, but once veggies were introduced they shut their mouths, locked the door, and threw away the key. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit but that's pretty much what happened. These kids were so close-minded about vegetables for some reason. I mean they ate their basic potato and carrot but that was basically it.

I did some thinking and realized that when I was younger and about their age I didn't want to try vegetables either because either, one, my friends would make fun of me or two, I just had a bad experience with the vegetable and never wanted to try it again. Now, my B.E.A.N.S team and I are trying to encourage trying the vegetables again or just try it for the first time.

Once the kids actually ate the vegetable in a new recepie they were excited to eat it again. Now, it's up to the parents to supply their children with these healthier alternatives and hopefully they do.

Well, the smell of a new exotic recipe is calling me, but thanks for reading and i'll be back to write more blogs about the B.E.A.N.S team. Stay tuned!

Megumi

Sharing The Bounty

Our second annual dinner, Sharing The Bounty, was a fabulous event! Even though we moved offices and had no phones during the week leading up to the event, we surprised ourselves by selling out for the second year in a row - Patrona was filled to a max with 70 people in attendance.

The evening started with some lovely bluegrass music provided by the Stormy Weathermen, and appetizers of beet sliders and uni risotto balls. After a creamy ambrosial stinging nettle soup was served. The main course followed consisting of a choice of red snapper with carrot ragout, or a delicious baked kale and seaweed pie. Is your mouth watering yet??

One of most unique aspects of this event is that all the food is made of local food, directly from our county. To make this dinner possible was a true community effort - without the farmers who donated their hard labor, without the staff at Patrona who donated their time, without the guidance of Craig and Bridget, and without community members who support community gardens none of this would be possible. So, thank you. Your efforts resulted in raising $10,000 for the development of school and community gardens!

Farms who donated: Lovers Lane Farm, Petit Teton, Shamrock Artisan Goat Cheese, Green Uprising at Blackberry Farm, Stella Cadente, Campovida, Ukiah High School, Willits High, Mendocino Grain Project, Brookside Farm, Mendocino Lavender and Herbs, Little Lake Grange Grains, and the WISC community garden.


Wineries who donated: Trinafour, Jeriko Estate, Arnaud Weyrich, Nelson Family Vineyards, Barra of Mendocino, Husch Vineyards, Solomon Tournour Distillery.

Check out some photos of the event!

People LIKE Healthy Foods Done Right

Great news in the world of health and nutrition! Story Number One: Kids will love their veggies. Here’s one way the BEANS (Better Eating, Activity, and Nutrition for Students) teen peer educators introduce lots of veggies to the pickiest of kids… Lettuce Tacos. First off, they get kids involved in the chopping and preparation. The peer educators ask the kids about edible parts of the plant... root, stem, leaf, flower, seed, fruit. Then they work together to chop, dice, and mince carrots (the root), red bell peppers (the fruit), cilantro (the leaf), celery (the stem), and broccoli (the flower). Even the littlest kids can break heads of broccoli into little florets. Add a few spices and some flavor with garlic, cumin, and chili powder, then sauté. Next, add the refried beans (the seed). Put this tasty mixture into a leaf of romaine lettuce and top with non-fat sour cream, salsa, and avocado. Eat it like a taco… Mmm, good! It’s a proven fact that when kids help grow and prepare vegetables that they will be more willing to eat them. Also, experience has shown us that adding vegetables to a kid favorite (like tacos or mac&cheese) is a great way to develop their taste for even more vegetables. Story Number Two: Grown-ups can change their habits. On a recent visit to the monthly meeting for the Foster Grandparent Program, I presented an example of nutrition and physical activity lessons that we share with local school children through the BEANS program. I am hoping that our healthy messages can be promoted by the greater community of grown-ups, and Foster Grandparents hold a lot of sway in the classrooms they visit, hence my visit to their meeting. Here’s what I did. I made the ever-popular Banana-Berry Pancakes for the Foster Grandparents to try. At the beginning of the presentation, I talked about the importance of incorporating fruits and vegetables into every meal, and that these pancakes were a great example of how to do this. Then I talked about reducing added sugars and fats, and said that we would be tasting today’s pancakes without syrup or butter… a few groans were heard in the room. The banana pancakes were cooked, the toppings of low-fat yogurt and fresh strawberries were put on the tables, and I demonstrated the “kid way” to eat the pancakes like a taco (no worries about sticky syrup or oily butter oozing out!). From what I could see, the Foster Grandparents quickly emptied their plates and sat back with satisfied smiles. During a break later in the meeting, one of the Grandparents approached me and told me her story. She said that when she heard my introduction (namely no syrup or butter) she decided that she wasn’t going to taste the pancakes. However, when they were served, she didn’t have a chance to say “no thanks” so she acquiesced and decided to give it a try. She ate half of her pancake, thinking that she probably wouldn’t like it. To her surprise, she did like it and ended up enjoying the whole thing. She assured me that she will incorporate this recipe into her repertoire and try to be more open about trying new foods. The Moral of These Stories: People LIKE healthy food done right... Do it in your kitchen tonight!

Straw bale Gardens?

Don't pay for a bunch of soil, grow soil! Don't pay for a bunch of water, save water! Urban agriculture has no excuse not to grow food because of the latest techniques used to create garden beds. At the Willits Integrated Service Center straw bales are the way to reclaim the land, provide an amazing example of urban gardening and produce food for community.

The theory is very simple. If there is space that has no soil, in our case the middle of our court yard, it is better to grow soil rather than paying a lot of money to bring soil in. The straw bales become raised garden beds that can be used to grow anything but a root vegetable. The bales will break down into a berm of soil as beautiful as a compost pile in two to three years. The Nutrients the plants need will come from a 1" layer of potting soil and other specific inputs put on top of the bale. The bale itself acts as a rooting medium that will hold moisture and uptake applied nutrients. The result is an instant raised two foot raised garden bed for less than $10!

The process is easy.

First, purchase or get donated straw bales that are as seed free as possible. Our 25 bales of straw were donated from J.D. Redhouse, the local feed store.

2. The bales have been induced with a high nitrogen organic fertilizer, in this case, chicken and sea bird manure and water from a soaker hose. Within one week the bales had reached a temperature of 70 degrees. The bales will heat up for about 1 month and get very heavy with water and reach temperatures of 140 degrees.

3. The bales will be given the specific type of input they need for the plants they are growing before they are planted in.

4. The 1" layer of potting soil on the top is not necessary but is suggested if direct seeding.

5. Plant the plants on top of the bales by digging a small hole in the soft top side of the bale.

6. Water the bales once a day at first and then as the plants are more established, watering can be cut back to once every two days or sometimes once three days depending on the weather. We will use a drip system, donated from Drip Works, that will apply the water exactly where it needs to go.

7. Harvest the food when it is ready.

We will repeat steps 5, 6, and 7, until the bales have turned to berms that create food for the people.

Come see our straw bale demonstration garden at 221 South Lenore Ave, Willits CA, 95490

peas and carrots,

Mason