Upper Valley Waldorf School

Farm to School Activities 2009

From Linda Johanson, Third Grade class teacher

The Upper Valley Waldorf School partnered with three farms in the Upper Valley this year to fulfill their third grade farming curriculum goals.

Here is a photo- essay about our three farm experiences with maple syrup, cider and lambs as well as our own work to build new school gardens.

A P P L E H A R V E S T

This year we harvested apples to make cider at the Old Orchard Farm in Norwich.

These are the apples we hand picked in September. Our trip next year to this orchard will be designed to identify all these apples and make signs for each tree so visitors know what kind of apple it produces.

In the spring Matt Swett, owner of Old Orchard Farm also taught us how to collect sap, boil and filter our own maple syrup.

For a 14 week block, from September-December 2009 the third grade cared for two gimmer lambs on site at school. The lambs, fencing, feed, vet services, bedding straw and hay were donated for the school experiential Farm to School program by Jen and Ian Lutz from Cas-Cad-Nac Farm in Perkinsville, Vermont. The children learned how to care for animals on a daily basis, including mucking out the barn and hauling many buckets of water up the hill to their field.

In late November Sue Carey from Marblemeadows Farm in Wallingford donated a beautiful, lovable Cotswald ram to breed the school lambs. Our farming program plans to continue with the hope that we will be caring for ewes and lambs in April, 145 days after breeding! Some third graders were able to attend the Tunbridge sheep and wool fair and three UVWS students with their teacher Linda Johanson even took the sheep 101 class held by the Ag extension office.

In May we collected finished compost from the Rare Breeds Society in Hartland and laid out vegetable gardens for the school. Many families donated their time and all ages were out to help with the project. The third graders planted their gardens in school time once the beds were laid out.

Our new school gardens took about 12 yards of prime compost. Everyone helped to lay out the new beds!

Every day the third graders collect lunch compost from each classroom and compost it for the gardens as well.

We used hoes to level out the beds for seeding early crops in May. Students came all summer and weeded their rows. We harvested onions, garlic, squash, pumpkins, celery, flowers, potatoes and herbs.

The students gave just about all the families in the school tastes from the gardens as gifts- basil, peppers, gourds and cilantro in October and onions for Thanksgiving.

We dried mint in the classroom and processed it for teas and seasoning.