La nouvelle vie du jardin: French classes take over the garden

The French classes at HMMS are working on turning at least half the garden into un champ de blé (a wheat "field"). We dug lots of weeds and planted three small beds with six different heritage wheat varieties from France. We will plant more in the spring and more again next fall.  These first beds are trial plots to see what grows well. We are hoping that the seed germinates.

France is known for its boulangeries (bakeries) selling fresh bread daily in every city and town all over the country. There are many paysans-boulangers (farmer-bakers) who grow their own wheat and then turn it into delicious pain au levain (sourdough bread). That's what we would like to do.

These paysans-boulangers grow des variétés anciennes de blé (heritage varieties of wheat) that are nutritious, delicious, and extraordinarily beautiful. These old varieties have almost been lost and forgotten but are coming back thanks to these farmer-bakers and other farmers and bakers in many different parts of the world and country, including Vermont and Quebec.

Speaking of Quebec, we will also be turning another corner of the garden into "le coin québécois" where we will be growing a variety of heritage crops from Quebec.

For more about the French heritage wheat (le blé ancien de France) and the Quebec Corner (le coin québécois), click on the tabs above.

French students in the garden

6th graders digging and pulling weeds

7th graders planting wheat

6th graders weeding

8th graders fine-tuning the bed prep

8th graders preparing beds for planting

Potatoes for the Haven

We also dug 29 pounds of potatoes for the Haven food shelf. Later we will harvest some dry beans and winter squash and plant some garlic.

Nova Social Studies in the Garden

Sixth and seventh graders on Team Nova headed out to the garden last week to dig, haul composted manure (a generous donation by one student's grandfather), weed, plant, and water. They did an awesome job working together to get the garden going this spring. This is part of their social studies and science units on food and food systems.
They planted beans, corn, squash, potatoes, peppers, herbs, and flowers.

Beans - Calypso and Cloud's Horticultural (a local heirloom)
Corn - Painted Mountain
Squash / Pumpkin - Delicata and Baby Pam pumpkin
Potatoes - Blue Gold, Russet, and Ozette (a rare variety that never made the trip to Europe)
Herbs - lavender, chamomile, marjoram, parsley
Flowers - cosmos, sunflowers, nasturtium, morning glory, hyacinth bean

Students from the high school have also come over and planted some beds with a variety of vegetables.

Nice new raised beds built by students from the Regional Resource Center.

Planting Onions in Garden Club

HMMS Garden Harvest Goes to the Haven By Wheelbarrow

Friday, October 10, sixth graders Josh Ducharme and Hunter Davenport  loaded up the wheelbarrow with fresh carrots and potatoes from the HMMS garden. They wheeled it across to the Haven, accompanied by Ms. Fleishman, where it weighed in at 44 pounds. Everyone there was very appreciative and quite impressed.

Our garden plans for the future include growing food for the Haven every year. If you are interested in joining us for our garden projects, just come to Garden Club on Wednesdays through October from 2:45 to 4:00 at the garden. We'll be starting up again in the early spring.

We're expanding the garden...

... and you're invited!

The HMMS garden is expanding, and we are looking for interested people at both the Middle School and the High School to get involved - Advisory groups, classes, clubs, whatever works.

Below are pictures of the current garden, the new garden shed, and the area that we are going to be expanding into. Check out the tabs with the garden history and some pictures of the shed being built, too.