by Andy Vaughan
Ordering seeds from a catalog is something that most of us gardeners are pretty accustomed to. There is such a joy in mid-winter when you go to the post box and they are rolling in daily for about a month. So awesome to see a seed catalog amongst all the grocery store ads and unwanted credit card applications. Often referred to as seed porn, without the plain brown wrapping. The urban farmer in me loves this time of year, leafing through catalogs looking at all the “new items for 2015” and making a choice for the 15 tomato varieties that we will grow this year for our clients. A magenta picotee double cosmos? I am all in for 5 packets.
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As a school garden educator, we are often looking for things to challenge our students as well as challenging ourselves to knock our game a notch. For the most part children are exposed to the food they eat by what they see at that grocery store. I got to thinking if I am blown away by seed catalogs, what would kids think about them? Would they want to eat an orange watermelon? What about a black radish? Could I convince them that borlotto beans taste like strawberries and cream?
One of my favorite books is “The Growing Classroom: Garden-Based Science” by Roberta Jaffe and Gary Appel. I often find myself flipping through this book to find the perfect lesson. One of my favorite lessons in the book is Zip Code Seeds. I have done this lesson with a fifth grade class and first grade class at 2 different schools.
We generally start every garden class with a discussion about the lesson. On this day we talk about what would grow well in our zip code. We also have a short chat about the USDA zones and how lucky we are that we are in zone 10. Then the conversation leads into warm season and cool season crops and what those vegetables are. We also chat about the parts of a seed. What I love is hearing 25 first graders saying “cotyledon” in unison like we are in music class.
For the first graders they have their garden journals, seed catalogs, scissors, and glue sticks. The instruction is to find a root, leaf, any vegetable, and something they think would be fun to grow. They were to then cut out the picture of vegetable and paste it in their garden journals.
For the fifth graders we partner them up in groups of 2 and 3. They are given a seed catalog, a seed order form with a Southern California planting guide, and the instruction to find the seeds that we will plant in the warm season. They have to find seed for the following categories: root, leaf, stem, flower, fruit, seed, favorite vegetable, and something that looks fun to grow. They look through the catalog, fill out the seed order form with variety and prices, and then add up the total cost for the seeds.
These are the lessons that I am thankful that I am able to do what I do. It is such a delight to see 20-30 children leafing through seed catalogs talking about vegetables and fruit.
The kid that picked out a cardone/cardoon for his fun to grow vegetable. The kiddo that was holding the page with a bunch of watermelons and couldn’t stop saying “there are no seeds in it!”
My hope is that when these kids are in high school and beyond they see a purple carrot, a seedless watermelon, or they are in France on holiday and order a cardone for dinner, they are taken back to elementary school when they saw these things for the very first time.
Andy Vaughan was born in Wooster, Ohio. More than ten years ago, he moved to Los Angeles where he discovered his love of gardening on a tiny plot where he grew flowers. In 2006, Vaughan moved to County Limerick, Ireland where he worked on a small farm and sold his produce to local hotels and restaurants. Four years later, Vaughan and his business partner, Rich Untal, returned to Los Angeles and founded CaliFarmer, a urban homesteading company. Vaughan completed the Master Gardener Training Program through UC Davis Cooperative Extension in 2011. He currently resides in the Los Angeles area.